21 March 2016 Elections in three of Germany’s 16 federal states on March 13 have given rise to a polarised political scene. In all three electoral campaigns, issues of migration took centre stage, trumping more local and regional themes. The right-wing and anti-Islam Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party made large-scale gains in all states, above…
05 March 2016 In 2006 and 2007, Wolfgang Schäuble (at the time Minister of the Interior) and then-German President Christian Wulff both asserted that ‘Islam is part of Germany’. These statements led to acrimonious public debates about German national identity and about whether the fact that Muslims lived in Germany also meant that Islam was…
01 March 2016 The Christian Democratic Party in Germany’s northernmost state, Schleswig-Holstein, has petitioned the Social Democrat-led state government to push for the inclusion of more pork dishes in the region’s public canteens. According to the leader of the CDU faction in the state parliament, Daniel Günther, “more and more cafeterias, nurseries and schools are…
February 28, 2016 On the heels of his endorsements from a trio of American governors, Donald Trump now has the backing of a leader overseas. Jean-Marie Le Pen said Saturday on Twitter that he would support Trump if he were an American. The tweet closed with Le Pen offering God’s blessing to Trump. The endorsement…
1 February 2016 Both people that are positive and negative about the coming of refugees think the Dutch government is lacking in its information concerning the housing of refugees. People feel uninformed. This was concluded by researcher Marjan de Gruijter of the Knowledge Platform Integration & Society (KIS) based on in-depth interviews about the refugee…
