Author: Christine Schier

The mass protests and tractorcades by German farmers will continue as a daily pattern, until the government shows a real commitment to discuss constructive changes in agricultural policy, instead of playing them down. As earlier attempts by the government and mainstream media to discredit the farmers as right-wingers failed, another approach has been taken to try and undermine the impact […]

The farmer protest movement has expanded from Germany to France, the largest agricultural producer in the EU, and to Italy, the third largest. Demands in all three countries are similar: a reduction of taxes on farm fuel, fewer regulations and, in general, a reversal of the “Green Deal”. For over a week now, farmers in southwest France, near Toulouse, have […]

“Italy wake up!” is the message sent out from the event devoted to the BRICS and the New Silk Road, organized by the newly created “Independence” political movement in Italy January 18. Before a packed room at the Rome Chamber of Commerce, international guests invited by the movement’s foreign policy speaker Michele Geraci, offered a comprehensive picture of why it […]

An extraordinary international dialogue with youth under the above title was organized on Jan. 20 by the Schiller Institute. The three-hour discussion was held with a live audience in New York City together with online participants, many of them in groups, from around the world. At least 20 countries, representing all continents, were represented, from China to Afghanistan to Chile. […]

The New Year has been ushered in amid great tumult and uncertainty. The headlines are full of reports on wars and destruction, combined with news on the “inevitable” economic decline to expect in the West. Despite the immediate emotional reaction to these events, one should not lose sight of the larger underlying process at work. That is, the end of […]

“No one will be able to claim, as historians said of World War I, that we sleepwalked into World War III. The war cries today are so deafening that they threaten to awaken from the dead all of the victims of previous wars, including the First and Second World Wars.” This is the opening observation of a Christmas and New […]

The holiday season and transition to the new year brought no respite for the population of Gaza, where the death toll now exceeds 30,000. The bombing continues, as the lack of water, food, medicine and electricity only worsens. What is most troubling for people in the West is how their governments can condone – or even worse approve of — […]

The new year is re-introducing the debt rules for the European Union, which had been suspended due to the COVID pandemic. The reformed rules of the Stability and Growth Pact, decided by the European Council on Dec. 20, are a revival of the pre-pandemic austerity a la Brüning (the German Chancellor who helped pave the way for Hitler), and of […]

France and Germany decided on the new debt rules in a meeting between their foreign ministers, without taking into account Italian requests for counting capital expenses in a separate budget. As a result, the Meloni government adopted Plan B, which envisioned a veto to the reform of the EU bank-bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism. The day after the decision […]

Of all the different protest actions in Germany in 2023, the tractorcades of the farmers in the weeks before Christmas have been the most effective, in particular the pattern of road and highway blockades. The ferment in Germany may very well spread to neighboring countries, both East and West, where the agricultural policy imposed by Brussels threatens the existence of […]