European Institute

(October 18) Diving into Germany’s growing anti-immigration debate this week, Chancellor Angela Merkel branded her country’s “multiculturalism” a “total failure”. Speaking at a meeting of youth members of the Christian Democratic Union in Potsdam, Merkel said “At the beginning of the 60s our country called the foreign workers to come to Germany and now they live in our country. We kidded ourselves for a while - we said, ‘They won’t stay and sometime they will be gone.’  But this isn’t reality. And of course, the multicultural approach and to live side-by-side and to enjoy each other... has failed, utterly failed."

(October 13) The U.S. played a substantial role – and a very constructive one – in helping European leaders crystallize their rescue last spring of the eurozone, according to a reconstruction of some critical moments in the crisis.

 

(October 12)  One of Europe’s most intractable conundrum—the island Republic of Cyprus—is celebrating its 50^th year as an independent nation.  The celebration is muted, however, by another anniversary—the 36^th year since Turkish troops (now numbering 43,000) took control of nearly 40 percent of the island and effectively displaced 180,000 Greek Cypriot refugees.

(October 13)  The Conseil Constitutionnel, France’s top legal authority and guardian of the constitution, approved a law last week previously passed by both chambers of the French parliament banning the wearing of full-face veils in public places. While many expected the Constitutional Council to overturn the law, it ruled instead that the law "conforms" with the constitution and does not encroach on civil liberties, so long as the law does not apply to public places of worship where it could violate the practice of religious freedom.