Reports of Karl-Peter Schwarz
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Austria: Kurz and the crisis
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has surmounted several serious political challenges so far, including the dissolution of his ruling coalition over a media scandal and the formation of a new alliance with the Greens. However, the pandemic may have provided him temporary respite by obscuring issues that will resurface once the ...
Opinion: Failed experiments in EU foreign policy
While many are quick to blame excessive nationalism for the European Union’s failure to come up with a unified defense and foreign policy, the situation is more complex. European states have different economic and geopolitical interests, and little to gain by giving them up for the sake of integration. Proponents ...
GIS Essay: A governance tip from the Republic of Venice
Politics have become increasingly dysfunctional in Western democracies. As public debate degenerates into warfare, citizens’ faith in the system wanes. Much of the blame is rightly put on the doorstep of political parties, but can they be fixed? The most enduring republic in Europe’s history offers surprising insight.
Austria and Visegrad: Interests converge in Central Europe
The Visegrad Group, consisting of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, initially had little political significance. But with pressure from EU institutions and other member states increasing, the forum has grown in significance. And though it originally wanted to exclude Austria, recently Vienna has found much in common with ...
Opinion: The new American left and its influence on the election
Ahead of the November 3 elections in the U.S., the Democratic Party has cobbled together a broad but fragile anti-Trump coalition. Older, centrist Democrats and a young socialist faction have come to a compromise in hopes of boosting their candidate’s chances. But even in the event of a victory for ...
Relevance beyond the crisis: The EU faces stress tests
Some fundamental epidemiologic properties of the Sars-CoV-2 virus remain to be sorted out. However, it is already clear that the pandemic has not imparted a shared sense of purpose on EU member states. Fissures in the European project, which were already evident long before March 2020, are becoming more pronounced ...
