Section: Heinrich Boell Foundation (Germany)
The Polish perspective on European refugee policy
Poland has also taken in refugees and economic migrants from Chechenya, Georgia, and Ukraine. Any solution to the refugee crisis requires EU-level efforts, including effective implementation. According to Eurostat data, over a million third-country nationals applied for asylum in 2015. The greatest number of asylum-seekers was in Germany, where...
Balancing act in Russia: Memorial – a little complicated and very successful
# 5 Divided DemocracyBalancing act in Russia: Memorial—a little complicated and very successful Memorial is a well-known, large, somewhat complicated, and very successful organization. Established in 1988 – still during the Soviet era – out of a civil-rights movement, Memorial is today a network, a confederation of more than eighty...
EPH and the prospective Vattenfall deal
The envisaged sale of Vattenfall’s East German lignite assets to EPH has raised many questions about the sustainability of open-cast lignite mining and power generation. It has also shone a spotlight on the prospective new owner. EPH is a fast-growing privately owned utility based in the Czech Republic with a risky business model that might...
Nuclear energy in Ukraine 30 Years after Chernobyl
Thirty years after the biggest nuclear disaster at Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Ukraine is still seriously dependent on nuclear energy. It is high time for Ukraine to take the path of nuclear phase-out. Meanwhile, nuclear risks are rising with nuclear reactors ageing, a military conflict in Eastern Ukraine, and an unsolved problem of spent...
A new attempt to resolve the Ukraine conflict
The diplomatic efforts of the West to find a political solution to the Ukraine conflict have reached an impasse. Implementation of the terms of the Minsk Agreement – far-reaching autonomy rights for Donbas in return for a withdrawal of Russian arms and troops, the holding of regional elections under international supervision, Ukrainian control of...
Nagorno-Karabakh: The danger of getting used to a conflict
From the outset, Germany’s chairmanship of the OSCE, in 2016, promised to be fraught with sizable challenges. One of these challenges came from the recent developments in the South Caucasus, which demonstrated with renewed force that national boundaries in the post-Soviet space, and thus the security situation, are still far from stable....
