Latest in Germany
The German Constitutional Court ruled that German espionage activity must conform to the country’s constitution, even if conducted overseas on non-German citizens. What’s in the ruling?
The coronavirus pandemic tests multiple aspects of the country’s postwar constitutional order: emergency powers, federalism, separation of powers and individual rights.
In 2016, Germany created its military cyber command. But legal restrictions could ultimately decrease its flexibility and operational effectiveness.
European states want to exert more unity and strength on the world stage, but they lack the vision and consensus to do so.
The new president of the European Commission can help guide European policy in the right direction.
International actors committed to not interfere in Libya, but can they be held to it?
U.S., China to Resume Trade Talks, but Obstacles Remain
On March 13 and 14, a German court considered two challenges to the U.S. drone program in the Middle East and East Africa. Both cases, brought before the Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia in Münster, assert that Germany bears legal responsibility for the consequences of U.S.-led drone strikes in Yemen and Somalia that were conducted from the U.S. Air Force’s Ramstein base, located in southwestern Germany.
Editor’s Note: For many years, Germany and the United States cooperated to advance mutual foreign policy goals while Germany embedded itself in the European Union. This mutually beneficial arrangement is now in crisis as the Trump administration questions the German alliance and as Europe turns on itself. Gunther Hellmann of the University of Frankfurt gives us a picture of Germany at a crossroads and discusses the perils of each possible path.
Daniel Byman
***
In February 2018, the German government’s network was attacked. Germany did not specify what kind of information was accessed by the foreign hackers, but it is publicly known that the hackers successfully attacked the IT system of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.