Very little happens quickly in the European Union. How much Germany has to do with that may be more correlation than causation, though the parallel is strong. For a coalition government that came into power at the end of 2021 “daring more progress,” it has taken more than half its term to do what many similar countries have already done. Pot is, finally, more or less legal. Whatever the political, economic, and social repercussions now, it will be a relief to stop hearing about every step of the tortured legislative process that was required to pass a fairly mild reform.
Germany must be smoking something, though, because a major state-backed bank thought it was a good idea to freeze the assets of an anti-Zionist Jewish peace organization. It’s a highly unusual move that sounds like a past Germany — and Sparkasse, the bank, has been rather tight-lipped as to why it did so. Theories abound, however, and the incident dovetails with the bigger silencing campaign the German state and its affiliated institutions have waged against Israel critics. The chair of Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East joins us to discuss the situation.
Otherwise, there are local Turkish elections to discuss. And Bulgaria and Romania join the Schengen club. Mostly, anyway. Plus, what “Pfizergate” tells us about the European Commission and its leader, Ursula von der Leyen.
Listen in and stay tuned as we further develop this venture with our partner, EUobserver. We welcome your feedback, so be in touch! You can subscribe here and get us where your ears go for podcasts:
Among other things, Martin Gak writes Inconclusive Thoughts; and William Glucroft writes The ‘Schland. We’d love to see you over there, too!
Euroscopic S2E9: High on your own supply