In a hotel near Potsdam, two dozen far-right politicians, fascist activists and wealthy supporters met to discuss a “masterplan” for mass “remigration”. In their scheme, millions of asylum seekers, migrants and “non-assimilated” German citizens would be forced out of the country, some relocated to a proposed new territory in North Africa. This is not an anecdote from the rise of fascism in the 1930s, but the revelations of an investigative report by German newsroom Correctiv.
Mass demonstrations have taken place across Greece in recent weeks, as students protest against a bill, tabled in the parliament in December by conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, which would introduce private universities into the country.
The decades after World War Two were marked by increasing politicisation around the world. Greece was no different. While the left was defeated in the Greek civil war, which ended in 1949, socialists, through the leadership of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), continued to organise. This led to arrests, repression and even executions of anyone associated with the KKE.
The issue of Catalonian independence has returned to the forefront of Spanish politics in recent weeks. At least 170,000 people protested in Madrid on 18 November against an amnesty deal for 400 people who were arrested for their involvement in a 2017 independence referendum. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) signed the deal with two Catalonian political parties and the Basque Nationalist Party in return for support to form government.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, the response from Western leaders was immediate and unequivocal. Condemnation was heaped upon Russian President Vladimir Putin for his brutal military advance, which, as tanks rolled along the highways in a first thrust towards Kyiv, was already imposing a devastating toll on the Ukrainian people.
As survivors gathered in the southern Italian island of Lampedusa in October to commemorate the tenth anniversary of one of the most deadly drownings of refugees in the Mediterranean, European leaders met to discuss further plans to deport refugees and prevent asylum seekers gaining entry to Europe.