When discussing the history of NATO and the Alliance’s experiences of the last 75 years, maybe we should start with some important points that we often forget today, while they still have an influence on the current situation.

An interview with Markus Wehner and Reinhard Bingener, authors of The Moscow Connection. The Schröder Network and Germany’s Path to Dependency. Interviewer: Jarosław Kociszewski

JAROSŁAW KOCISZEWSKI: After reading your book The Moscow Connection. The Schröder Network and Germany's Path to Dependency, I had an impression that what you wrote about Russia, and especially about the Kremlin’s connections with German politicians, was very well-known already in Poland, but also in other parts of Central and Eastern Europe. How new was this information for the German audience?

REINHARD BINGENER: I think this information was partly new and partly old. Many of the things that we wrote about in the book were known before the information was public. However, this information was released over time and therefore there was a lack of a broader picture. Our idea was to combine the facts and present this big picture.

Europe’s Ukrainian communities, vastly increased by forced displacement due to the Russian invasion, seek connections to home. The foreign expansion of Ukraine’s Nova Post stands at this crossroads, offering communication channels while fostering timely economic internationalization during a costly conflict. In Berlin, inputs from refugees and Serhii Symonov, the CEO of Nova Post Deutschland, shed light on this two-way affair.

While the results of the EU parliamentary elections in Central and Eastern Europe did not lead to political upheaval as seen in France, it is becoming clear that the far-right representation in Strasbourg will increase from this part of Europe.

An interview with Marcus Bensmann, German journalist and commentator. Interviewer: Vazha Tavberidze.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative is no longer seen as attractive today as it was ten years ago. However, some key differences in approaches to China are emerging throughout Europe. This is evident when analysing German engagement towards China, versus that of Southeast Europe.

It has been ten years since the inauguration of China’s flagship foreign economic policy – the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Chinese President Xi Jinping has labelled the BRI as the “project of the century.” Many of the more than 140 participating countries have ample reason to take stock of the benefits and drawbacks of their cooperation with, and integration into, this geopolitical and geo-economic project.

European civilisation has developed by means of a few large leaps: Rome, Renaissance, Enlightenment and the European Union. Of course, the EU’s role is still underway and thus we do not know what its end will look like. But what all these leaps have in common is their connection to the land. In this way, the story of the Elbe river and its surroundings is the story of European history as a whole.

I was commissioned to write a book about the Elbe river by the Labirynt Publishing House in Czechia. I have known the publisher – Joachim Dvořák – since 1990. Labirynt is known for publishing good books with very nice covers. That is why I was happy to receive its offer and more than anything else that the topic of my new book would be about the river. In my youth, I was racing in fast-flowing upper rivers.

The story of local Belarusians who collaborated with Nazi Germany is often a forgotten page of history. Yet, their brutal tactics and participation in the extermination of Jews and other populations are a sad reminder of life under occupation, as was the case of the Barysau police officers.

I remember when I was a small boy, I used to ride my bike with my grandfather. In one village near Babruisk, my grandfather would start a conversation with a local resident. The villager would ask, “Are you interested in the history of the war?” “Do you see the house on the left? A policeman lived there. So there was a lot of blood on the hands of this policeman. He shot Jews and Soviet POWs. He didn’t run away with the Germans; he was hiding here. Caught, and tried. Got a quarter, 25 years. No one else had seen him here.”

There seems to be a widespread inability in Germany to look at oneself from the position of others and to accept the intricacies of history and memory and their influence on the present. But it is not only the perception of place in the past that is the problem. For some in Germany everything east of the Oder river today is still lumped together as “Eastern Europe”.

February 24th 1940, the concentration camp of Hohenbruch in East Prussia: on the eve of his 50th birthday, the Polish publisher, writer and activist Seweryn Pieniężny Jr. is beaten up, forced to dig his own grave and then, in his underwear, shot by Nazi guards. According to the writer Eugeniusz Tryniszewski, who published a short biography of Seweryn in 1987, his last words, shouted in German so his executors would understand, were “Noch ist Polen nicht verloren!”, Poland has not yet perished – the first line of the Polish national anthem.

Numerous tensions, deepened by Russia’s war with Ukraine, high inflation and the energy crisis, generate our anxiety about the future of the European project. Especially as the proposals that are put forward may actually lead to a greater fragmentation and further “unsealing” of the European Union. This, in turn, can only impede its further development.

An interview with Roland Freudenstein, Vice President and Head of GLOBSEC Brussels. Interviewer: Vazha Tavberidze for RFE/RL's Georgian service.

The end of the balance of power in the EU with policies decided by so-called “old Europe” could be one key consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This ongoing shift needs to result in a strategic alliance between Poland and Germany. However, is this possible?