The heads of state and government of 28 NATO countries will try to square the circle in Chicago. The result: an oval like the conference room in NATO’s Brussels headquarters?

Will Europe step up to the plate at NATO’s Chicago Summit? – By Ulrich Weisser

When NATO agreed to hold its next summit in Chicago in the spring of 2012, the idea was to implement the decisions taken in Lisbon in November 2010. High priority was given to the attempt to find a common solution with Russia for a missile defense system covering all of Russia, Europe and the US.

NATO and Russia have not yet come to an agreement on this issue. The Alliance still refuses to give Moscow the guarantee that the system will not be directed against Russian strategic response capabilities. The Republicans in the US Congress won’t agree to such an undertaking. For the likely Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, Russia is still the most dangerous foe. Thus, the real game changer in East-West relations, a joint missile defense system, will not be used to bring about a fundamental change in our strategic and political relations with Moscow.

If the EU is to stay together it must address the delicate issue of transfer payments – By Cerstin Gammelin

We Europeans are often our own worst enemies. On our little continent that isn’t actually a continent anyway, we have launched a historically unique experiment to build a union out of many larger and smaller states. Yet as soon as non-European countries in Asia or the Americans express doubts about the project, we tend to adopt the outsiders’ question marks as our own. We are far too willing to denigrate this great project that others either admire or dismiss.

Currently, this phenomenon can be most keenly observed in the economic crisis that has been smoldering since 2008. US President Barack Obama, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, or various Chinese economists frequently accuse us Europeans of not doing enough to stem the crisis, thereby endangering the entire global community. And, just as frequently, specialists throughout Europe feel compelled to take these warnings very seriously – and mistrust themselves.

Already home: Dutch soldier on his last patrol in Afghanistan, July 2010.

On NATO’s Chicago Summit agenda: How to wind down the Afghan conflict and avoid war with Iran – By Theo Sommer

Two wars weigh on the minds of NATO’s heads of state and government as they prepare for the Alliance summit to be held in Chicago May 21-22. The first is Afghanistan, now into its eleventh year – America’s longest war ever and the European allies’ most protracted since the Thirty Years’ War in the early 17th century. Exactly when, how and on what basis should it be ended? The second is an armed conflict between Israel and Iran, likely to be precipitated by an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear program. How and on what terms could such a catastrophic clash be averted?

With regard to Afghanistan, the 28 NATO members are agreed that most of their troops will leave the country by 2014 at the latest. But a scramble for the exit has already begun. Not all military contingents will stay to the very end. The Canadians have already withdrawn; the French, the Poles and some others will move out before long. And it remains to be seen how many will stay to train, monitor and support the Afghan security forces. Nor is it clear to what extent Americans and Europeans are willing to support Afghanistan financially in the decade after 2014. The summiteers can hardly be expected to settle these issues during their two-day discussion on Lake Michigan.

Tracing Joachim Gauck’s path from pastor in the anti-religious East German dictatorship to head of state in a reunified, democratic Germany – By Kai Schlieter

Critics say Germans will soon tire mightily of Joachim Gauck’s sermons. The thing is, Gauck never felt that he was destined to become a man of the cloth. He was still struggling with the idea shortly before his ordination and had to learn the pastor’s trade from the bottom up. The fact that he succeeded has less to do with his faith than his ability to read people.

SPD Chairman Sigmar Gabriel may need to get used to following Chancellor Angela Merkel’s lead. A musical installation greeting guests at the 2010 Berlin press ball depicts the two politicians.

For the foreseeable future, the SPD must be prepared to be the junior partner in a Grand Coalition led by Angela Merkel – By Franz Walter

Austrian-style party configurations cannot be ruled out in German politics. From 1987 to 2000, and again since 2007, a federal Grand Coalition of the Social Democratic SPÖ and the Christian-Democratic, center-right ÖVP has governed in Vienna. Germans, too, should prepare themselves for another grand coalition after the next parliamentary elections in the fall of 2013, one that might last for some time. Unlike in Austria, though, German Social Democrats may have to content themselves with the role of junior partner.

Since the early 1980s, the party system in both countries has become more fragmented. But the splintering in Germany happened left of the center. More than 30 years ago, the first of these parties to arise were the Greens. Then, as a consequence of German unification, the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) emerged as the successor to East Germany’s Socialist Unity Party (SED). Following a merger with western German leftwing groupings, it has since morphed into the Left Party (Die Linke). And for months now, German political society has been dumbfounded by the meteoric rise of the Pirate Party.

By Ruediger Rossig

For more than 400 million Europeans, open borders are the most important achievement of a unified Europe. Since the Schengen Agreement entered force in 1995, they no longer have to wait in line at the frontiers. Free citizens can move freely throughout their continent.

But now that freedom is endangered: In April, German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich from the Bavarian Christian Social Union, and his French counterpart Claude Guéant of the rightwing populist UMP, demanded that Schengen countries should be allowed to reintroduce border controls for a 30-day period without having to consult the EU Commission.

Playing politics? A Pirate Party supporter at the 2011 Party Conference in Heidenheim.

Germany’s Pirate Party has been elected to several state assemblies. Are they heading for the national parliament? – By Lutz Lichtenberger

A specter is haunting German regional parliaments – the specter of the Pirate Party. The Pirates’ recent electoral successes have rattled the German political mainstream to such an extent that it seems not inappropriate to echo Karl Marx’ famous dictum in the first line of his 1848 manifesto about the ruling establishment’s fear of Communism.

In the 2009 parliamentary elections to the German Bundestag, the Pirates came from nowhere to take two percent of the vote nationally – not enough to get them elected, since German electoral law stipulates a five percent minimum to enter parliament, but sufficient to guarantee party financing from the state (their 850,000 votes secured €720,000) and more than enough to arouse the interest of the big parties.

A passionate speaker: Martin Schulz.

The new German President of the European Parliament has a long to-do list – By Daniela Weingärtner

Martin Schulz is a passionate speaker. With his voice raised and hands sweeping through the air, the German Member of the European Parliament (MEP) used to champion the arguments of his European Socialist (SPE) faction on the parliament floor, often overshooting his allotted time. That was how Schulz led the SPE for seven years. Now, as European Parliament president, he has to use a more low-key approach.

The European Parliament President’s job description might read something like this: “The applicant must possess a great capacity for patience in moderating long debates, precisely applying the rules of procedure and in counting the results of thousands of requested amendments. During foreign travel the applicant represents the EU as an entity. He/She refrains from all political and personal evaluation.”

Israel fears an nuclear bomb in the hands of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Dictatorships have to be fought with drastic means, but not in open wars – By Rafael Seligmann

Do rogue states really exist? Is the term a fitting description for the likes of North Korea, Syria and Iran? Pyongyang is developing weapons of mass destruction, threatening South Korea and exporting its military know-how while its own people suffer. In Syria, the hereditary dictatorship of President Bashir al-Assad is waging war against its own people while in Tehran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vow to wipe Israel off the map. It may be time to take a close look at the term “rogue state” before policy leads to unforeseen consequences.