Interesting. While I'm equally appalled by the Spitzenkandidaten principle not having been upheld, stating that the nomination of Ursula von der Leyen was decided by the German government would be a massive simplification of an insanely long, complicated, and weird debate among different European political actors. Particularly, the resistance to the lead candidates (Weber, Timmermans), came mainly from the French government (see here).

I do agree with the problem analysis that some democratic features are underdeveloped though. But I'd argue that that's exactly why a federalisation is so necessary: Through shifting power away from the intergovernmental institutions (European Council, Council of the European Union) towards the democratically elected and accountable institutions (most notably the European Parliament), we can ensure that no single government can exercise too much power in the political decision-making process.

The exact same goes for the conditions in Southern/Eastern/Southeastern Europe (which I'd be willing to say have not ONLY worsened over the last decades, as your comment kind of implies). A completion of the banking and monetary union, establishment of a common fiscal union and most importantly, advancing the social rights of EU citizens are crucial in addressing the imbalance of conditions that you describe. Maintaining the status quo or introducing even more borders and differences between the different European states on the other hand does absolutely nothing to alleviate this and only adds to imbalances in economic and political power.

May I ask why you think this would be terrible? :)

Damn, I wish I would have time to watch the entire video! While the topic of European federalism is of course not new, the implications of the new government accord can hopefully bring around a push to the future of the European democratic project. That being said, I really dislike the title - the idea of a federal Europe is not at all (only) German, and I believe that no one wants an entirely "new Europe" either but rather improve the existing one :) Thanks for sharing!

Hi! Vorab: Ich bin kein Informationssicherheitsexperte, daher ist das ausdrücklich nur meine Meinung auf Basis aller Informationen die ich habe - ich habe den Quellcode der verschiedenen Protokolle und Apps nicht persönlich studiert. Allgemein kommt es immer auf deinen usecase an, darauf, wie und wo du kommunizieren willst und darauf, was deine Privatsphäre/Sicherheitsrisiken sind. Aus Anwenderperspektive grob eingeschätzt: Jami ist auf den meisten Plattformen verfügbar und am Besten zum (Video)telefonieren, Briar am Besten zum vollständig anonym sein, RetroShare bietet die Meisten verschiedenen Features, und Tox ist mMn am Intuitivsten, dicht gefolgt von Jami.

RetroShare ist zwar featurereich, aber ist nur auf Desktopsystemen verfügbar. Gerade wegen der vielen Features, und Design das eher an die 00er Jahre erinnert könnte es aber eher überfordernd und veraltet wirken.

Briar wird am Meisten für hochsensible journalistische/aktivistische Arbeit empfohlen - gerade da es im Extremfall auch verschlüsselte Datenübermittlung über andere Kanäle als Internet ermöglichen kann. Leider bisher nur auf Android verfügbar.

Jami wurde ursprünglich schon als Plattform für Videocalls und Voice-over-IP (Audiocalls) entwickelt, und ist darin auch bis heute noch am Stärksten.

Tox scheint mir ein guter Allrounder zu sein, aber derzeit hat noch niemand einen Client für iOS entwickelt. Womit er als Messenger zur Alltagskommunikation zwischen mir und vielen meiner Freund:innen ausfällt.

Zu den genauen Details und zur Frage der Sicherheit aber - wie gesagt - am besten nicht auf mich, sondern auf Expert:innen hören - diese Messenger-Matrix z.B. schlüsselt die Unterschiede zwischen Briar, Jami, und Tox professionell und von vertrauenswürdiger Quelle auf.

Hoffe das hilft! LG 😊

Thanks a lot for the feedback! I'll try to reply to everything at once:

• I've used Zulip in the past, but I think including it here makes it a little bit too messy, since the article mainly focuses on personal instant messaging and not corporate/organisational messaging. Otherwise I should probably include a section on e.g. Rocket.Chat and Mattermost as well, and then it would become very bloated. I think others do a good job of explaining that already! I think I'll include a link to https://www.how2shout.com/tools/open-source-team-chat-software.html under further reading though so that people searching for such alternatives can find one there.

• I have some personal reservations about the Lokinet project due to it's role in political extremist/terrorist radicalisation movements (see https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-10639-let_s_play_infokrieg#l=eng). And personally I don't know anyone using Session either. So I will leave it out for now.

• DeltaChat is a good point. I think covering it in this article risks cluttering it up so that the difference between email and XMPP/Matrix might not be that clear anymore? I believe that it's covered by the links I have in further reading in any case!

• And on Conversations: That's true! I adapted the graphic from niboe.info who used Conversations as an example for a XMPP client. The app though is open source - and that's what counts. (Signal's source code is also open, and still it's offered in the Google Play Store). But then again I also don't cover clients in depth 🙈

• As for the section on voice/video call ability: Good idea! I think though that all the messengers that I mentioned provide that functionality, except for Briar and RetroShare? I might mention that and will include a link to this messenger matrix under further reading, so that people who want to do so can read up on the details of the functionality of the different messengers :)

Thanks a lot for your input once again! ^^

Thanks a lot! :)