Song made famous by Aretha Franklin is on military band’s set list for handover of chancellery to Friedrich Merz
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is to be played out of office by a military band who will perform tunes chosen by him that are intended to sum up his mood and political life.
Scholz will bow out to the Beatles, Johann Sebastian Bach and an Otis Redding hit made famous by Aretha Franklin.
Continue reading...Conservative alliance and Social Democrats to propose exempting spending of more than 1% of GDP on defence
The prospective partners in Germany’s next government have said they will seek to loosen rules on running up debt to allow for higher defence spending.
They said they will also seek to set up a huge €500bn ($533bn ) fund to finance spending on Germany’s infrastructure over the next 10 years.
Continue reading...Leader of victorious conservative alliance says continent must build defence capability as US moves towards ‘America alone’ motto
The man expected to be Germany’s next chancellor has said Europe must act swiftly to increase its defence capability in the face of a US administration whose motto is moving towards “America alone”, adding: “This is really five minutes to midnight for Europe.”
In a wide-ranging press conference after his conservative alliance’s victory in Sunday’s federal election, Friedrich Merz made it clear his focus was on the turbulent geopolitical landscape, saying that although he would seek good ties with the US he was also ready for “the worst-case scenario”.
Continue reading...The country faces weeks or even months of coalition negotiations after no party won a majority
It has been a extraordinary election in Germany, and the result has been keenly awaited around the world to see what new government might emerge in Europe’s largest but ailing economy.
Results show a clear win for the CDU/CSU centre-right alliance, followed by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) – an anti-Islam party that has advocated “remigration” for migrants as well as German citizens deemed to have integrated poorly – in second place.
Continue reading...British prime minister says force would need protections such as air cover that only US can provide
Keir Starmer has urged Donald Trump to provide a US “backstop” to a European peacekeeping force in Ukraine, saying it is the only way to deter Russia from attacking the country again.
The UK prime minister’s appeal to Trump came after an emergency summit in Paris that heard widespread calls by European leaders for a large boost in defence spending.
Continue reading...Emmanuel Macron, Kier Starmer and others discuss Trump, Russia and Ukraine at hastily arranged conference
Emmanuel Macron: Bienvenu á Paris.
Keir Starmer: Bonjour, Monsieur le President. Thank you for organising this “once-in-a-generation” summit at such short notice.
Continue reading...Ex-chancellor makes rare intervention to criticise her own party for passing asylum policy with support of AfD
The former German chancellor Angela Merkel has criticised Friedrich Merz, her eventual successor as leader of the country’s conservatives, for pushing through proposals on migration and asylum with the backing of the far-right AfD party.
In a rare intervention in public affairs since stepping down from politics in December 2021, Merkel said Merz, who is tipped to become Germany’s next chancellor, had in effect performed a U-turn.
Continue reading...Friedrich Merz says he will boost border controls if he wins power in next month’s elections
Germany’s opposition leader has pledged to strengthen border controls and step up deportations if he becomes chancellor after elections next month, a day after an Afghan man was arrested over a knife attack in which two people died.
Friedrich Merz, whose conservative CDU/CSU alliance is leading in polls, said he would not allow attacks like the one in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg on Wednesday to become a “normal affair”.
Continue reading...Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemns ‘act of terror’ in Aschaffenburg that killed two people including toddler
A 28-year-old Afghan man has been arrested after a knife attack in a park in the German city of Aschaffenburg that killed two people, including a toddler, in what the country’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, condemned as an “act of terror”.
With a month left in a campaign for snap elections dominated by debate on immigration and asylum policy, Scholz demanded authorities “explain immediately why the assailant was even still in Germany”.
Continue reading...Polling for far-right insurgent and its extreme policies is rising but other parties have closed ranks against it despite their weak popularity
Germany’s far-right AfD party has signed off on its manifesto before next month’s critical election, proposing a series of deeply controversial policies on everything from migration to education as the campaign for a new government in Europe’s powerhouse formally kicked off.
The party, founded in 2013, endorsed the far-right concept of “re-migration” into its programme, threatening the mass deportation of migrants if it came to power.
Continue reading...Germany will elect a new Bundestag on 23 February. Find out who is ahead in opinion polls and what coalitions are possible
Germany is preparing for a general election to the Bundestag, the lower house of its parliament, on 23 February, after its “traffic-light” coalition of social democrats, liberals and greens collapsed. The country’s electoral system is highly proportional, so polls give a good indication of what shape of government might be possible after the election.
Continue reading...World’s richest man has been voicing support for Germany’s far-right AfD party while insulting its current leaders
When the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, was asked in an interview about the barrage of insults being directed at him and other German leaders by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, his reply was: “Don’t feed the troll.”
Speaking to the German weekly Stern, Scholz described the criticisms as nothing new. “You have to stay cool,” he said in the interview. “As Social Democrats, we have long been used to the fact that there are rich media entrepreneurs who do not appreciate social democratic politics – and do not hide their opinions.”
Continue reading...Chancellor’s New Year’s Eve address follows Elon Musk’s endorsement of German far-right party AfD on X
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has urged voters not to let the “owners of social media channels” decide next year’s snap election, after Elon Musk repeatedly endorsed the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
In a New Year’s Eve address recorded for television and made available before its broadcast on Tuesday, Scholz said German citizens alone had the power to decide “where Germany goes from here” after the general election on 23 February.
Continue reading...Formal step taken by Frank-Walter Steinmeier after chancellor Olaf Scholz lost confidence vote in Bundestag
Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has dissolved parliament and called a snap election on 23 February after Olaf Scholz’s fractious three-way coalition collapsed three years into its mandate.
The national vote will come seven months ahead of schedule amid a rocky stretch of unusual political turmoil for the EU’s top economic power, with growth rates flatlining, industry in crisis and the far right on the rise.
Continue reading...Scholz said Germany was ‘strongest supporter of Ukraine in Europe’ and promised speedy arms deliveries
Olaf Scholz has met the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an unannounced visit to Kyiv that was his first since the early months of full-scale war as he sought to reassure Ukraine of German support.
The German chancellor announced a military aid package worth €650m (£540m) during the trip amid doubts over his Ukraine policy at home and uncertainty over the upcoming presidency of Donald Trump and what it may mean for the war in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Chancellor’s popular rival says he is unavailable to stand, leaving Scholz as the default candidate
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, will be nominated as the candidate to lead his Social Democratic party (SPD) into the February general election after his more popular defence minister, Boris Pistorius, pulled out of the race.
After weeks of calls for a change at the top of the ticket, Pistorius released a video on Thursday in which he said he was “not available” to stand as the SPD flag-bearer in the snap election triggered after Scholz sacked his finance minister, Christian Lindner, imploding the three-year-old ruling coalition.
Continue reading...Scholz, Starmer, Trudeau and Macron among leaders who say communique finalized by Lula ‘not strong enough’
Ukraine’s western allies have criticised the final G20 communique as inadequate for failing to highlight Russia’s invasion of its neighbour in 2022 as the conflict enters its 1,000th day.
The final agreed text from the summit in Brazil was significantly weaker than that of the previous year, only highlighting humanitarian suffering in Ukraine and the importance of territorial integrity.
Continue reading...Senior SPD figures hold talks on candidate for chancellor amid speculation about switch to popular defence minister
Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is under mounting pressure to step aside as his party’s candidate for the job in February’s snap election in favour of his defence minister, Boris Pistorius, the most popular politician in the country.
The top brass of the Social Democratic party (SPD) are planning crisis talks on their choice of chancellor candidate for the 23 February general election on Tuesday evening while Scholz is flying home from the G20 summit in Brazil, local media reported.
Continue reading...Pro-business party internally referred to its plans as ‘D-day’
Germany’s pro-business Free Democrats, who collapsed Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition earlier this month in a dispute over the budget, reportedly plotted their exit weeks before the final split, referring to their plans internally as “D-day”.
Newspapers Die Zeit and Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that the FDP had intended from at least September to force a situation that would provoke the German chancellor into pulling the plug on his tripartite coalition.
Continue reading...US president-elect says the war has ‘got to stop’ as German chancellor urges Putin to start talks with Kyiv in rare phone call. What we know on day 997
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Russia’s war against his country will “end sooner” than it otherwise would have once Donald Trump becomes US president next year.
In a radio interview aired on Saturday, the Ukrainian president conceded that the battlefield situation in eastern Ukraine was difficult and Russia was making advances. He said his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, was not interested in agreeing to a peace deal.
Zelenskyy criticised a phone call between the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and Putin, saying it opened a “Pandora’s box” by undermining efforts to isolate the Russian leader. “Now there may be other conversations, other calls. Just a lot of words,” Zelenskyy said in his evening address on Friday. “And this is exactly what Putin has long wanted: it is extremely important for him to weaken his isolation and to conduct ordinary negotiations.” According to Reuters, Zelenskyy and other European officials had cautioned Scholz against the move.
Scholz said Donald Trump privately held “a more nuanced position than is often assumed” on Ukraine. Trump’s re-election in last week’s US presidential vote has raised concerns he could withdraw Washington’s significant support for Ukraine once back in the White House. Scholz, who spoke to Trump by phone on Sunday, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper on Friday his call with the president-elect was “perhaps surprisingly, a very detailed and good conversation”. Asked by the paper whether Trump would make a deal over the head of the Ukrainians, Scholz said Trump gave “no indication” that he would. Germany, for its part, would not accept a “peace by diktat”, Scholz said.
Scholz urged Putin to pull Russian forces out of Ukraine and begin talks with Kyiv that would open the way for a “just and lasting peace”, in the first phone conversation between the two leaders in nearly two years. The Kremlin said the conversation on Friday had come at Berlin’s request, and that Putin had told Scholz any agreement to end the war in Ukraine must take Russian security interests into account and reflect “new territorial realities”. A German government spokesperson said Scholz “stressed Germany’s unbroken determination to back Ukraine in its defence against Russian aggression for as long as necessary”.
Russian air defence units intercepted a series of Ukrainian drones in several Russian regions, officials said, many of them in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops launched a major incursion in August. Russia’s defence ministry said air defences downed 15 drones in Kursk region on the Ukrainian border. It said units downed one drone each in Bryansk region, also on the border, and in Lipetsk region, farther north. The ministry said one drone was downed in central Oryol region. And the governor of Belgorod region, a frequent target on the Ukrainian border, said a series of attacks had smashed windows in a block of flats and caused other damage, but no casualties were reported.
Russia will suspend gas deliveries to Austria via Ukraine on Saturday. Russia’s gas export route to Europe via Ukraine is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it will not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom, in order to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. The Austrian chancellor, Karl Nehammer, said Gazprom’s notice of ending supplies was long expected and Austria has made preparations, but the Ukrainian foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said Russia’s action showed it “once again uses energy as a weapon”.
Russia’s leading tanker group, Sovcomflot, said on Friday that western sanctions on Russian oil tankers were limiting its financial performance, as it reported falling revenues and core earnings. The US imposed sanctions on Sovcomflot in February, part of Washington’s efforts to reduce Russia’s revenues from oil sales that it can use to finance its war in Ukraine. Sovcomflot reported a 22.2% year-on-year drop in nine-month revenue to $1.22bn and said its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation slumped by 31.5% to $861m.
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