Category Archives: Germany

Angela Merkel set for central role in talks on EU recovery plan

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Germany has foot in both camps as leaders try to agree on rescue package and seven-year budget

When Angela Merkel attended her first EU summit as Germany’s chancellor, in 2005, she joined Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac and leaders from central and eastern Europe that had joined the bloc only 17 months earlier. Nearly 15 years later, Merkel is the EU’s longest-serving leader and seen as the key to unlocking a deal to help Europe face the worst economic slump forecast in its history.

A year ago Merkel was seen as tired and drifting, having announced her intention to stand down as chancellor in 2021 after disastrous election results. Now credited for her calm leadership during the coronavirus pandemic, with personal approval ratings close to 80%, she is once again seen as the indispensable broker as EU leaders seek a recovery plan.

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The world needs grown-up leadership. Time for Germany to step up | Shada Islam

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With Germany at the EU helm, there’s a unique chance for Europe to fill the vacuum left by the retreating US

With Trump’s US missing in action from the global stage, the European Union should be stepping into the vacuum. Germany, which has just taken over the bloc’s rotating presidency, could use the next six months to provide the leadership to boost Europe’s global impact. But is it ready to shake off its traditional reticence?

Immediate economic challenges will dominate EU leaders’ first in-person encounter since the lockdown, on 17 and 18 July. And Berlin is right to prioritise agreement on the EU’s new seven-year budget and a pandemic recovery plan, a task complicated by internal rifts and new forecasts warning of an even deeper recession than expected across the 27-nation bloc. As Angela Merkel said in a recent Guardian interview: “For Europe to survive, its economy needs to survive.”

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France bans Dutch bike TV ad for creating ‘climate of fear’ about cars

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Ad for VanMoof bike unfairly discredits automobile industry, says watchdog

A TV commercial for a Dutch-made bicycle has been banned by France’s advertising watchdog for creating a “climate of fear” about cars.

Despite being aired on Dutch and German television, the Autorité de régulation professionnelle de la publicité (ARPP) said the ad for the VanMoof bike unfairly discredited the automobile industry.

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Record Covid-19 cases in California as some countries prepare for ‘universal’ testing

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LA closes beaches and businesses as hospitals fill up while Bavaria announces ‘test offensive’

California has reported record new infections following its reopening as Los Angeles county ordered all beaches closed for 4 July and the re-shuttering of some businesses.

Amid warnings hospitals were filling up and others could run out of intensive care beds in the coming weeks, the state broke its record on Monday for the highest number of new coronavirus cases reported in a single day, with more than 8,000 – the third time in eight days the state has broken a record for new cases.

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German far right infiltrates green groups with call to protect the land

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Extremists exploit rural nostalgia and farmers’ anger at globalisation to smuggle in ideology

The poster advertising the evening of debate and organic canapés in Halle’s university district looked familiar to environmentally conscious Germans: a rugged pair of hands, cupping fertile brown soil, underneath the slogan “Farms instead of agricultural factories”, written in a font mimicking that of a popular biodynamic food brand.

The only hint the event wasn’t organised by sandal-wearing good-lifers but a local group of far-right nationalists was in the subtitle: “Let’s chase the globalists off our acres!”

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Angela Merkel: UK must live with consequences of weaker ties to EU

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German leader signals trade compromise less likely as she hardens tone on no-deal Brexit

The UK will have to “live with the consequences” of Boris Johnson ditching Theresa May’s plan to maintain close economic ties with the EU after Brexit, Angela Merkel has said, hardening her tone over the prospect of a no-deal scenario at the end of the year.

After more than three years in which the German chancellor repeatedly emphasised her openness to a deal that would maintain the UK’s current flows of trade with the bloc, she suggested the door leading to such a compromise had now closed.

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‘I am angry’: Germans back in lockdown demand accountability

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Reaction in Gütersloh highlights the problems governments may face if restrictions return

Residents and local businesses in a community in Germany’s most populous state that has been forced back into strict lockdown following a coronavirus outbreak at a local abattoir are demanding that those responsible are held to account.

North Rhine-Westphalia’s Gütersloh district, which has over 360,000 inhabitants, on Wednesday had its first full day under a reimposed coronavirus lockdown after more than 1,700 employees at the Tönnies abattoir and meat processing plant tested positive.

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Germans know that toppling a few statues isn’t enough to confront the past | Géraldine Schwarz

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Britain should acknowledge that millions were complicit in the crimes of empire, just as Germans like my grandfather enabled nazism

Before the second world war, remembering history served only to glorify nations, to stir up revanchism or to sanctify heroes. Then Germany invented Vergangenheitsbewältigung, the attempt to deal with its Nazi shame by collectively confronting the unspeakable crimes of the Third Reich rather than evading them. This process, which started at the end of the 60s after two decades of collective amnesia, allowed something positive to grow from a negative legacy: Germany’s rehabilitation and reconstruction into one of the strongest democracies in the world.

Germany’s culture of remembrance could inspire countries such as Britain which have trouble understanding that in order to transform the weight of the past into wealth, it must confront history’s shadows – not ignore them.

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Smelly durian fruit forces evacuation of Bavarian post office

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Workers taken ill after suspicious package emitting pungent odour causes panic

An overwhelming smell coming from a suspicious package at a Bavarian post office caused six workers to be taken to hospital and many more to be evacuated – only for police to discover that durian fruit, and not a dangerous gas, was the reason for the panic.

Police and firefighters rushed to the scene in Schweinfurt on Saturday over fears that a parcel was releasing a harmful substance. Twelve postal workers received treatment for nausea, including six who were taken to hospital as a precaution, the German broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk reported.

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German payments firm Wirecard says missing €1.9bn may not exist

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Company thought money was in two Asian banks but search hits dead end in Philippines

Wirecard has said that €1.9bn (£1.7bn) in funds missing from its bank accounts may not exist, as the accounting scandal at the German payments company deepens.

The firm processes tens of billions of euros in credit and debit transactions each year and is a former darling of Germany’s tech sector. It had previously said it believed the money was held in escrow accounts at two Asian banks.

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Syrian doctor arrested in Germany for alleged crimes against humanity

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Suspect accused of torturing man in prison run by Syrian intelligence service in 2011

A Syrian doctor living in Germany has been arrested on suspicion of crimes against humanity in his country of origin, prosecutors have said, in the latest German move against suspected war crimes in Syria.

The suspect, identified as Alaa M, is accused of having “tortured a detainee ... in at least two cases” at a prison run by the Syrian intelligence service in the city of Homs in 2011, according to German federal prosecutors.

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Hundreds run riot in Stuttgart city centre after drug checks

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More than 20 people arrested after police injured and shops looted in late-night rampage

German authorities have expressed shock over a rampage of an “unprecedented scale” in the centre of Stuttgart, where hundreds of partygoers ran riot overnight and into Sunday, breaking shop windows, plundering and attacking police.

Two dozen people, half of them German nationals, were provisionally arrested and police reported 19 officers hurt. “They were unbelievable scenes that have left me speechless. In my 46 years of police service, I have never experienced this,” said the Stuttgart police chief, Franz Lutz.

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Riots erupt in Stuttgart after police drug checks – video

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Police in the German city of Stuttgart have said 20 people were arrested and four police officers injured after a drugs check in the city centre sparked attacks on officers and police vehicles and widespread vandalism of stores. The disturbance started as an apparent reaction to the police’s search for drugs, as groups of people partied in a central park late on Saturday night. According to German TV reports, people then attacked store fronts in a nearby shopping street, tearing up paving stones and smashing store windows

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Lenin statue to be unveiled in Germany despite legal fight

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Gelsenkirchen bucks global trends with new monument as other cities confront relics of colonial past

While a global row rages over the controversial pasts of historical figures immortalised as statues, on Saturday a divisive new monument to the former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin will be unveiled in Germany.

More than 30 years after the communist experiment on German soil that followed the second world war ended, the tiny Marxist-Leninist party of Germany (MLPD) will install Lenin’s likeness in the western city of Gelsenkirchen.

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Global report: Germany orders local Covid-19 lockdowns as Spain boosts tourism sector

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Spanish government injects £4bn while Sweden study casts doubt on herd immunity

More than 8,000 people have been quarantined in fresh outbreaks of Covid-19 in three areas of Germany, while the most comprehensive study yet on immunity in Sweden showed very few people had developed antibodies.

As governments across Europe continue to ease their restrictions, authorities in North Rhein Westphalia, the southern Berlin district of Neukölln and the central city of Göttingen imposed local lockdowns in an effort to halt the spread of the virus.

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German ministers hit back at Trump plan to withdraw US troops

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Foreign secretary says cutting troop numbers will weaken security of both Europe and US

German ministers have criticised Donald Trump’s plans to withdraw about 9,500 US troops from German soil, saying the move is likely to weaken America’s own security architecture as well as European security.

“We think that the US presence in Germany is important for the security not just of Germany but also for the security of the United States and especially for the security of Europe,” Heiko Maas, the foreign minister, said during a state visit to Poland on Tuesday.

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Medellín cartel co-founder transferred to Germany after prison sentence

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Carlos Lehder Rivas ran Medellín cartel alongside Pablo Escobar that smuggled cocaine worth billions to the US in 1970s and 80s

The man who co-founded the notorious Colombian Medellín drug cartel alongside Pablo Escobar has been transferred to Germany from the United States, according to Spiegel Online.

Carlos Lehder Rivas, who has both German and Colombian citizenship, was escorted to Germany by two US officials on a regular passenger flight from New York to Frankfurt and handed over to German authorities, the report said.

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Germany and France reopen borders as Europe emerges from lockdown

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Spain to reopen borders on 21 June but other countries are adopting more targeted approach

France and Germany became the latest European countries to reopen their borders as the continent emerges from its three-month Covid-19 lockdown.

Speaking on Sunday evening, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said the country’s Schengen borders would be open from Monday and its non-EU borders from 1 July.

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Madeleine McCann suspect told he was on German police radar in 2013

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Mistake raises questions over whether Christian Brückner had time to dispose of evidence

Criminal investigators in Germany notified Christian Brückner as early as 2013 that he was on their radar in connection with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, raising questions over whether they inadvertently allowed the suspect to dispose of evidence.

According to a report in the news weekly Der Spiegel, Brückner received a letter from police in Braunschweig on 4 November 2013 inviting him to be interviewed as a witness in the “missing person case Madeleine McCann”.

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