The issue of recovery funds shapes up as an acid test of commitment to the union
The EU’s anxious debate over the bloc’s economic response to the coronavirus pandemic is at heart about the nature and competing visions of the union.
It is a perennial question found lurking in the background of all EU negotiations over long-term budgets, not least the most recent inconclusive and toxic talks in which north was pitted against south.
Continue reading...Leaked German government report shows Britain has been requesting special access
The British government is making impossible demands over access to Europol databases in the negotiations over the future relationship with the EU, according to a leaked assessment of the UK’s position drawn up by the German government.
As talks between the two sides resumed via video calls this week, Britain’s negotiators not only refused to extend the transition period because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but also stated the UK side’s eagerness to continue taking part in EU-wide data-sharing arrangements and even expanding their reach.
Continue reading...UN official says crisis disproportionately affecting poor, and Germany begins vaccine trial
Children in Spain are to be allowed to take walks outside for the first time in nearly six weeks from Sunday after the government bowed to pressure to go further in its plans to ease lockdown measures.
As EU leaders prepared for a summit to assess the damage Covid-19 has done to economies and agree a plan to revive them, the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, told MPs on Wednesday that any relaxation of the rules would be “slow and gradual”.
Continue reading...Anwar Raslan and Eyad al-Gharib accused of roles in Assad regime’s torture apparatus
Anwar Raslan and Eyad al-Gharib thought they had escaped Syria’s civil war when they fled to Germany and applied for political asylum. But unlike most of those seeking refuge, they had once been part of the state’s machinery of oppression.
When the conflict began, both men were members of the notoriously vicious intelligence service, which arrested, tortured and killed protesters and opposition figures. But both defected from the regime, and they seemed to have thought that would protect them from their past.
Continue reading...More than 11,000 cases of dead and sick birds reported in past fortnight
Thousands of blue tits have been found sick or dead in Germany, prompting an investigation by conservation groups and scientists.
More than 11,000 cases of dead and sick birds, mostly blue tits, have been reported to the German conservation group NABU in the past fortnight. Most of these are reported from the west of Germany.
The blue tit is found across Europe and is one of the most common visitors to UK gardens. They eat insects, caterpillars, seeds and nuts and can be spotted all year round in the UK, with the exception of some Scottish islands.
According to NABU, symptoms of the diseased birds include breathing problems, no longer taking food and making no attempt to escape when approached by people. The group is advising people to stop feeding or providing drinking troughs for birds to reduce the risk of transmission between them.
The first laboratory test results on the dead birds have found a bacterial infection (Suttonella ornithocola) that has been known in the UK since the 1990s and which affects birds similarly. The infection was reported in Germany in 2018. Further test results on birds are expected over the next few days.
The infection discovered causes pneumonia in tits – predominantly blue tits – and they become lethargic with fluffed-up plumage and breathing difficulties. There are no reports of this affecting any other animals apart from birds.
As countries ease lockdowns, the worry is that populations remain highly vulnerable
With more countries planning to loosen restrictions imposed due to coronavirus but the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, concerned about the potential for a resurgence or second wave, here is what we know from the rest of the world about the risk of Covid-19 coming back.
Continue reading...As Australia makes plans to gradually lift its coronavirus lockdown, we look at what the rest of the world is doing
Australia has a road out of its coronavirus lockdown, long and winding though it may be.
Having warned repeatedly that this pandemic response was taking Australia into “uncharted territory”, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, has leaned again on a navigational metaphor for our subsequent recovery.
Continue reading...Health minister says Germany will produce 50m face masks a week by the summer
Germany has declared its coronavirus outbreak under control as it prepares to take its first tentative steps out of lockdown next week, while several European countries unveiled contact-tracing mobile apps aimed at facilitating a gradual return to a more normal life.
The German health minister, Jens Spahn, said on Friday that the virus was under control in Europe’s largest economy, thanks to confinement measures imposed after an early surge in cases. “The infection numbers have sunk significantly, especially the relative day-by-day increase,” he said.
Continue reading...International relations expert warns policy failure could do lasting damage as president insults allies and undermines alliances
Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, which he once dismissed as a hoax, has been fiercely criticised at home as woefully inadequate to the point of irresponsibility.
Yet also thanks largely to Trump, a parallel disaster is unfolding across the world: the ruination of America’s reputation as a safe, trustworthy, competent international leader and partner.
Call it the Trump double-whammy. Diplomatically speaking, the US is on life support.
Continue reading...Are state responses to the virus shifting the balance of power between China and the west?
Andrà tutto bene, the Italians have taught us to think, but in truth, will everything be better the day after? It may seem premature, in the midst of what Emmanuel Macron has described as “a war against an invisible enemy”, to consider the political and economic consequences of a distant peace. Few attempt a definitive review of a play after the first three scenes.
Yet world leaders, diplomats and geopolitical analysts know they are living through epoch-making times and have one eye on the daily combat, the other on what this crisis will bequeath the world. Competing ideologies, power blocs, leaders and systems of social cohesion are being stress-tested in the court of world opinion.
Continue reading...Authorities have announced measures ranging from the draconian to the quixotic
Authorities around the world are preparing to use curfews, roadblocks, travel bans, surveillance technology and threats of fines and arrests to deter people from travelling and congregating over Easter.
Many governments have already announced tighter restrictions and increased police enforcement in an effort to sustain lockdowns during a holiday period traditionally associated with trips and socialising.
Continue reading...Leaked letter reveals scale of bloc’s inability to function during coronavirus outbreak
Boris Johnson’s plan to seal a deal with Brussels on the future relationship with the UK by the end of December has been described as “fantasy land” by EU officials, as a leaked letter revealed the scale of the bloc’s inability to function during the coronavirus pandemic.
The European council headquarters, where member states’ positions are coordinated, is only able to hold one daily video conference due to a lack of facilities. The capacity to carry out work is 25% of what it would usually be.
Continue reading...Luxembourg to take in 11 minors after member states and Switzerland pledge to find homes for 1,600
Eleven children trapped on Greek islands will be flown to Luxembourg next week, the first of a European Union migrant relocation scheme that highlights the uncertain fate of thousands.
The group will leave Chios and Lesbos for Luxembourg as part of an EU voluntary effort to help the most vulnerable quit Greece’s desperately overcrowded refugee and migrant island camps.
Continue reading...As several countries relax immigration rules for medically-trained refugees and migrants in the wake of coronavirus, campaigners are calling for Britain to follow suit
Campaigners have welcomed the relaxation of immigration restrictions by governments across Europe and the Americas to allow doctors, nurses and other key workers from refugee and migrant communities to join efforts against coronavirus.
And they urged countries still preventing medically-trained asylum seekers from working – including Britain – to follow suit
Continue reading...With 400 public health offices forging ahead with testing, the country is a model for others to emulate
As the coronavirus crisis tests the resilience of democracies around the globe, Germany has gone from cursing its lead-footed, decentralised political system to wondering if federalism’s tortoise versus hare logic puts it in a better position to brave the pandemic than most.
Under German federalism – which has roots going back to the Holy Roman Empire but was entrenched after the Nazi era to weaken centralised rule – key policy areas, such as health, education and cultural affairs, fall under the jurisdiction of the country’s 16 states, or Länder.
Continue reading...Spain, Germany and UK among countries to says measures could stay in place as deaths in Italy push past 15,000
Officials from Germany to Spain said they expect the stringent lockdown conditions to stretch for weeks longer as Italy saw its deaths from the coronavirus pandemic push past 15,000 and infections in the United States neared 300,000.
The virus has claimed 15,362 lives in Italy, officials said on Saturday, while the total number of confirmed cases in the country rose to 124,632.
Continue reading...Growers from Ireland to Spain says coronavirus lockdown has stopped migrant workers from arriving
At this time of year John Greene is usually preparing to welcome dozens of Slovakian strawberry pickers for another harvest at his farm in County Wexford in south-east Ireland.
The work is arduous and repetitive and he relies on their experience and stamina to get the fruit picked, packed and sold.
Continue reading...Germany was quick to see the threat while South Korea took an aggressive approach
Countries have approached coronavirus testing in different ways, and in some places there was far earlier recognition than in the UK of the need to develop tests and kits and to have sufficient numbers stockpiled. Here is how some countries got ahead of the curve.
Continue reading...Men were part of hooligan skinhead scene in country’s former communist east
Eight members of a German neo-Nazi cell have been jailed after a court found them guilty of forming a “terrorist organisation” that was planning a campaign of violence.
The higher regional court in Dresden sentenced the accused, aged between 22 and 32, to prison terms ranging from two years and three months to five and a half years for the ringleader of the group that called itself “Revolution Chemnitz”.
Continue reading...Man suspected of loosening rail bolts on bridge between Cologne and Frankfurt
A German man has been arrested on suspicion of having loosened the bolts on a high-speed train track between Cologne and Frankfurt.
The man, described by Frankfurt’s state prosecutor as being “without fixed abode”, was arrested near Cologne on Friday night after police found specialist equipment for loosening track bolts in his car.
Investigators reportedly tracked down the 51-year-old after a confession letter referring to the location of the attempted sabotage was sent to several politicians, including the chancellor, Angela Merkel.
According to Der Spiegel, the suspect was only recently released from prison in Nuremberg, where he had served a sentence for attempted blackmail.
German police had reported a “possible attack attempt” earlier on Friday after the driver of a high-speed Intercity Express train noticed something unusual in the early hours while crossing Theisstalbrücke bridge near Niedernhausen, just outside Frankfurt.
Several trains had already passed over the damaged track before the tampering was uncovered, police said. If the loosened rails had not been reported early, one of the trains could have derailed off the 50m-high bridge, German media reported, citing investigators.
The general prosecutor in Frankfurt would not comment on a motive for the attempted attack while investigations were ongoing.