Tag: German politics

Angela Merkel receives Germany’s highest honor

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BERLIN — Former Chancellor Angela Merkel received Germany’s highest federal decoration on Monday, an honor bestowed on only two other former leaders before her, though some within her own party questioned whether her legacy matches up.
Merkel, who led the country for over 16 years as one of its longest-serving chancellors, received the top Grand Cross of the Order of Merit for special achievement from President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, her former vice chancellor and foreign minister.
Steinmeier praised Merkel as an “unprecedented politician” who successfully steered Germany through difficult times, including the 2008 financial meltdown and the 2015 refugee crisis.
“You have helped our country achieve economic success anew under unprecedented challenges. We look back on 16 years of almost uninterrupted economic growth, during which the scourge of unemployment increasingly lost its horror for most Germans,” Steinmeier said. “At a time when our continent threatened to break apart, you held together the center and the periphery, the north and the south, the east and the west.”
While Steinmeier spoke for half an hour, Merkel kept her acceptance speech to a much shorter 5 minutes.
“I just want to say thank you for having me here today because it has something to do with your decision,” Merkel told Steinmeier. “In that sense, the people who are being introduced now represent not just tonight, but they represent that a whole lot of people are part of being chancellor for 16 years,” she added.
“People often talk about what a snake pit politics is. I may say I wouldn’t have survived it if there wasn’t the other side of politics. And that’s why I’ve always been able to enjoy it.”
The two other chancellors who received this honor were Konrad Adenauer, West Germany’s first post-war chancellor, and Helmut Kohl, who oversaw the end of the Cold War, as well as German reunification and the creation of the European Union.

Some within Merkel’s center-right CDU/CSU political family took issue with Merkel joining the ranks of the two fellow Christian Democrats so soon after her leadership ended in December 2021, especially amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, which some have blamed in part on her soft approach toward Moscow.
“I think it’s a mistake to award Angela Merkel this Grand Cross now, a year and a half after the end of her term,” Andreas Rödder, head of the CDU’s so-called Fundamental Values Commission, told broadcaster ZDF. He added that Merkel’s stance toward Russia has been called one of the country’s worst foreign policy mistakes, and also criticized her energy, migration and nuclear phase-out policies.
Wolfgang Schäuble, Merkel’s longtime finance minister and ally in the CDU, also previously told the Handelsblatt newspaper that it was too early to make a final assessment of whether Merkel should be ranked among the “great” chancellors.
Still, others defended Merkel, including Peter Altmaier, her former chief of staff and later economy minister. Altmaier told broadcaster RTL that “I was pleased to see Angela Merkel receive the award because she has worked with all her might in German politics over the past 30 years,” adding that “whoever does politics also makes mistakes.”
Monday’s ceremony had a small audience of about 20 guests, including Merkel’s successor Olaf Scholz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who each held Cabinet positions under Merkel. As Stern magazine first reported, no one from the current CDU leadership, including party leader Friedrich Merz, nor from the CSU or liberal FDP had been invited.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

April 17, 2023
Angela Merkel receives Germany’s highest honor

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BERLIN — Former Chancellor Angela Merkel received Germany’s highest federal decoration on Monday, an honor bestowed on only two other former leaders before her, though some within her own party questioned whether her legacy matches up.
Merkel, who led the country for over 16 years as one of its longest-serving chancellors, received the top Grand Cross of the Order of Merit for special achievement from President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, her former vice chancellor and foreign minister.
Steinmeier praised Merkel as an “unprecedented politician” who successfully steered Germany through difficult times, including the 2008 financial meltdown and the 2015 refugee crisis.
“You have helped our country achieve economic success anew under unprecedented challenges. We look back on 16 years of almost uninterrupted economic growth, during which the scourge of unemployment increasingly lost its horror for most Germans,” Steinmeier said. “At a time when our continent threatened to break apart, you held together the center and the periphery, the north and the south, the east and the west.”
While Steinmeier spoke for half an hour, Merkel kept her acceptance speech to a much shorter 5 minutes.
“I just want to say thank you for having me here today because it has something to do with your decision,” Merkel told Steinmeier. “In that sense, the people who are being introduced now represent not just tonight, but they represent that a whole lot of people are part of being chancellor for 16 years,” she added.
“People often talk about what a snake pit politics is. I may say I wouldn’t have survived it if there wasn’t the other side of politics. And that’s why I’ve always been able to enjoy it.”
The two other chancellors who received this honor were Konrad Adenauer, West Germany’s first post-war chancellor, and Helmut Kohl, who oversaw the end of the Cold War, as well as German reunification and the creation of the European Union.

Some within Merkel’s center-right CDU/CSU political family took issue with Merkel joining the ranks of the two fellow Christian Democrats so soon after her leadership ended in December 2021, especially amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, which some have blamed in part on her soft approach toward Moscow.
“I think it’s a mistake to award Angela Merkel this Grand Cross now, a year and a half after the end of her term,” Andreas Rödder, head of the CDU’s so-called Fundamental Values Commission, told broadcaster ZDF. He added that Merkel’s stance toward Russia has been called one of the country’s worst foreign policy mistakes, and also criticized her energy, migration and nuclear phase-out policies.
Wolfgang Schäuble, Merkel’s longtime finance minister and ally in the CDU, also previously told the Handelsblatt newspaper that it was too early to make a final assessment of whether Merkel should be ranked among the “great” chancellors.
Still, others defended Merkel, including Peter Altmaier, her former chief of staff and later economy minister. Altmaier told broadcaster RTL that “I was pleased to see Angela Merkel receive the award because she has worked with all her might in German politics over the past 30 years,” adding that “whoever does politics also makes mistakes.”
Monday’s ceremony had a small audience of about 20 guests, including Merkel’s successor Olaf Scholz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who each held Cabinet positions under Merkel. As Stern magazine first reported, no one from the current CDU leadership, including party leader Friedrich Merz, nor from the CSU or liberal FDP had been invited.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

April 17, 2023
Germany can’t fulfill NATO obligations, says army chief in leaked memo

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BERLIN — Germany’s land forces cannot fulfill their NATO commitments, according to a leaked memo from a top soldier cited in a German media report.
A division that Germany promised to NATO isn’t fully ready for battle, Bild newspaper reported Tuesday, citing a routine “leadership message” from Alfons Mais, the army’s inspector general, to the armed forces’ inspector general.
The memo increases pressure on Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who is being confronted with the Bundeswehr’s structural problems that also faced his predecessors.
Berlin had promised a fully-equipped army division to NATO in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine as early as 2025, two years earlier than planned.
However, without countermeasures, “the army will not be able to hold its own in high-intensity combat and will also only be able to fulfill its obligations to NATO to a limited extent,” the army chief was quoted by the newspaper.
A spokesperson for the German defense ministry told POLITICO that it generally does not comment on “internal documents” and the “state of readiness.” However, the commitment for 2025 remains unchanged, the spokesperson added. The German army, the Bundeswehr’s land forces, declined to comment “on a classified document and its content.”
The operational readiness of a second division, which the Bundeswehr plans to provide from 2027, is also considered “unrealistic” according to the report, as the division will “not be sufficiently equipped with large-scale equipment in 2027.”
According to the report, Mais wrote that even pulling together all of the army’s assets would not make it possible to fully equip the 2025 division. The report cited continued underfunding and military support for Ukraine as strains that are already leading to a “clearly noticeable reduction in the army’s operational readiness.”

On the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Mais said on social media that the German land forces were “more or less bare” in view of the new threats.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

April 11, 2023
Olaf Scholz faces new probe over German tax fraud scandal

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BERLIN — Germany’s center-right opposition wants to raise the heat on Chancellor Olaf Scholz by launching a parliamentary investigation into his alleged connection to a massive tax evasion scandal.
The case — which dates back over five years to the time when Scholz was still mayor of the Hamburg city-state — is linked to the broader so-called “Cum Ex” affair, under which the German state was defrauded by over €30 billion as some banks, companies, or individuals claimed tax reimbursements from authorities for alleged costs that never occurred.
The scandal already hung over the Social Democratic politician’s election campaign in 2021 but had little impact in the end as Scholz’s potential involvement remained unclear. Now it is heating up again after new details emerged that put his previous defense in question.

The Hamburg regional parliament plans to summon Scholz this spring — which will be for the third time — to an investigative committee looking into the scandal. And now the center-right CDU/CSU bloc also wants to set up an inquiry at the national level in the Bundestag.
“We will request a parliamentary committee of inquiry into the Scholz-Warburg tax affair in the German Bundestag in the first parliamentary week after the Easter vacations,” said the CDU’s Mathias Middelberg, deputy parliamentary group chairman, on Tuesday.
A government spokesperson said that “as a matter of principle,” Berlin does not comment on decisions announced by Bundestag members “out of respect for the constitutional body,” according to media reports.
Katja Mast, the Social Democrats’ chief whip, said the CDU/CSU is not following any interest in knowledge, but rather party tactical interests. “They bring up allegations that have long been refuted,” she said, adding that the committee in Hamburg had clarified all questions.
The CDU/CSU group has enough votes in parliament to be able to set up an investigative committee. The Left party also said it would back such a request. Parliamentary investigative committees can hear witnesses and experts and request access to documents. Although the findings are summarized in a non-binding report, the political consequences, such as for upcoming elections, could be significant.
In a letter to the CDU/CSU parliamentary group seen by POLITICO, chairmen Friedrich Merz and Alexander Dobrindt said that the case should be investigated due to its “significant” importance for German national politics.
Scholz has come under scrutiny because of his links to one Hamburg-based bank involved in the tax evasion scheme: During his time as mayor, he met on three separate occasions in private with one of the owners of the M.M. Warburg & Co. bank, which was already under investigation at the time by the Hamburg tax office. Officials were planning to reclaim €47 million, which they believed were ill-gotten gains in connection with the fraud.
However, in the end, the finance authority let the statute of limitations on the payment demand expire — and years later, after details of Scholz’s meetings with the banker emerged, critics began questioning whether the top Social Democrat might have intervened in favor of the bank.
Although the chancellor has constantly denied having intervened, he has also given no answer on what was discussed during the private meetings. Instead, Scholz said on several occasions during the past two-and-a-half years that he cannot remember the content of the discussions.
During his time as mayor of the Hamburg city-state, Scholz met with one of the owners of the M.M. Warburg & Co. Bank, involved in a tax evasion scheme | Morris MacMatzen/Getty Images
That defense is now being called into question as details emerged of a previous and longtime confidential Bundestag committee hearing with Scholz in July 2020, in which he appeared to easily remember details of his meetings with the banker. His critics argue that Scholz only started to claim having no memory of the meetings when their political and possibly criminal explosiveness became clear.
“This comprehensive memory gap of the chancellor after an initial memory of a concrete meeting … raises a multitude of questions to be clarified,” the letter from the CDU/CSU states.
Scholz and his allies have repeatedly rejected such criticism as politically motivated and stressed that past investigations found no wrongdoing. Scholz also highlighted that in the end, the bank did repay the €47 million, albeit only after it was ordered to do so by a court. The Hamburg Public Prosecutor’s Office said in March that it does not see any initial suspicion against the chancellor in the affair.
That hasn’t discouraged the opposition from planning to dig deeper, though.
“The chancellor would like to see … a line drawn under the clarification of this tax affair. But it is precisely the task of parliament to control the government, to look closely, especially with so many unanswered questions,” said CDU lawmaker Matthias Hauer.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

April 4, 2023
Brussels to Berlin: We’ll find a way to save the car engine

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On the future of the internal combustion engine, Germany has gotten its own way, again.
The European Commission and Germany’s Transport Ministry announced a deal Saturday morning that commits the EU executive to figuring out a legal way to allow the sale of new engine-installed cars running exclusively on synthetic e-fuels even after a mandate comes into force requiring sales of only zero-emission vehicles from 2035.
“We have found an agreement with Germany on the future use of e-fuels in cars,” the Commission’s Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans said on Twitter. “We will work now on getting the CO2 standards for cars regulation adopted as soon as possible.”

The deal heads off a row over car legislation that was all-but-agreed until Germany, along with a small club of allies, slammed on the brakes just days before formal final approval on a law that is the centerpiece of the EU’s green agenda.
Timmermans said the Commission would “follow up swiftly” with “legal steps” to turn a non-binding annex to the law, introduced originally at the insistence of Europe’s car-making titan Germany, into a concrete workaround allowing new vehicles running on e-fuels, which do emit some CO2, to be sold post-2035.
As a first step, the Commission has agreed to carve out a new category of e-fuel-only vehicles inside the existing Euro 6 automotive rulebook and then integrate that classification into the contentious CO2 standards legislation that mandates the 2035 phase-out date for sales of new combustion-engine vehicles.
The terms of the final deal from Timmermans’ cabinet chief Diederik Samsom, seen by POLITICO, say the Commission will reopen the text of the engine-ban law if EU lawmakers manage to stop the introduction of a technical annex that would make space for e-fuels alongside the agreed CO2 standards. Reopening the proposed law’s text is a move that is fundamentally opposed by the European Parliament and green-minded countries.
The crux of the standoff was that Germany demanded binding legal language that would ensure the Commission would find a way to satisfy Berlin’s demands even if the European Parliament, or the courts, moved to block any tweaks or legal annexes to the 2035 zero-emissions legislation covering cars and vans.
In the statement, Samsom promised the Commission will publish its full e-fuels proposal as a so-called delegated act this fall. In practice, that means the original 2035 legislation will pass at first — offering the European Commission a critical win — but it sets up a future fight over the technical additions needed to satisfy Berlin.
“The law that 100 percent of cars sold after 2035 must be zero emissions will be voted unchanged by next Tuesday,” said Pascal Canfin, the French liberal lawmaker spearheading the file in the assembly. “Parliament will decide in due course on the Commission’s future proposals on e-fuels.”
Engine endgame
The deal means energy ministers can sign off on the original 2035 proposal during a meeting on Tuesday given that Berlin now has assurances that its demands will be met. In advance, EU ambassadors will review the bilateral deal between Brussels and Berlin on Monday, an EU diplomat said.
The agreement caps a decade of German pushback on EU automotive emissions rule-making.
In 2013, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel intervened late to water down previous iterations of car emission standards legislation, securing tweaks critical to the country’s hulking automotive industry.
The deal means Germany has effectively dropped its last-minute opposition to the car engine ban law | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Since the Volkswagen Dieselgate scandal, most carmakers have shifted their investments toward electric vehicles, but some industry interests, notably high-end carmakers such as Porsche and Germany’s web of combustion engine component makers, have sought to save traditional gas guzzlers from the clutches of a de facto EU sales ban.
Figuring out a final workaround on e-fuels in the 2035 legislation will still take some months, given that technical standards haven’t yet been clarified for setting out a “robust and evasion-proof” system for selling cars that can only be fuelled on synthetic alternatives to petrol and diesel, according to Samsom’s statement.
The timeline is already clear in Berlin’s perspective. “We want the process to be completed by autumn 2024,” said the German Transport Ministry, which is run by the country’s Free Democratic Party. The FDP, the most junior in Germany’s three-way governing coalition, had wanted fixed legal language to guarantee a loophole for e-fuels, which can theoretically be CO2-neutral but which wouldn’t normally comply with the emissions legislation since they do still emit tailpipe pollutants.
With the FDP’s popularity tumbling, the car policy row with Brussels has been a popular talking point in German media over recent weeks. One survey reports that 67 percent of respondents are against the engine ban legislation. Ahead of national elections in late 2025, the FDP is betting on driver-friendly policies such as e-fuels, new road construction initiatives and a block on the implementation of a national highway speed limit, to raise its profile.
Market watchers don’t anticipate e-fuels to offer much in the way of a mass-market alternative to electric vehicles, given that they are costly to produce and don’t exist in commercial volumes today. A study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research reports that even if all global e-fuel production was allocated to German consumers, the output would only meet a tenth of national demand in the aviation, maritime and chemical sectors by 2035.
“E-fuels are an expensive and massively inefficient diversion from the transformation to electric facing Europe’s carmakers,” said Julia Poliscanova from the green group Transport & Environment.
Auto politics
Despite not being on the formal agenda, the issue dominated discussions on the sidelines of this week’s summit of EU leaders in Brussels. A deal between Brussels and Berlin was only struck at 9 p.m. on Friday, hours after leaders left the EU capital, before being formally announced on social media early Saturday.
“The way is clear,” said German Transport Minister Volker Wissing in announcing the agreement. “We have secured opportunities for Europe by keeping important options open for climate-neutral and affordable mobility.”
The deal means Germany has effectively dropped its last-minute opposition to the car engine ban law, collapsing a blocking minority of Italy, Poland, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic that had put a roadblock in front of final ratification by ministers of the deal reached last October between the three EU institutions.
It remains unclear whether Italy’s attempts to find a separate workaround for biofuels — promoted personally by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the summit — also succeeded. However, without Berlin’s support, Rome doesn’t have a way to block the legislation.
German Transport Minister Volker Wissing | Maja Hitij/Getty Images
Responses to the Commission working up a bespoke fix for its biggest member country on otherwise agreed legislation were generally negative, with many arguing the e-fuels issue is a diversion.
“The opening for e-fuels does not mean a significant change for the transformation to electric cars,” said Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, a professor at the Center for Automotive Research in Duisburg. He said the Commission’s dealmaking raised “new investment uncertainties” that undermined the bloc’s efforts to catch up with China, the world’s leading producer of electric vehicles.
Still, most are just happy that the combustion engine row is ended, for now.
“It is good that this impasse is over,” said German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke, who backed the original 2035 deal without a reference to e-fuels. “Anything else would have severely damaged both confidence in European procedures and in Germany’s reliability inside European politics,” the minister said in a statement.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 23, 2023
German Christian Democrats rewrite Merkel’s China playbook

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BERLIN — Germany’s Christian Democrats, the country’s largest opposition group, are planning to shift away from the pragmatic stance toward China that characterized Angela Merkel’s 16 years as chancellor, claiming that maintaining peace through trade has failed.
It’s a remarkable course change for the conservative party that pursued a strategy of rapprochement and economic interdependence toward China and Russia during Merkel’s decade and a half in power. The volte-face has been spurred by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and Beijing’s increasingly aggressive stance — both economically and politically — in the Asian region and beyond.
According to a draft position paper seen by POLITICO, the conservatives say the idea of keeping peace through economic cooperation “has failed with regard to Russia, but increasingly also China.” The 22-page paper, which is to be adopted by the center-right Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) parliamentary group in the Bundestag around Easter, outlines key points for a new China policy.

In a world order that is changing after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz last year announced a Zeitenwende, or major turning point, in German security policy. Economy Minister Robert Habeck and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, in particular, have stressed the necessity of a comprehensive China strategy, an idea already mentioned in the coalition agreement to form Scholz’s government. Their ministries have elaborated two different drafts, but a comprehensive strategy is not yet in sight.
“We realize at this point in time, with some surprise, which is why we prepared and presented this paper, that the German government is significantly behind schedule on key foreign and security policy documents,” said CDU foreign policy lawmaker Johann Wadephul.
The foreword to the position paper states that “the rise of communist China is the central, epochal challenge of the 21st century for all states seeking to preserve, strengthen, and sustain the rules-based international order.” The CDU/CSU parliamentary group is open to working out a “national consensus” with Scholz’s government. That consensus, the group says, must be embedded in the national security strategy and in a European China strategy.
The relationship with China is described in the same triad fashion that was formulated by the European Commission in 2019 and is in the coalition agreement of the current German government. Under this strategy, the Asian country is seen as a partner, economic competitor and systemic rival.
But the CDU/CSU group’s paper says policy should move away from a Beijing-friendly, pragmatic stance toward China, especially on trade. “We should not close our eyes to the fact that China has shifted the balance on its own initiative and clearly pushed the core of the relationship toward systemic rivalry,” the text states.
Such an emphasis from the conservative group is remarkable given its long-held preference for economic cooperation and political rapprochement toward both China and Russia under Merkel. Before leaving office, for example, Merkel pushed a major EU-China investment deal over the line, though it was later essentially frozen by the European Parliament due to Beijing’s sanctions against MEPs.
“I say to this also self-critically [that] this means for the CDU/CSU a certain new approach in China policy after a 16-year government period,” Wadephul said.
The paper calls for a “Zeitenwende in China policy,” too, concluding that Germany should respond “with the ability and its own strength to compete” wherever China seeks and forces competition; should build up its resilience and defensive capability and form as well as expand alliances and partnerships with interest and value partners; and demonstrate a willingness to partner where it is openly, transparently and reliably embraced by China.
The CDU/CSU paper calls for a European China strategy and a “European China Council” with EU neighbors for better cooperation. A central point is also strengthening reciprocity and European as well as German sovereignty.
“Decoupling from China is neither realistic nor desirable from a German and European perspective,” according to the text.
To better monitor dependencies, the paper proposes an expert commission in the Bundestag that would present an annual “China check” on dependencies in trade, technology, raw materials and foreign trade, with the overall aim of developing a “de-risking” strategy.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 23, 2023
Toxic Germanity and the battle for ‘das Auto’

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Matthew Karnitschnig is POLITICO’s chief Europe correspondent.
BERLIN — Europe’s worst-kept secret is that the Germans ultimately decide everything.
“I’ll never forget how all the other member states held back in anticipation, waiting to see what the Germans would do,” a senior U.K. official, recalling his time in Brussels, recently told a private dinner of MPs and other German officials in Berlin.

The recollection was meant as a compliment, one the official hoped would ingratiate him with the Germans around the table.
Sad thing is it worked.
The second worst-kept secret in Brussels is that for all the “peace project” kumbaya, the Germans actually enjoy dominating the place. That said, even stalwart veterans of the EU bubble were hard-pressed in recent days to cite a more blatant example of toxic Germanity than Berlin’s last-minute intervention to save the internal combustion engine.
To recap: Last week, EU countries were expected to rubber-stamp a package of measures aimed at ridding Europe’s roads of fuel-burning autos. Under the plan, the EU would prohibit new registrations of cars powered by internal combustion engines beginning in 2035. The sweeping deal, the culmination of years of painstaking negotiations in Brussels and European capitals, is a pillar of the EU’s ambitious goal to become carbon neutral by 2050.
Berlin’s 11th-hour intervention on a deal everyone believed was done and dusted not only left the EU’s environmental policy in limbo, it also laid bare the bloc’s power vertical in all its dubious Teutonic glory. The message: Germany is no longer even trying to hide its power.
Enter France.
“For the French, the situation also represents an opportunity and they are never ones to waste a good crisis,” an EU diplomat said. “The more they can contribute to the idea that Germany goes it alone, the more it strengthens the view that the Germans are an unreliable partner in Europe.”
Germany’s unprecedented move has given rise to fears that other countries will try to follow its example and hold EU reforms hostage by threatening a last-minute veto to win concessions, in effect rewriting the rules of engagement.
Germans may not be known for their finesse, but even so, Berlin’s bare-knuckle tactics to save the engine have not just shocked Brussels veterans, it’s angered them.
That’s why the real significance of the standoff has less to do with CO2 emissions than how Brussels works. One big concern among EU insiders is that the coalition Germany has assembled to save the car, which includes the likes of Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, will go rogue as a bloc on other fronts, with or without German support.
Berlin’s views on “the future of mobility” were so clear that Mercedes, VW and BMW pledged to shift to all-electric by 2035 | Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images
It’s easy to mock the circuitous nature of EU decision-making, the push and pull between the European Commission, Parliament and Council, communicated in the opaque dialect of Brussels’ earnest eurocrats.
Boring as it may be, the alchemy produces bona fide results that legitimize and sustain the EU.
That Germany is willing to tinker with this delicate balance betrays either ignorance in the current regime of how the EU works, ambivalence, or both.
One could argue with justification that Germany was never going to kill the golden goose. Invented and perfected in Germany over more than a century by the likes of Mercedes, BMW and Audi, the internal combustion engine has been the wellspring of German pride and prosperity for generations.
The image of a piston-fired Porsche 911 zooming down the autobahn is as core to German identity as sex is to the French.
Take that away, what’s left (aside from beer and bratwurst)?
Indeed, considering that the country’s automakers haven’t proved particularly adept at manufacturing electric cars (or more specifically the batteries at the heart of the vehicles), there was a strong case for Germany to develop low-emission synthetic fuels that would keep the internal combustion engine alive.
Berlin had at least a decade to do so.
Thing is, it didn’t, choosing instead to pour billions into subsidizing the purchase of electric vehicles and the infrastructure to recharge them (full disclosure: the author is a beneficiary of such a subsidy).
What’s more, Germany also encouraged other European countries to follow suit. In fact, Berlin’s views on “the future of mobility” were so clear that Mercedes, VW and BMW pledged to shift to all-electric by 2035. The cluster of countries that have served as the workbench for those companies, from Slovakia to Hungary and Austria, all agreed to go along.
That’s why the German insistence this month that the EU carve out an exception to the engine ban for cars powered by synthetic, so-called e-fuels has caught the rest of Europe flat-footed.
Why now? In a word, politics.
Germans may not be known for their finesse, but even so, Berlin’s bare-knuckle tactics to save the engine have not just shocked Brussels veterans, it’s angered them | John Thys/AFP
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats have dropped below 20 percent in a number of recent polls, putting them more than 10 percentage points behind the first-place Christian Democrats.
Scholz’s smallest coalition partner, the business-oriented Free Democrats (FDP), are in even worse shape. The party fared miserably in a string of recent regional elections and in national polls, it is teetering perilously close to the 5 percent threshold parties need to surpass for entry into parliament.
Party leader Christian Lindner, who used to drive souped-up Porsches around the storied Nürburgring race track, has vowed to save the engine from the clutches of the Green lobby.
Scholz, keenly aware that his party’s base also remains attached to “das Auto,” has been happy to let him try and has so far not stepped in to intervene.
About 1 million Germans work in the auto industry and many of those jobs — especially at suppliers — would be lost if the engine is killed for the simple reason that electric cars have far fewer (and different) parts than traditional automobiles.
The real mystery is why the Greens, the other party in Germany’s governing triumvirate, have not done more to resolve the crisis. Not only has the environmental party championed the engine ban for years, but it is also the most pro-European party in the government and would normally be at pains to keep Berlin from even appearing to undermine Brussels.
Yet Green Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck has largely been silent on the issue. Far from the fray in Europe, he was last spotted in the Amazon having his face painted by an indigenous girl during a swing through the region.
In a bid to defuse the standoff ahead of next week’s EU leaders’ summit, the German government sent a letter to the Commission on Wednesday, spelling out what it wants in return for lifting its blockade. Its chief demand — a broad exception for e-fuels — was already rejected by the Parliament and other institutions during the original negotiations over the package.
Reversing that would require the deal to be reopened.
The French are sure to cry foul.
And then Germany will push ahead anyway.
Joshua Posaner contributed reporting.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 15, 2023
Germany, Japan pledge to boost cooperation on economic security

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Germany and Japan agreed on Saturday to strengthen cooperation on economic security in the aftermath of tensions over global supply chains and the economic impact of the war in Ukraine.
In the first high-ministerial government consultations held between the two countries, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reached out to Tokyo to seek to reduce Germany’s dependence on China for imports of raw materials.
“The current challenges of our time make it clear: It is important to expand cooperation with close partners and acquire new partners. We want to reduce dependencies and increase the resilience of our economies.” the German chancellor said in a tweet.
Scholz and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said they believe the agreement will allow both countries to diversify value chains in order to be able to reduce economic risks.
In a joint statement, the two countries said they will work on establishing “a legal framework for bilateral defense and security cooperation activities,” including ways to protect critical infrastructures, trade routes and to secure future supply of sustainable energy.
Germany’s decision to prioritize consultations with Japan came after the Asian country put forward an economic security bill last year aimed at securing the uptake of technology and bolstering critical supply chains.
Japan is Germany’s second-largest trading partner in Asia after China, with a bilateral trade volume of €45.7 billion mainly based on the import and export of machinery, vehicles, electronics and chemical products.
The two leaders also exchanged views on the situation in Ukraine, cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region and the G7 meeting in Hiroshima scheduled for May.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 15, 2023
In Nord Stream bombings probe, German investigators see Ukraine link, reports say

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BERLIN — German prosecutors have found “traces” of evidence indicating that Ukrainians may have been involved in the explosions that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022, according to German media reports Tuesday.
Investigators identified a boat that was potentially used for transporting a crew of six people, diving equipment and explosives into the Baltic Sea in early September. Charges were then placed on the pipelines, according to a joint investigation by German public broadcasters ARD and SWR as well as the newspaper Die Zeit.
The German reports said that the yacht had been rented from a company based in Poland that is “apparently owned by two Ukrainians.”
However, no clear evidence has been established so far on who ordered the attack, the reports said.
In its first reaction, Ukraine’s government dismissed the reports.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denied the Ukrainian government had any involvement in the pipeline attacks. “Although I enjoy collecting amusing conspiracy theories about the Ukrainian government, I have to say: Ukraine has nothing to do with the Baltic Sea mishap and has no information about ‘pro-Ukraine sabotage groups,'” Podolyak wrote in a tweet.
Three of the four pipes making up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 undersea gas pipelines from Russia to Germany were destroyed by explosions last September. Germany, Sweden and Denmark launched investigations into an incident that was quickly established to be a case of “sabotage.”
The German media reports — which come on top of a New York Times report Tuesday which said that “intelligence suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group” sabotaged the pipelines — stress that there’s no proof that Ukrainian authorities ordered the attack or were involved in it.

Any potential involvement by Kyiv in the attack would risk straining relations between Ukraine and Germany, which is one of the most important suppliers of civilian and military assistance to the country as it fights against Russia’s full-scale invasion.
According to the investigation by German public prosecutors that is cited by the German outlets, the team which placed the explosive charges on the pipelines was comprised of five men — a captain, two divers and two diving assistants — as well as one woman doctor, all of them of unknown nationality and operating with false passports. They left the German port of Rostock on September 6 on the rented boat, the report said.
It added that the yacht was later returned to the owner “in uncleaned condition” and that “on the table in the cabin, the investigators were able to detect traces of explosives.”
But the reports also said that investigators can’t exclude that the potential link to Ukraine was part of a “false flag” operation aiming to pin the blame on Kyiv for the attacks.
Contacted by POLITICO, a spokesperson for the German government referred to ongoing investigations by the German prosecutor general’s office, which declined to comment.
The government spokesperson also said: “a few days ago, Sweden, Denmark and Germany informed the United Nations Security Council that investigations were ongoing and that there was no result yet.”
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova dismissed the reports of Ukrainian involvement in the Nord Stream bombings, saying in a post on the Telegram social media site that they were aimed at distracting attention from earlier, unsubstantiated, reports that the U.S. destroyed the pipelines.
Veronika Melkozerova in Kyiv contributed reporting.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 2, 2023
German chancellor vows ‘leadership’ with call to further arm Ukraine

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MUNICH — Countries able to send battle tanks to Ukraine should “actually do so now,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Friday, trying to rally support for a Europe-wide fleet of tank donations.
Speaking at the opening of the Munich Security Conference, a gathering of global political and security leaders, Scholz said “Germany acknowledges its responsibility for the security of Europe and the NATO alliance area, without ifs and buts.”
This is, he added, “a responsibility that a country of Germany’s size, location and economic strength has to shoulder in times like these.”
Concretely, the chancellor said Germany would “permanently” adhere to the NATO goal of spending 2 percent of its economic output on defense — a target that Berlin is currently set to miss this year and probably also next year, despite a massive €100 billion special fund for military investment.
Germany needs to boost its defense industry and switch to “a permanent production of the most important weapons we are using,” the chancellor added.
Scholz’s remarks came just hours after his defense minister, Boris Pistorius, told reporters in Munich Germany must commit to even higher spending targets to follow through on its security pledges.
“It must be clear to everyone: It will not be possible to fulfill the tasks that lie ahead of us with barely two percent,” Pistorius said.
Western allies are gathering in Munich for a series of high-level talks focused primarily on the war in Ukraine, one year after Russia invaded the Eastern European country.

Scholz said it would be “wise to prepare for a long war” and to send a clear message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he’s making “a miscalculation” if he is counting on Ukraine’s Western allies eventually growing war-weary and pulling back from their military support.
The German chancellor said Ukraine’s allies with German-made, modern Leopard 2 tanks in their stocks should join Berlin in delivering them to Ukraine, adding that his government would use the three-day Munich conference to “campaign intensively for this.”
The German chancellor himself hesitated for months over whether to send Leopard 2 tanks, only changing course last month, when he vowed to build an international alliance that would give Ukraine 80 of the German-built tanks.
But he is struggling to deliver on that commitment. Some allies like Finland are dragging their feet on tank donations, while others like Portugal are not sending as many as Berlin had hoped.
Other countries like Poland or Spain are only sending an older version of the tank, the Leopard 2 A4. Scholz said he hopes “some more will also join” Germany in sending the more modern Leopard 2 A6.
Scholz also said that Germany “will do everything it can to make this decision easier for our partners,” offering to provide logistical support or training Ukrainian soldiers on the tanks. “I see this as an example of the kind of leadership which everyone is entitled to expect from Germany — and I expressly offer it to our friends and partners.”
Just before Scholz spoke, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that “speed is crucial,” underscoring the German leader’s point.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

February 16, 2023