Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has renewed its call for a return to Russian energy supplies, capitalising on rising fuel prices and economic concerns after strong gains in recent state elections.

Petrol prices in Germany have surged by over 15 percent since the US and Israel’s war on Iran began, becoming a key campaign issue in industrial regions such as Baden-Württemberg. AfD leaders argued that high energy costs—significantly above those in the US and China—are hurting the economy and voters.

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Source: https://www.firstpost.com/world/germanys-far-right-afd-pushes-return-to-russian-energy-as-rising-fuel-prices-boost-support-13995092.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawRA6gtleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEep9IP96eqgXRBjLpxLrpK_Zx3Uc6N82HBiOEv9KP6QazwaShLIExwu12n-mw_aem_uFYRRsEEJtaBkDqrtRFpiQ

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Among its manifesto commitments, the party advocates an end to all arms exports

Germany’s Left party (Die Linke) on Sunday adopted a national platform with a focus on social care that also calls for the NATO alliance to be scrapped.

Although the party has no realistic chance of forming a government, it could have a say in policy as part of a future coalition.

What is the Left party promising?

Foreign policy: An end to all foreign deployments of the Germany’s military, the Bundeswehr. The party wants to replace NATO with a collective security system involving Russia. In addition, the party advocates an end to all arms exports.

Climate change: An energy revamp with a focus on renewable energy. The party also wants to phase out coal by 2030 at the latest and to see Germany climate-neutral by 2035.

Transport: The manifesto would commit to a goal of local public transport free of charge, and for rail travel to also become cheaper. There would also be a ban on domestic flights of less than 500 kilometers (310 miles).

Christian Democratic Union (CDU)

The CDU has traditionally been the main center-right party across Germany, but it shifted toward the center under Chancellor Angela Merkel. The party remains more fiscally and socially conservative compared to parties on the left. It supports membership of the EU and NATO, budgetary discipline at home and abroad, and generally likes the status quo. It is the largest party in the Bundestag.

Christian Social Union (CSU)

The CSU is the sister party of the CDU in Bavaria and the two-act symbiotically at the national level (CDU/CSU). Despite their similarities, the CSU is generally more conservative than the CDU on social issues. The CSU leader and premier of Bavaria, Markus Söder, ordered crosses in every state building in 2018.

Social Democrats (SPD)

The SPD is Germany’s oldest political party and the main center-left rival of the CDU/CSU. It shares the CDU/CSU support for the EU and NATO, but it takes a more progressive stance on social issues and welfare policies. It is currently in a coalition government with the CDU/CSU and is trying to win back support under interim leaders Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel, Manuela Schwesig and Malu Dreyer.

Alternative for Germany (AfD)

The new kid on the block is the largest opposition party in the Bundestag. The far-right party was founded in 2013 and entered the Bundestag for the first time in 2017 under the stewardship of Alice Weidel and Alexander Gauland. It is largely united by opposition to Merkel’s immigration policy, Euroscepticism, and belief in the alleged dangers posed by Germany’s Muslim population.

Free Democrats (FDP)

The FDP has traditionally been the kingmaker of German politics. Although it has never received more than 15 percent of the vote, it has formed multiple coalition governments with both the CDU/CSU and SPD. The FDP, today led by Christian Lindner, supports less government spending and lower taxes but takes a progressive stance on social issues such as gay marriage or religion.

The Greens

The Greens, led today by Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck, emerged from the environmental movement in the 1980s. Unsurprisingly, it supports efforts to fight climate change and protect the environment. It is also progressive on social issues. But strong divisions have occasionally emerged on other topics. The party famously split in the late 1990s over whether to use military force in Kosovo.

The Left

The Left, led by Katja Kipping and Bernd Riexinger, is the most left-wing party in the Bundestag. It supports major redistribution of wealth at home and a pacifist stance abroad, including withdrawing Germany from NATO. It emerged from the successor party to the Socialist Unity Party (SED) that ruled communist East Germany until 1989. Today, it still enjoys most of its support in eastern Germany.

Author: Alexander Pearson

Immigration: The party advocates residence and work permits regardless of employment duration and for the qualifications of non-EU citizens to be recognized. It rejects the notion of deportation, especially where war and persecution are a reality.

Social care: The party wants 200,000 more nursing staff in hospitals and nursing homes, and an increase in basic pay for employees. It also wants a statutory staffing level, and for hospital and care groups to be transferred to public ownership.

Tax: The party advocates a wealth tax with a progressive rate and an exemption amount for private assets of €1 million ($1.2 million). It also wants a tax rate of 53% from €70,000. A wealth tax of 60% is to be levied on incomes of just under €261,000, and 75% on incomes of over €1 million.

Labor: A minimum wage of €13 (currently €9.50). Temporary employment and fixed-term contracts without a fixed term would be abolished. The party also proposes a four-day week of around 30 hours as a normal work model.

Health: A rent cap throughout Germany. The Left party also wants to promote social housing construction with €15 billion annually.

Pensions: The Left party wants to introduce a minimum pension of €1,200. Instead of retirement at 67, employees should again be able to retire at 65 at the latest without deductions.

Janine Wissler and Dietmar Bartsch, who are the co-leader of the party and the co-leader of its parliamentary faction respectively, are to be the party’s flagbearers in the lead up to the September 26 election.

rc/nm (AFP, dpa)

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-left-party-plans-to-scrap-nato-end-troop-deployments/a-57973017

The post Germany’s Left party plans to scrap NATO, end troop deployments first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Markus Söder heads the Christian Social Union

Bavarian State Premier Markus Söder bowed out of the contest to be the conservative CDU/CSU bloc’s candidate to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany’s September general election.

“The die is cast. Armin Laschet will be the CDU/CSU’s candidate for chancellor,” Söder told a press conference in Munich. This brought to an end what was seen as an acrimonious power struggle, during which Söder and his growing number of supporters pointed to the CSU chair’s better performance in opinion polls, which could make him a more competitive candidate.

Few German politicians have seen their fortunes rise in public opinion during the coronavirus crisis as much as Markus Söder, Bavaria’s state premier and head of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the conservative Bavarian allies to Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). As the chair to the council of state premiers, he has played a prominent part in crisis meetings.

Söder began his latest tenure as state premier in April 2018, following his reelection, with a hymn to his home state: “Bavaria is seeing golden times. Bavaria is strong. Bavaria will grow. Bavaria is solid. Bavaria is safe. Here the world is still in order, and it will stay that way.” The subtext of that speech was the CSU’s age-old message: Bavaria is fine as long as the CSU is fine.

A political all-rounder

But Söder’s rise to the top was a long struggle that has seen delays, patience, haggling, and probably a fair bit of skullduggery and backroom dealing.

Horst Seehofer and Markus Söder were bitter rivals for many years

Markus Söder spent a long time as a regional wannabe. After all, he was made CSU party leader as early as 2003, a post he held for four years. But there was little doubt: he was aiming for the top. Like Franz-Josef Strauss before him, he embodied the drive, the dynamism, and the pride that many Bavarians believe is their hallmark.

Yet it took him another 11 long years before he was strong enough to overtake his predecessor Horst Seehofer — currently Germany’s interior minister — to become Bavarian state premier. The rivalry between the two was bitter — and on occasion, simply out of control. Söder, CSU general secretary as long ago as 2003 to 2007, never made a secret of his sense of a higher calling.

After 2007, he took on a string of posts in the Bavarian Cabinet: minister for federal and European affairs, minister for environment and health, minister of finance, development, and Heimat – that untranslatable patriotic German word whose closest equivalent is homeland. It was only in March 2018 that he finally took over from his longtime rival Horst Seehofer, the current federal interior minister, as head of the Bavarian government.

As a youngster, Söder was an admirer of Franz Josef Strauss.

Ambition and patience

Ironically, although the 54-year-old highlights his loyalty and dedication to Bavaria in almost every statement, he is in fact something of an outsider. He hails from a pocket of Bavaria called Franconia, where people fly their own flags, sing their own songs, and worship their own football team.

Söder might have been Bavarian premier since 2018, but he is quick to point out that he was not born in the opulent state capital Munich, but rather in the historic city of Nuremberg, the capital of Franconia. Add to that: Söder is also a Protestant in a Bavaria that insists fiercely on its Catholic identity. And it goes without saying that the football team he supports so feverishly is not Bayern Munich, but 1.FC Nürnberg.

As a youngster, Söder was not just a fan of his local football team, but also an admirer of the man who more than any other personified post-World War II Bavaria: Franz Josef Strauss. The mercurial, compelling and sometimes authoritarian Strauss led the CSU party — the Bavarian conservatives — for nearly three decades, during which he also served as a cabinet minister in Bonn and chief minister in Bavaria. The young Markus Söder was fascinated by Strauss — not least by his legendary rhetorical wizardry — and hung a picture of the fiery rabble-rouser above his bed.

For a carnival event in 2016 Markus Söder chose to dress up as Bavaria’s King Ludwig II

Representing both the traditional and the modern

Söder has also been able to encompass the whole spectrum from the traditional to the modern. “We want to be modern but stay Bavarian,” he said in his first government declaration in April 2018. “We will manage the future and care for the problems of every individual. Do and care — about the broad strokes and the small worries: that’s our philosophy.” But since the Bavarian state election in October 2018, which brought a historically poor 36.7% for the CSU, he has had to share his government with conservative rivals, the Freie Wähler (Free Voters).

Yet he quickly became a strong partner for Merkel, ending the days when the Seehofer-led CSU occasionally appeared to act as the strongest opposition party to their CDU partners. Söder led the center-right attacks on the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), opposing both left and right-wing extremists.

Markus Söder outperformed Armin Laschet in opinion polls

As the coronavirus crisis began, it was Söder who rose to be among the most popular politicians in Germany. His quick, clear declarations — from closing schools to stopping professional football — left other state premiers trailing behind him, particularly Armin Laschet, leader of Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, who eventually beat him to be the conservative bloc’s candidate to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor.

And today? “His only real political goal was to become chief minister of Bavaria. Well, he achieved that,” Munich journalist Roman Deininger tells DW.

The fact remains: Becoming the conservative candidate to replace Angela Merkel in September’s national election is one thing; however, winning that election is quite another. And, as observers have continually cautioned: this is an election where there is a lot to lose.

This article has been translated from German and was updated since its first publication.

While you’re here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society, with an eye toward understanding this year’s elections and beyond. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing, to stay on top of developments as Germany enters the post-Merkel era.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/who-is-markus-s%C3%B6der-bavarias-premier/a-53525147

The post Who is Markus Söder, Bavaria’s premier? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Merkel’s party now has a new leader — Armin Laschet — who will lead the charge of the Christian democratic union in the September polls.

It’s the end of an era as later this year, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel will step down from her position after serving the country for 15 long years, and as one of the de-facto leaders of Europe, now her party has appointed a new leader.

Only a few leaders can boast of a track record that can match Angela Merkel’s record.  Severing as the german chancellor for 15 years and counting, she has worked with five British prime ministers, four French presidents, seven Italian prime ministers, and once Joe Biden takes oath, four American presidents.

Now, one of the world’s most successful politicians is stepping down. She is keeping the promise she made in 2018.

Her party now has a new leader — Armin Laschet. He will lead the charge of the Christian democratic union in the September polls.

Merkel’s exit from the Chancellor’s office will be the end of an era as she was the first woman to take Germany’s top job in 2005.

When Merkel rose to power, many had dismissed her as inexperienced and uncharismatic. However, during her 15-year reign, Merkel has proved herself time and again.

Merkel’s achievements

Three years into office, Merkel faced her greatest challenge in form of the 2008 financial crisis that shook entire Europe. However, not only did Merkel steer Germany during the meltdown, but she was at the heart of the response to the eurozone debt crisis — one that could have led to the economic collapse of Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, and Cyprus.

Merkel held her own in front of adversaries, even when they tried to overpower or humiliate her. One famous instance of this is when Vladimir Putin brought a dog into a meeting with Merkel. It is quite popularly known that Merkel is afraid of dogs. However, the leader handled the situation with the utmost grace and confidence.

Hard days

Her last years in office, however, were upended by a refugee crisis. More than one million refugees arrived in Germany in 2015. Not only did Merkel welcome them, but she even convinced some European allies to accept some of them.

In 2018, she was elected for a record fourth term in office, but her party lost votes which forced Merkel to form a grand coalition to keep power. Realizing the end of the road is near, Merkel decided she will not run for a fifth term.

Her departure might trigger uncertainty as Germany hasn’t been immune to the rise of the right. Parties like the alternative for Germany ate into the votes of established players in the last election.

The European Union remains a divided bloc, especially after the UK’s exit from the EU. The coronavirus has also widened the differences, with authoritarian leaders in Hungary and Poland often rejecting the proposals laid out by their European partners.

So far, Merkel has managed to keep key allies together. However, both at home, and in the continent, the next leader of Germany has some big shoes to fill.

Her party now has a new leader — Armin Laschet. He will lead the charge of the Christian democratic union in the September polls.

Merkel’s exit from the Chancellor’s office will be the end of an era as she was the first woman to take Germany’s top job in 2005.

When Merkel rose to power, many had dismissed her as inexperienced and uncharismatic. However, during her 15-year reign, Merkel has proved herself time and again.

Source: https://www.wionews.com/world/end-of-an-era-german-chancellor-angela-merkel-prepares-to-step-down-after-15-years-357816

The post End of an era: German Chancellor Angela Merkel prepares to step down after 15 years first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post The long goodbye: Who can replace Angela Merkel? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Oct. 15, 2019, in Berlin), left, and German corporate lawyer and former parliamentary group leader of the Christian Democratic Union Friedrich Merz (Oct. 31, 2018, in Berlin). AXEL SCHMIDT,JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

When Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer was first elected to the leadership of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, it seemed that Chancellor Angela Merkel had secured her legacy. Instead, she had colluded to reveal her own inadequacy. Kramp-Karrenbauer will now preemptively pass the chancellor’s coveted baton to someone eager to use it as a weapon against Merkel herself and the entire era of German politics she has presided over.

Kramp-Karrenbauer was the chancellor’s hand-picked successor. In comparison to the young and relatively untested Jens Spahn, who also vied for the party leadership in December 2018, she seemed measured and well-reasoned. In comparison to the strident political veteran Friedrich Merz, another challenger, she seemed like a safe bet to keep the party from a sharp rightward shift. Kramp-Karrenbauer was relatively sober and restrained. She differed from Merkel on a handful of important political positions—most notably, she’s been emphatic in her opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage—but she largely fell in line with the chancellor on economic issues. Most notably, despite some indications that Kramp-Karrenbauer might personally have tended toward a more conservative position on immigration, she adopted Merkel’s stance on Germany’s most divisive issue, promising generous immigration policies and a hard demarcation between the centrists in the CDU and the extremists in the Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Kramp-Karrenbauer always inhabited an untenable position—though Merkel’s personal popularity quickly rebounded after 2015’s refugee crisis, her party suffered; those to the right of center complained that her immigration policies were unreasonably generous and would drive Germany into both financial ruin and cultural disarray. Merkel’s progressive stance on immigration, meanwhile, was far from enough to entice left-of-center voters, whose furor over lackluster action on global warming, rising housing prices, and continued privatization rivals that of the right-wingers—though it’s rarely expressed with the same implicit violence.

Merkel’s ability to manage these tensions over the past few years depends on her political adroitness, yes, but also on her personal authority and the aura that attaches to her as the last member of the ancien régime. Even with those assets, Merkel’s party was on the decline when Kramp-Karrenbauer assumed its leadership. Merkel resigned her position as the head of the CDU after the party lost double digits in its share of the vote in regional elections in Bavaria and Hesse, leading to widespread discontent within the party. 

Kramp-Karrenbauer’s career was also riddled with unforced errors, though. One sometimes had the feeling that she had announced a culture war and nobody else came. When a German YouTube star attacked the CDU shortly before the European elections last May, she responded hyperbolically, claiming that his work was akin to propaganda; she compared same-sex marriage to incest, and she made juvenile jokes about intersex people. In the end, she seemed like a jester. Her reactionary sexual politics fell on deaf ears among German conservatives, even as they provoked outrage and fear among broad swaths of the public.

Kramp-Karrenbauer proved not only to be inept as a spokesperson for the party, however; she also revealed herself to be a poor manager of the CDU’s internecine squabbles. After disappointing results in the European elections last spring, Kramp-Karrenbauer lashed out at both leftists, who she alleged were eroding popular support for the Volksparteien that had held extremists at bay since World War II, and simultaneously the right-wing of her own party, who she accused of undermining the campaign’s messaging and unity. For Merkel, however, the last straw came when Kramp-Karrenbauer failed to maintain party discipline in the aftermath of regional elections in Thuringia. Because of a deeply divided electorate and the strength of the AfD, the state was unable to form a governing coalition after elections this past October. When the parliament met recently to appoint a leader for the state’s government, however, members of the CDU joined with members of the AfD to elect Thomas Kemmerich of the economically liberal Free Democratic Party to the position of minister-president, shattering a taboo that had barred extremist parties from participation in governing coalitions since World War II.

For all of Kramp-Karrenbauer’s failings, there was something comforting about her leadership of the CDU—though nicknames like “Merkel 2.0” and “Mini-Merkel” rubbed her the wrong way, it is easy to see why they were so popular for a while. If Kramp-Karrenbauer lacked Merkel’s stern competence, she had something of the chancellor’s earnestness and solidity. More importantly, however, she promised to continue a familiar legacy of governance. Whether a more talented politician might have been able to carry that legacy into one or more terms as chancellor is an open question. Even in the best of cases, however, it’s impossible to imagine that such governance would have been able to fully contain nativist resentment, ecological anxieties, and economic frustration. Like President Emmanuel Macron in France, Chancellor Kramp-Karrenbauer would likely have struggled to continue a legacy that seems increasingly inadequate in today’s world.

Since Kramp-Karrenbauer did blunder her way out of office, however, the future of the CDU—and of Germany more generally—has very much come up for debate. The three most popular contenders for the party’s leadership represent very different futures for the CDU.

Jens Spahn, the 39-year-old minister of health, bears a resemblance to the American presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg that extends beyond his age and sexual orientation. Like Buttigieg, Spahn promises a revitalization of the current consensus, with a nuanced position on immigration, progressive stances on LGTBQ+ rights, and a focus on efficiency and tax cuts. Spahn, however, despite arguably being a more accomplished politician than Buttigieg, lacks some of the latter’s wunderkind qualities, and his candidacy has failed to generate much excitement.

Moderate party insiders have focused hopes primarily on Armin Laschet, the head of the CDU in North Rhine-Westphalia, the country’s most populous state. Laschet has a knack for party politics, a reputation for pragmatic governance, and an ability to build broad coalitions. On immigration, he may be to the left even of Merkel—he made a widely publicized visit to a Jordanian refugee camp during the refugee crisis and has consistently argued for a humanitarian approach to refugees. He’s also positioned himself against austerity in Greece, arguing that drastic measures against Greece could only lead to a weakened European Union and increased opportunities for Russian influence to penetrate the continent. A CDU led by Laschet would almost certainly seek support in building a coalition government from the left, especially from the recently ascendant Greens.

If Spahn would stay the course and Laschet would veer a bit to the left, Friedrich Merz would tack hard to the right, pushing the CDU toward the AfD in an attempt to recapture voters that have fled to the populist right in past elections. Merz, an old rival of Merkel’s, left politics in 2009 after getting marginalized by the chancellor. In the interim, he led investment firm BlackRock’s German operations. Since announcing his return to politics in the race that led to Kramp-Karrenbauer’s appointment to the leadership of their party, Merz has been advocating radically restricted immigration policies, and he is regularly in the headlines for his critical stance toward Merkel’s leadership. In moments, he plays the populist to a T—pandering to nativist sentiments and promising large-scale tax rebates for average Germans. It’s also apparent, however, that the role isn’t native to him—he flubbed in the election against Kramp-Karrenbauer when he claimed that he considered himself to be a member of the upper-middle class, causing a late-night host to joke, “People who have more than one airplane probably aren’t middle class anymore.”

It’s also unclear how Merz would form a governing coalition. The center-left Social Democrats, already embattled for their coalitions with Merkel’s government, would almost certainly refuse to enter into a coalition with Merz. Indeed, Merz himself has renounced the possibility of a traditional grand coalition. It’s hard to imagine that the Greens could collaborate with him without bleeding votes to other left-wing parties. In the long run, then, he might have to make a modified argument about containing right-wing extremism—one that took the AfD’s votes to form a coalition even while promising to contain its most radical elements. In this case, it’s unclear who would be using whom. German anxiety about extremism has largely been effective in insulating the AfD thus far. Furthermore, the right-wing party lacks effective leadership. Though Björn Höcke, the leader of the party’s far-right splinter group, is often presented as a charismatic strongman, he remains divisive even within the AfD and is almost entirely despised outside of it.

Instead, it is ostensibly centrist leaders like Merz who present the greatest threat. That Germans would consider voting for a far-right leader should hardly surprise close observers of the country’s politics—an undercurrent of right-wing radicalism has always infected German politics, including in the CDU. Indeed, there are many figures in the party who may be to the right of Merz: Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, for example, or Hans-Georg Maaßen, the former head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s internal security agency. Furthermore, a number of long-term sociological investigations have found widespread support for right-wing radicalism within the German populace. That a centrist party like the CDU might be led by a politician making nativist claims and praising his own business acumen can hardly be seen as unprecedented, either within Germany or in the midst of a global shift to the right.

Merz bears another, more surprising similarity to other populist leaders, however: his entanglement in allegations of corruption. In the midst of his campaign against Kramp-Karrenbauer in 2018, the offices of BlackRock in Germany, which hired Merz in 2016, were raided for suspected complicity in a series of dividend-stripping schemes that defrauded European taxpayers of at least 55 billion euros, about $60 billion. Given the high value that Germans have traditionally placed on both honesty and fiscal responsibility, this might have seemed disqualifying for someone aspiring to become chancellor.

Yet the story barely registered. Merz’s stray remark about being middle class almost certainly hurt him more than the reasonable suspicion that he played an integral role in stealing billions of euros from German taxpayers. One feels certain that earlier generations of Germans would rather have demanded his head than elevated him to the head of state, but that may be no guide to the future. After all, who would have imagined that the leadership of the U.S. party with the most ardent Cold Warriors would eventually rush to forgive Russian interference in American elections?

Source: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/11/friedrich-merz-angela-merkel-akk-germany-chancellor/

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More than half of German residents are now skeptical about Chancellor Angela Merkel’s famously optimistic quote regarding the 2015 migrant crisis, a poll published by the Augsburger Allgemeine on Saturday found.

Read more: Refugees in Germany: From the boat to the Bundeskunsthalle

The survey, carried out by the polling firm Civey, asked the public about the statement “Wir schaffen das!” (We can do this) which Merkel made on August 31, 2015.

The comment was in response to questions about whether Germany could really handle the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants from conflict zones and poverty across Africa and the Middle East.

Support has grown

Of more than 5,000 people surveyed, more than 50% thought her statement was rather or fully inaccurate, while 37% said it had turned out to be completely inaccurate.

More than one in five people surveyed now agree she was right to be so optimistic.

Read more: Five years on: How Germany’s refugee policy has fared

Public opinion has become more favorable towards the chancellor’s stance since 2017 when the same question was asked. Then, 60% of respondents considered the quote rather or very inaccurate compared to just 34% who considered it rather or very accurate. In the most recent poll, this latter number had increased to 44%.

Party affiliation remains a strong indicator

In both surveys, opinion was cut across party lines with affiliates of the Green party being most supportive and those of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) more likely to disagree with the chancellor’s optimistic view.

Read more: Germany: African migrants injured in gang attack near far-right venue

While many countries along the Europe migrant route wanted to turn away the new arrivals, Merkel publicly offered temporary residence in Germany, which prompted large numbers of migrants to leave from refugee camps in Turkey and travel across Europe.

Over the next 18 months, more than 1.2 million people arrived in the country and her decision drew ire from some sections of the German population and members of her own party.

ab/mm (EPD, KNA)

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/half-of-germans-still-skeptical-about-merkels-migrant-stance-poll/a-54751678

The post Half of Germans still skeptical about Merkel’s migrant stance: poll first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Perhaps no other phrase uttered during Angela Merkel’s long chancellorship has made such an impact. The words “Wir schaffen das” (“We can do it”) were meant to express confidence in the face of a huge, self-imposed task. In a matter of a few weeks, 10,000 people had come to Germany, mostly via what became known as the Balkan route. Many of them, initially stuck in Hungary. The majority came from Syria, but others from North Africa, Iraq or Afghanistan.

Merkel let them enter Germany even though other EU member states were officially responsible for them under the Dublin Regulation, which stipulates that asylum-seekers must be registered in the first safe EU country they enter. Instead, Germany allowed people to cross the border first and have their asylum claims checked later.

Nearly half a million people applied for asylum in Germany in 2015, and another 750,000 the following year. The interior minister at the time, Thomas de Maiziere, admitted to public broadcaster ARD in mid-August this year that there had been “moments when control was lost.” His successor, Horst Seehofer, then premier of Bavaria, once called the situation in 2015 a “reign of injustice.”

Merkel’s political opposition voiced very different opinions about her actions, at least in retrospect. The Greens’ Irene Mihalic said, “It was right for the chancellor not to close the borders back then. The alternative would have been chaotic conditions in the heart of Europe with an incalculable potential for conflict.”

Refugees were made to wait for days to register with German authorities

Although Lars Castellucci, a parliamentarian for the Social Democratic Party (SPD), largely agreed with this view, he tempered it with some criticism: Germany should have consulted European partners more. “That causes us enormous difficulties even today,” he said.

Gottfried Curio of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is of course more vehement in his objections. “The realistic and responsible thing to do would have been to adhere to the law … If the people had been turned away from the outset, fewer of them would have set out on the journey and fewer would have drowned in the Mediterranean.”

Read more: Are Germany and the EU prepared for a new influx of refugees?

Approval and skepticism

Merkel’s memorable phrase put a lot of people on her side. Outside Germany, there was much approval for Merkel’s decision. The New York Times wrote on September 5, 2015, that Germany had “held out an open hand” to refugees. The broadcaster Al-Jazeera reported that “Germany has opened its doors and borders to all those searching for refuge and a safe haven.”

But some skeptics believed from the start that Germany was taking on more than it could handle. Others asked what exactly had to be done and whether the country should feel responsible for so many people from different cultures. Merkel’s decision divided the nation.

Castellucci, whose SPD party, as junior coalition partner, shared responsibility for implementing Merkel’s policy, would have liked the chancellor to have presented a more detailed plan: “She definitely should have said how we can do it and who has to do it. And then there should have been discussions about it in society,” he told DW. “That might have avoided the way supporters and opponents of our policy were so irreconcilably at odds with one another, to the benefit of populists.”

Germany’s “welcome culture” lasted several months after Merkel’s statement

The initial “welcome culture” that Merkel advocated dissipated on New Year’s Eve 2015/16, when women were assaulted by migrants in Cologne’s main railway station. Even before this, there were numerous xenophobic attacks on refugee shelters, showing how the mood in parts of the country was tipping.

The AfD profited from the discontent, seeing large increases in voter support in several state elections before becoming the Bundestag’s biggest opposition party in federal elections in 2017.

Merkel has always stood by her decision of 2015, but told a conference of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in December 2016 that a situation like the one in late summer 2015 “can, should and must not be repeated.” The German government introduced a more restrictive asylum policy, and from 2016, the number of asylum-seekers dropped mainly because countries along the Balkan route made it increasingly difficult for people to cross their borders.

Read more: Migrants stuck on EU doorstep: What is Germany doing?

Progress on integration

How well have those new arrivals been integrated in Germany? Migrants are still much less likely to have a job than the average German. Only around half the people who have come to Germany since 2013 have paid employment, according to a 2020 study by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). The generally upward trend is also now being canceled out by the coronavirus pandemic as many of those who fled their home countries for Germany are being laid off, the study found.

The difficulties on the job market also have an effect on criminality. Immigrants are disproportionately involved in violent crime including murder, manslaughter, assault and rape. But this is partly because many of the immigrants are young men who tend to be more frequently guilty of such offenses.

Bavarian State Premier Horst Seehofer remained critical of Merkel’s position, but stayed in government, and was eventually elevated to Federal Interior Minister

CDU domestic policy spokesperson Patrick Sensburg said a distinction must be made between asylum-seekers and those who want to come to Germany to work.

“For me, protection for refugees is primarily temporary protection,” he said. “Anyone wanting to come here to live and work on a permanent basis has other means of doing so if he or she has the necessary qualifications and accepts our values.”

German society remains divided over immigration policy. Around 60% of Germans believe that the country can cope well with the refugees while 40% believe the opposite. Political scientist Herfried Münkler said 2015 had “exposed a rift in German society” and radicalized politics. “The tendency towards the political center that we saw before came to an end,” he said.

Five years after Merkel’s famous statement, has German society really shown that it could cope with the challenge? Former Interior Minister de Maiziere said he feels that it has at least made significant progress. His party colleague Sensburg said Germany has “mastered the 2015 refugee crisis well, all in all.”

Irene Mihalic from the Green Party said she sees the task as still unfinished: “Integration doesn’t happen overnight, and we will keep having to work on it at all levels. But I am convinced that immigration is a great opportunity for Germany, particularly with regard to the labor market and demographic developments,” she says.

Studies by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) came to similar conclusions. They found Germany is on the way to success, while also pointing out that considerably more effort must still be made by both those who have sought refuge in Germany  and those who have offered it to them.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-five-years-after-the-refugee-crisis-whats-been-achieved/a-54660166

The post Germany: Five years after the refugee crisis, what’s been achieved? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

As Germany takes over the rotating presidency of the European Union (EU) this month, all eyes are on Berlin and expectations could hardly be higher. For some, the union’s largest member state is expected to do nothing short of “saving” the European project over the next six months—from the economic devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, an increasingly menacing geopolitical environment, and from Europe’s homemade failures, fragmentation, and institutional fragility born of the last decade. With multiple challenges coming to a head, this appears to be a moment of truth for the future trajectory of the EU, Germany’s leadership within it, and the legacy of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

However, even a cursory look at the agenda for the German presidency—much of it imposed by crisis, chance, and circumstance rather than made of Berlin’s own choosing—seems overwhelming for Germany’s reluctant conception of leadership and suggests lowering one’s expectations to avoid disappointment.

First on the docket are not one but two crucial, time-sensitive negotiations over who pays how much and who gets what, always among the EU’s most divisive questions. If the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and the centrifugal forces it could bring with it for the union are to be contained, the ‘crisis presidency’ will have to overcome deep divisions between the so-called “frugal four” (Austria, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands) and hard-hit southern member states led by Italy over the modalities for a €750 billion EU recovery fund. Disagreements over the plan bleed into negotiations for the EU’s next seven-year budget deal, the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), into which the recovery fund is to be embedded. That similarly acrimonious fight over money and priorities is significantly behind schedule given the 2021 start of the next budget cycle and will require significant brokering skills and political capital to resolve. Berlin will have to make significant progress on both by the August summer break, given a tight legislative timeline and the economic crisis.

As if the German presidency needed an even harder end boss after these two advanced levels (to use video game parlance), Boris Johnson and the critical phase of post-Brexit negotiations await after the summer. Reports suggest next to no progress in talks to date which face a hard deadline of December 31, 2020 and no realistic hope of anyone in London contemplating an extension anytime soon. Germany will have to help keep the twenty-seven EU member states united through the bargaining with, and likely brinkmanship of, a Johnson government which has shown little concern for a no-deal scenario.

In addition to this immediate crisis management, Berlin is expected to drive forward strategic EU initiatives meant to make Europe a more capable and competitive global actor. This includes integrating flagship efforts on digitalization and the EU green deal into recovery efforts; enhancing the union’s pandemic and public health toolbox; breaking through a five-year impasse on EU migration reform; and helping Europe reassert itself vis-à-vis China and others in a global environment of great power competition, made only more challenging by post-COVID uncertainty and the vacuum left by the absence of its traditional US ally.

Wind at Berlin’s back

High expectations of Germany stem from a variety of factors, even if they ignore the limits of the rotating presidency’s role under the Lisbon Treaty. Stereotypes of German efficiency apart, the EU’s largest economy accounting for nearly a fifth of its gross domestic product (GDP) and its largest population is taking over a leadership role at a critical juncture for the bloc. Germany’s governance and public health performance under the pressures of the pandemic stand out as close to a success story in Europe as COVID-19 may allow. Somewhat forgotten are Berlin’s initial decisions of export bans and border closures which drew heavy criticism from European partners. But above all perhaps are the prospects of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s crisis management at the helm of Germany’s presidency—a rare second EU presidency for a leader in an enlarged EU since her first turn in 2007—and the country’s apparent about-face on matters of EU financial solidarity.

Perhaps more than at any time since the 2015 migration crisis, Merkel exudes calm competence and control in her fifteenth year as German chancellor. Gone seem to be any hints of a lame-duck chancellorship since her 2018 decision to step down as leader of her center-right Christian Democrat Union (CDU) and the announcement that she would not run again in the 2021 federal election—a commitment she has been probed about more frequently in recent months but one she keeps insisting on.

Her own handling of the crisis and an open leadership contest for her succession that has faded into the background amid the pandemic have seen her personal approval rating reach an impressive 71 percent and given the CDU’s dismal pre-crisis polling a ten-plus percentage boost to around 38 percent. Nearly two-thirds of Germans approve of the grand coalition’s work, an uneasy alliance between Merkel’s CDU, her Bavarian sister party, and the struggling Social Democrats that looked ever-more fragile even just a few months ago. So, amid a convergence of crises for the EU, Europe’s longest-serving leader of the bloc’s largest economy assumes the helm, buoyed by domestic support, strong leadership in the pandemic, and legacy-building expectations abroad.

Much more stunning than the reversal of Merkel’s political fortunes amid an unprecedented crisis is the U-turn Germany appears to have made on fiscal policy. As late as early March 2020, in the face of the encroaching COVID-19 pandemic, any talk of stimulus spending and Eurobonds met with the familiar “Nein” from fiscal hawks in Berlin. A few weeks later, however, the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to have achieved what successive French presidents, coalitions of EU member states, and economic Nobel Prize laureates from Paul Krugman to Joseph Stiglitz could only dream of—get Germany and its fiscal conservatives to drop a near-religious opposition to debt and deficits and adopt the largest rescue package in its postwar history. Within a few weeks, the country best known from Athens to Rome for its finger-wagging ordo-liberalism seemed to have turned Keynesian. With opposition support and overwhelming public approval, the German government adopted a €750 billion ($848 billion) rescue package and supplemental budget that combined significant new debt, measures to fight COVID-19 with broader economic stabilization, and stimulus spending, one of the largest plans in Europe if not globally at around 27 percent of GDP. By June, a second package of €130 billion ($147 billion) worth of tax cuts and payments followed.

Similarly surprising to many observers was the joint proposal by Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron for the aforementioned €500 billion ($565 billion) EU rescue fund that included joint debt issuance by the EU. This turnaround from Berlin’s opposition to Eurobonds as late as March of this year caught many by surprise, leading some to speak of a “Hamiltonian moment” for the EU. Given long-standing German abhorrence of debt mutualization in the union, the country seems well-placed in its broker role as the EU presidency to convince skeptics like the frugal four—among a coalition of member states that have often ended up on Germany’s side in these debates in the past—that special times required special measures. Merkel’s apparent reversal on such a fundamental issue in the home stretch of her chancellorship have also made her the subject of a somewhat American debate about a concern for her political legacy that is usually said to drive second-term US presidents.

Why Germany may come up short

But apart from the sheer number and complexity of challenges facing Germany in this role and the limited political capital at the disposal of even the most influential EU presidencies, a different type of legacy may undercut Merkel’s best—and possibly too little too late—intentions. Domestic challenges of her own making could be the biggest obstacle in meeting expectations abroad for transformative leadership in the EU at a time when German decisionmakers are realizing that they could have a historical role in fighting to “maintain EU integration as such.” The “one-sided narrative of Germany being Europe’s paymaster,” one that Merkel and much of the country’s mainstream political and media elites have fueled all too willingly for more than a decade since the beginning of the euro crisis, could come back to haunt Germany’s ability to step up at a critical moment for Europe.

Part of that narrative is a distinct failure to prompt a more fundamental, long overdue debate with the German public about the country’s role and leadership in the EU and globally. That debate cannot just be about what is “financially undesirable” about the European project but has to focus on what is “politically necessary” for a country that depends on a viable, cohesive EU for its economic competitiveness and global influence more than most powers of its size, as a Munich Security Conference briefing puts it succinctly.

Another dimension of that narrative and its accompanying failures is the party-political environment that both have paved the way for. A little more than a year before a federal election, the nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) that was founded as a euroskeptic party and has lost the most ground as a result of Merkel and the CDU’s resurgence during the pandemic will look for opportunities to attack the Christian Democrats on the right should the chancellor step too far out of the bounds of Germany’s fiscal orthodoxy during the EU presidency. Fiscal hawks in Merkel’s own CDU who have shown few signs of conversion to her new approach will also be watching carefully how her decisions may impact their party’s electability in the fall of 2021 as Merkel’s persuasive powers as an outgoing chancellor are limited.

There are still some signs of hope that Germany can muster the will to do what is necessary for the EU and eurozone to recover from the crisis and use its presidency to help set the union on a path of sustainability. There seems to be a recognition of this critical juncture for Europe. Germany’s public, and its younger generation in particular, appears to grasp the moment of truth more than some of the country’s political elites do. In a recent reputable poll, nearly 70 percent of Germans support the EU rescue plan, almost 60 percent think mutualized debt instruments are “acceptable” in the current circumstances, and 54 percent believe the EU should deepen its cooperation.

If Germany achieves a breakthrough on even one of the big-ticket items of its presidency, it is despite the chancellor and its political elites’ legacy of European policy over the last decade. Those betting wisely would do best to lower expectations for a Germany that has yet to have a moment of truth with itself about its role in Europe and the world.

Jörn Fleck is associate director at the Atlantic Council’s Future Europe Initiative.

Source: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/berlin-takes-over-the-eu-presidency-lower-your-expectations/

The post Berlin takes over the EU presidency: Lower your expectations first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The number of right-wing extremists active in Germany rose significantly in 2019, the Berlin-based Tagesspiegel newspaper reported on Monday.

Germany’s federal domestic intelligence service (BfV) and the state-level intelligence services identified over 32,200 right-wing extremists this year, the paper reported, citing information gathered from security sources.

That figure is a third higher compared to 2018, when authorities counted 24,100 people involved in right-wing extremist networks.

One of the main reasons for the spike is due to the BfV including groups affiliated with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) for the first time in its count of right-wing extremists.

In January this year, the BfV took aim at the extreme-right faction of the AfD known as “Der Flügel” (The Wing) as well as the party’s youth wing “Junge Alternative” (Young Alternative) over suspected extremism.

According to Tagesspiegel, authorities included 7,000 members of the “Der Flügel” in its right-wing extremist count, as well as 1,000 members of the “Junge Alternative.”

Read more: German authorities to expand crackdown on right-wing extremists.

Far-right groups included in extremist count

In January, the BfV declared both AfD-affiliated groups “suspected cases” of right-wing extremism, increasing observation to investigate whether they pose a threat to constitutional order.

The designation means that the BfV can save personal data on members of the AfD groups and use undercover informants and other intelligence methods to collect information.

The BfV stopped short of classifying the entire AfD as a “test case” for increased observation after a court ruled that authorities failed to justify the designation.

The anti-immigration AfD has been criticized for fostering an atmosphere of hate in Germany that encourages political violence.

This year also saw several deadly incidents involving suspected right-wing extremists in Germany, including an attack outside a synagogue in the eastern city of Halle that killed two people in October. Pro-immigration politician Walter Lübcke was also shot and killed by a neo-Nazi extremist in June.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-number-of-right-wing-extremists-rose-by-a-third-in-2019/a-51698446

The post Germany: Number of right-wing extremists rose by a third in 2019 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.