Germany’s new leader has pledged continuity with his predecessor Angela Merkel, who stepped down Wednesday after 16 years in power.

Scholz took power with a disparate new coalition of ecologist Greens and business-friendly Free Democrats, which has agreed to strengthen Europe’s “strategic sovereignty”.

In keeping with tradition, his first official trip will take him to France where he will meet President Emmanuel Macron.

He will continue on to Brussels for meetings with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president Charles Michel ahead of a bloc summit next week.

The European response to the pandemic and the climate crisis, growing calls for a diplomatic boycott of the Olympics in China and the Russian troop build-up on Ukraine’s border are set to dominate discussions.

Scholz on Thursday already warned Moscow of “consequences” for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a Russian project to deliver natural gas to Germany and a major source of friction with many partners.

As Western powers threaten punishing new sanctions against Moscow, the project could soon play a central role.

“With Nord Stream 2, Germany has the big geopolitical weapon in its hand without ever having sought it,” said analyst Ulrich Speck of the German Marshall Fund.

Laying the groundwork for the visit, new Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock of the Greens said in Paris Thursday that Berlin would set its stance on Russia and China in close consultation with European allies.

She praised French plans to reform carbon taxation when Paris assumes the EU presidency in January, while hailing the 2015 Paris climate accord as a “stellar moment in international diplomacy”.

Baerbock stressed her ministry would now “help take the lead” for Berlin on future multilateral climate initiatives, as she underlined the centrality of the rule of law and human rights in the EU ahead of a stop in Poland Friday.

However, she acknowledged that Germany, which will close all of its atomic power plants by next year for safety reasons, did not see eye-to-eye with France in its bid to name nuclear as a suitable energy source to meet Europe’s net-zero climate goal.

Scholz, a centrist Social Democrat, is a known entity, having served as Merkel’s finance minister and vice chancellor.

Although he long backed Germany’s trademark budget austerity goals, he threw his weight behind massive government spending to help Europe cope with the pandemic — going further than Merkel.

“Europe senses that Scholz is more likely to continue the Merkel course on the European Stability and Growth Pact” and its strict debt rules, said Anne Gellinek of public broadcaster ZDF.

Scholz is expected to face renewed calls for Germany to match its economic weight with more responsibility in global security affairs.

The new coalition pact makes no mention of the pledge for all NATO member states to commit two percent of their GDP to defence by 2024.

Instead, it will commit “in the long run” three percent of spending to the military, diplomacy and development aid, a clause already attacked by Merkel’s conservatives, now in opposition, as a “sham”.

French Foreign Minister Yves Le Drian asked Thursday for stronger German support in foreign missions, including operations against jihadist groups in the Sahel region, saying Berlin had “an important role to play”.

Political scientist Andrea Roemmele of the Hertie School of Governance expects closer cooperation with Paris on security policy under Scholz.

But with the French presidential elections looming next year, Berlin will likely “take a wait-and-see stance” on projects, particularly given the threat of a strong showing for the far right.

The Barron’s news department was not involved in the creation of the content above. This story was produced by AFP. For more information go to AFP.com.

Source: https://www.barrons.com/news/new-german-chancellor-scholz-makes-european-debut-01639102209?refsec=afp-news

The post New German Chancellor Scholz Makes European Debut first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Boris Johnson speaks during a news conference on the final day of the G7 summit in the UK. Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA/Bloomberg

British prime minister Boris Johnson has said he will do “whatever it takes” to protect the territorial integrity of the UK after his dispute with the EU about implementing the Northern Ireland protocol overshadowed a summit of world leaders in Cornwall.

Mr. Johnson and British foreign secretary Dominic Raab claimed that European leaders at the G7 summit questioned the North’s position as part of the UK.

The prime minister said he would not hesitate to suspend the protocol by triggering article 16 if the EU does not agree to implement the agreement in a way that is less intrusive in terms of checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea from Britain to the North.

“Of course we make the point continuously we are part of one great, indivisible United Kingdom, ” he told a press conference at the end of the G7 summit.

“What I am saying is that we will do whatever it takes to protect the territorial integrity of the UK.”

In a series of meetings on Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Angela Merkel, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president Charles Michel confronted Mr Johnson over his failure to implement the protocol, a part of the EU-UK Brexit withdrawal agreement that gives the North a special post-Brexit trading status.

They warned him that further unilateral action by Britain on the protocol could trigger retaliatory action and urged him to dial down the rhetoric about the dispute.

Downing Street briefed journalists that when Mr Johnson asked Mr Macron how he would feel if sausages from Toulouse could not move freely to Paris, the French president said it was not comparable with the Northern Ireland situation because both cities were in the same country.

“We have serially seen senior EU figures talk about Northern Ireland as if it was some kind of different country to the UK. It is not only offensive, it has real-world effects on the communities in Northern Ireland, creates great concern, great consternation,” Mr. Raab told Sky News.

Fulfil obligations

Mr. Macron said after the summit that Britain should fulfil the obligations it signed up to 18 months ago when it agreed to the protocol as part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement.

“My wish, my will is that we succeed – we succeed collectively – to put into operation what we decided upon a few months ago,” he said.

“I’m doing things very calmly. I believe that as far as this subject matter is concerned everybody has got to come back to reason.”

Ministers and officials in Dublin are worried that the diplomatic clash over the protocol could inflame tensions in the North and threaten the power-sharing institutions at Stormont, where Sinn Féin and the DUP are already at loggerheads amid a need to nominate a new first and deputy first minister when Arlene Foster steps down imminently.

Speaking to Sky News, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said a breakthrough between the EU and UK was still possible “if there’s a will there on both sides”. While calling for compromise on both sides, Mr. Martin also expressed the EU’s frustration with the British approach to the protocol.

“If there’s consistent, unilateral deviation from that agreement, that clearly undermines the broader relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom, which is in nobody’s interest and therefore that’s why the UK with the EU have to work very hard now in the coming weeks,” he said.

Source: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/european-leaders-confront-boris-johnson-over-failure-to-implement-ni-protocol-1.4592402

The post European leaders confront Boris Johnson over failure to implement NI protocol first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.