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Merkel meets her match

The Irish Times — Mon, 05 Apr 2021 03:21:48 +0000

Germany in the pandemic

Even by Angela Merkel’s own tastes, the last act of Germany’s opera-loving chancellor is bursting with high drama. After nearly 16 years astride the political stage, mastering financial and political crises with her left hand while governing Europe’s largest country with her right, the unflappable physicist of power has met her match in an invisible virus.

When she isn’t haggling over vaccines with the EU’s 26 other leaders, Merkel has to contend with the political priorities and egos of Germany’s 16 state leaders. They – not Berlin’s chancellor – carry front-line competence for pandemic priorities like health and education. Given that, Merkel has done a remarkable job using her political gravitas as leverage in talks.

But she has little direct control over Germany’s chaotic vaccination strategy. Even without shortages in vaccines, each federal state has insisted on its own rollout strategy, creating 16 potential ways to get it wrong.

Things are no less chaotic in Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Three years after she stood down as leader, half a dozen members of the center-right parliamentary party thought a global pandemic, triggering a global run on protective equipment, was the right time to monetize their political connections.

Party leaders acted quickly to dismiss them, and prosecutors are investigating, but it has left voters wondering if these were isolated episodes of political brain fog. Until last month’s revelations, the CDU blocked repeated opposition efforts to beef up Germany’s lax lobby and donation rules.

With a whiff of sleaze in the air, new CDU leader Armin Laschet is spending the Easter break reflecting on his diminishing political options. When he was elected in January, he thought he had first refusal on leading his party, and their Bavarian allies, the CSU, to election day on September 26th. But the graft revelations and perceived pandemic dithering have hit his credibility hard, and his party even harder. After tipping 40 percent in polls during the first pandemic wave, the CDU has slipped six points in a month to just 27 percent in a public television poll.

Speculation is growing that, barring an Easter miracle, Laschet will stand aside and allow Bavaria’s CSU leader Markus Söder front the election campaign.

With six months to polling day, Germany’s alternative coalition options are looking more realistic by the day, with the Greens and Social Democratic Party (SPD) looking remarkably healthy and alert.

But there is little room for Schadenfreude among Germany’s neighbours: the struggles of this country, and its largest party, to adjust to the post-Merkel era are coming soon to the pandemic-hit European Union.

Source: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorial/merkel-meets-her-match-1.4528291

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Austria: Antifa demonstrators try to block deportation of migrant criminals, including rapists

REMIX — Sun, 28 Feb 2021 00:12:31 +0000

Up to 50 people blocked a street and demanded a right to stay for those who were being deported despite convictions for rape, robbery, and other serious crimes.

Refugee workers in Vienna tried to prevent the deportation of several rejected asylum seekers to Afghanistan, including those convicted of rape and other serious crimes earlier this week.

Up to 50 people, including members of the left-wing extremist group “Autonomen Antifa Wien”, blocked a street and demanded a right to stay for those who were being deported, according to Austria’s Heute web portal. A major traffic jam formed in the direction of downtown Vienna, forcing the police to step in and clear the blockade.

Beyond Europe@beyondeurope

Activists from Vienna show how to stop deportations to Afghanistan. From Lesvos to Vienna – fight fortress Europe

As reported by the news portal Heute, the rejected asylum seekers included several men who had committed serious crimes in the past. Of the 37 people who were deported, 11 had already been convicted of one or more crimes.

For example, three men were found guilty of attempted and committed rape. There were also crimes such as coercion, bodily harm, dangerous threats, deprivation of liberty, robbery, theft, damage to property, resistance to state power, and violations of Austria’s Narcotics Act.

However, the Antifa protests were unsuccessful. The rejected asylum seekers were deported to Afghanistan with the help of the EU border protection organization Frontex.

The Viennese protests commemorate the case of a young Afghan who entered the country illegally and was supposed to be deported from Nuremberg in 2017. At that time, too, a larger group, including supporters of the left-wing extremist movement Antifa tried to prevent his deportation. During their arrest, the Afghan had threatened that he would be back in Germany in a month and kill Germans.

In the case of Vienna, too, one of the deportees threatened several people with death. He had announced that he would kill the authorities and any judges who were involved with rejecting his asylum application.

In January, the deportation of three families to Georgia and Armenia caused a dispute in Austria’s governing coalition made up of the Austrian People’s Party and the Greens. While the latter condemned the measure, Interior Minister Karl Nehammer for the People’s Party defended the deportation.

Source: https://rmx.news/article/article/austria-antifa-demonstrators-try-to-block-deportation-of-migrant-criminals-including-rapists

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Post-war ‘taboo broken’ as far right becomes German state kingmaker

Paul Carrel — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 05:42:05 +0000

Berlin: A German state premier was elected with the support of the nationalist Alternative for Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives on Wednesday, shattering the post-war consensus among established parties of shunning the far right.

Thomas Kemmerich, a little-known liberal Free Democrat, became the first state premier elected with the support of the AfD, with whom Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats sided to the disgust of her national coalition partners.

AfD parliamentary party leader Bjoern Hoecke, right, shakes hands with Thomas Kemmerich of the Free Democrats, in Erfurt, Germany.CREDIT: AP

The CDU and all the other established parties have previously ostracised the AfD over what they say are racist views held by some of its members.

Merkel’s Social Democrat national coalition allies accused her CDU of backtracking on a pledge never to cooperate with a far-right party. The CDU rejected the accusation, saying it was not responsible for how AfD lawmakers voted. Wednesday’s ballot was secret.

“The events in Thuringia break a taboo in the history of political democracy in the Federal Republic,” SPD Finance Minister Olaf Scholz tweeted. “Very serious questions arise for us with the CDU’s federal leadership.”

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, leader of the German Christian Democrats.CREDIT: GETTY

The unprecedented alliance provoked outrage from across the political spectrum and put on the spot CDU party leader and Merkel’s heir apparent, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who had sworn off any cooperation with the AfD.

AKK, as she’s known, disavowed the state party’s decision and urged Thuringia to hold a new election.

“This is not a good day – not for Thuringia, not for Germany’s political system,” she told reporters during a visit to Strasbourg, DPA reported. Meanwhile, protesters gathered in front of CDU headquarters in Berlin.

The leader of the FDP, Christian Lindner, said his party would never cooperate with the AfD and instead would seek to form an alternative coalition government.

Die Linke’s Susanne Hennig-Wellsow, right, walks away from Thomas Kemmerich of the Free Democrats, after throwing a bouquet of flowers in front of him, in Erfurt, Germany.CREDIT: AP

The shock vote in Thuringia reveals how the AfD has upended German politics with its presence in all of Germany’s 16 states. The eurosceptic populists gained momentum on wide-spread discontent with Merkel’s immigration policy, which opened the door to more than 1 million mostly Syrian refugees.

“The vote on the new premier minister in the state of Thuringia marks a new milestone in German politics and bears the potential of more shockwaves in national politics,” said ING economist Carsten Brzeski.

Kemmerich won 45-44 against Bodo Ramelow, the outgoing premier of The Left party. Ramelow’s leftist coalition failed to secure a majority in an October regional election.

Kemmerich, whose FDP is the smallest party in the regional assembly, said he would launch talks with the CDU, SPD, and Greens on forming a government.

SPD national leader Norbert Walter-Borjans spoke of an “unforgivable dam burst, triggered by the CDU and FDP”.

Source: https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/post-war-taboo-broken-as-far-right-becomes-german-state-kingmaker-20200206-p53y8t.html

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Angela Merkel’s future in doubt as Germany’s coalition partners hold crisis talks

Sam Meredith — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 01:47:15 +0000

KEY POINTS

Andrea Nahles, the leader of Germany’s junior coalition partner, the Social Democrats (SPD), announced her resignation on Sunday.
The surprise move has sparked concerns that Merkel’s government might collapse over the coming months.
“Andrea Nahles has made a far-reaching decision both for herself personally as well as for the Social Democratic Party of Germany,” Merkel told reporters on Sunday.

A deepening leadership crisis in Germany could soon bring about the premature end of Angela Merkel’s reign as chancellor, analysts told CNBC on Monday.

Andrea Nahles, the leader of Germany’s junior coalition partner, the Social Democrats (SPD), announced her resignation on Sunday. The surprise move has sparked concerns that Merkel’s government might collapse over the coming months.

Nahles has faced criticism from some lawmakers within her center-left party, after finishing third behind Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Greens, in European elections last month.

The coalition between the CDU and SPD is set to last until federal elections in 2021, but political analysts have warned Nahles’ resignation could lead to the SPD leaving over the coming weeks, triggering a snap election.

Merkel, who plans to step down as chancellor in 2021 having already resigned as CDU leader late last year, has vowed to carry on despite the coalition setback.

“Andrea Nahles has made a far-reaching decision both for herself personally as well as for the Social Democratic Party of Germany,” Merkel told reporters on Sunday.

“I would like to say on behalf of the government, we will continue the government’s work with all seriousness. We will above all do it with a great sense of responsibility,” Merkel said.

The SPD and CDU parties both held separate crisis talks on Monday.

‘Death by a thousand cuts’
Nahles was the most vocal supporter of the SPD’s reluctant decision to form a third so-called “grand coalition” with Merkel’s conservatives — a role the party has taken in 10 of the past 14 years.

However, that decision has been punished by voters at the ballot box. A disastrous result in the European elections was followed by the SPD being toppled in its stronghold city of Bremen late last month.

If Nahles’ resignation culminates in the SPD deciding to withdraw from the grand coalition, the fall of the government would most likely trigger fresh elections.

Andrea Nahles, former chairwoman of the SPD, is leaving the SPD party headquarters, the Willy Brandt House, after her resignation from the party chairmanship at the extraordinary closed-door meeting of the SPD executive board, and is speaking to journalists. Bernd von Jutrczenka | picture alliance via Getty Images

The left wing of the SPD has been pushing the party to pull out of the coalition since it entered into government last year. They argue compromising with Merkel’s CDU party has cost them support.

“The deepening leadership crisis in Germany’s centre-left SPD accentuates the risk that the party may walk out of the coalition with the centre-right CDU/CSU later this year,” Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg, said in a research note published Monday.

“That would spell the premature end of Angela Merkel’s reign as chancellor,” Schmieding said, before adding he believed there was a 40% probability of that happening before 2020.

A snap federal election or the search to form a new coalition government are thought to be unappealing prospects for the SPD and the CDU.

A fresh national vote or the search for a new coalition government could both hasten Merkel’s departure as chancellor, a subject of growing speculation since she handed over leadership of the CDU to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer last year.

“Given the new impetus for the SPD to embark on a journey of renewal, it is increasingly likely SPD members will decide to leave the grand coalition and reconfigure the party’s strategy as part of the opposition.” Nora Happel, researcher at Eurasia Group, said in a research note published Monday.

“Although new elections are immediate political suicide for the SPD, remaining in the coalition would be equivalent to death by a thousand cuts. More and more SPD members have now come to this realisation and believe the first option comes with a higher chance of revival.”

“This grand coalition has always been an unhappy one. With both legs now clearly in turmoil, an early break up seems likely this year,” Happel said, before adding the chances of an early coalition break-up currently stands at 55%.

Merkel and the SPD ‘companions in fate’
On Wednesday, Merkel dismissed a report that said she believed her successor as CDU party leader was not up to the job. The claim, which Merkel said was nonsense, was made by two unidentified sources in a Bloomberg article on Tuesday.

When asked whether SPD’s political struggles had weakened the position of Merkel going forwards, Olaf Boehnke, senior advisor at Rasmussen Global, replied: “Definitely.”

“I see Angela Merkel and the SPD as companions in fate. It was always clear that if one of the two actually were to lose this battle then the other is gone as well,” he told CNBC’s Annette Weisbach on Monday.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/03/germany-merkels-future-in-doubt-as-coalition-partners-hold-crisis-talks.html

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Europe starts to fray at the seams

Melanie Phillips — Fri, 31 May 2019 22:45:46 +0000

No one can tell how this great battle for national identity and culture will end, though Jewish populations are likely to find themselves in the firing line from all sides.

The European parliament elections last week have provided further graphic evidence that Britain and Europe are in the throes of a profound political and cultural upheaval.

In Britain, Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party pulverized both Labour and the Conservatives by winning many more seats than either to become the largest single party in the European parliament – within just five weeks of being created.

Since Farage’s party stands for Britain leaving the European Union with no withdrawal deal, many Conservatives rightly believe that whoever they elect as their new leader (and therefore Britain’s prime minister) in the wake of Theresa May’s resignation will need to endorse a no-deal departure to have any chance of saving the party from total destruction.

That’s because they understand from this electoral meltdown that the fury of their mainly Brexit-supporting voters over the Conservative government’s failure to honor the 2016 referendum vote, exacerbated by the refusal of the Remainer-dominated parliament to leave with no deal, is off the scale.

Among other EU countries, which are similarly witnessing a revolt by the people against the erosion of their democratic independence and social cohesion, these elections produced a parallel collapse of mainstream parties and a rise of “populist” nationalists.

Many Jews have greeted these developments with unbridled horror. In Europe, they see the “populist” tide as threatening the resurgence of fascism and anti-Semitism. In Britain, Jewish community leaders try to paint Nigel Farage as an ally of the far-right and as an anti-Semite.

These reactions range from the grossly oversimplified, blinkered and ignorant to the grotesque.

Farage is no anti-Semite. He has repeatedly attacked the anti-Jewish policies of countries that ban Israeli Jews from entering. Remarks he has made about “globalists” and the “new world order” have been wrenched out of context to suggest falsely that he was talking about Jews rather than the EU. Other remarks about the Israel lobby in America have been similarly cherry-picked and distorted.

Farage, a friend of U.S. President Donald Trump, is himself a somewhat Trumpian figure – a loudmouth who is careless about both his language and the company he keeps,, rough-hewn round the edges.

Of course, his association with President Trump is enough by itself to finish him off in the minds of many Trump-hating Jews, for whom the most pro-Jewish, pro-Israel individual ever to have inhabited the White House looms nightmarishly instead as a supposed eminence grise to the Ku Klux Klan.

In mainland Europe, however, the situation is more complicated. The mainstream media, along with many Jews, tends to view all who want to uphold their country’s culture and democratic independence as “far-right” nationalists.

Some of these upstart parties are indeed troubling. In Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) has Nazi origins.

In Austria, a corruption scandal involving the leader of the Freedom Party, which was part of the governing coalition despite its neo-Nazi links, has now brought the government down. Yet despite the furor, the Freedom Party’s voter support has remained broadly stable.

Hungary’s undeniably illiberal leader Viktor Orbán perceives that liberalism threatens the survival of his country by undermining its bedrock values, such as the family and cultural traditions.

Both Hungary and Poland are led by nationalists who are defending the integrity of their countries that was sacrificed to Hitler and Stalin. They resist Muslim immigration because they don’t want their populations to suffer the social disruption and dangers with which mass Muslim migration is now so obviously blighting other European countries.

Certainly, Hungary and Poland are themselves still riddled with anti-Semitism; and yet, right now, Hungary is arguably the safest country in Europe for Jews.

So why are so many getting so much of this so wrong? There are a number of reasons. First, there’s the implacable refusal to acknowledge that so many Muslims refuse to assimilate into Western culture. There’s a parallel refusal to acknowledge the rampant anti-Semitism they have brought with them, which is causing violence and intimidation against Jews across Western Europe.

Second, there is the stubborn insistence that the main threat of anti-Semitism is on “the right” when all the evidence suggests that the far bigger problem is on the left.

Progressive circles are institutionally anti-Jew, often (but by no means always) expressed through anti-Zionism. In Britain, the Labour Party is now being formally investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which has received thousands of examples of Jew-hatred by party members.

The Greens, those populists of the left who also did well in the European elections, have a persistent problem with anti-Jewish prejudice. Britain’s Campaign Against Antisemitism cites Green Party members airing conspiracy theories about Jewish money-controlling politics, “Zionist pedophile rings,” or links between Israel and both Nazism and the Islamic State group.

In the United States, The New York Times recently bemoaned the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe, though suggested that President Trump and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu were helping fuel it.

This was preposterous on many counts – not least that one of the institutions that can reasonably be said to be helping fuel western anti-Semitism is The New York Times.

Its international edition recently published a disgusting cartoon depicting Netanyahu as a dog wearing a Star of David collar, leading a kippa clad President Trump.

A short while before that, its literary pages published a review by novelist Alice Walker recommending a book by the virulent anti-Semite and conspiracy theorist David Icke. All this quite apart from the obsessional lengths to which the paper goes to demonize, dehumanize and delegitimize Israel, which it singles out alone in the world for such treatment.

In Germany, where the Commissioner for Jewish Life, Felix Klein, recently warned Jews not to wear a kippa in public, the huge increase in anti-Jewish attacks is officially blamed on the rise of the far-right.

Yet among German Jews who have experienced anti-Semitic harassment, many believe their assailants were Muslim extremists. According to Klein, the official line is unreliable because when it’s unclear who the perpetrators are, the authorities automatically classify them as far-right.

The third mistake being made is to assume that nationalism means fascism and anti-Semitism.

But it wasn’t nationalism that led to Nazism. A lethal cocktail of resentment, humiliation and racial theories fueled not German nationalism but Nazi imperialism, the desire to subjugate or destroy other countries and cultures.

If Britain hadn’t had such a strong sense of national identity in 1940, it would never have stood alone against Hitler.

It’s where national culture and identity are weak or denied altogether that anti-Semitism roars out of control. Far from the EU being a bulwark against all this, its erosion of national identity and democracy are actually incubating it.

The desire of the vast majority to uphold their nation’s culture, with democratically elected legislatures passing laws reflecting that shared national project, is not a route to the destruction of liberty, tolerance and decency. It is, in fact, the only way to defend them.

No one can tell how this great battle for national identity and culture will end. But in the all-too likely chaos, the Jews, alas, are likely to find themselves in the firing line from all sides.

Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/europe-starts-to-fray-at-the-seams/

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Germany to soften ‘advertising’ ban on abortions

The Japan Times — Tue, 29 Jan 2019 03:53:14 +0000

BERLIN – Germany’s coalition government agreed in principle Tuesday to soften a Nazi-era law that bars medical doctors from advertising abortion services.

Gynecologists, hospitals and public health services will now be allowed to share essential information about where and how women can terminate unwanted pregnancies.

The bill is expected to be approved by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Cabinet on Feb. 6 and then pass both houses of parliament.

German law allows abortions but effectively discourages them through various hurdles, including the law in question, article 219a, which dates to May 1933, shortly after Adolf Hitler assumed full powers of Nazi Germany.

Last year gynecologist Kristina Haenel was fined €6,000 ($6,800) for breaking the law by publishing information on abortion services on her website.

The case revived an emotional debate in the coalition government led by Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU).

Junior partners the Social Democrats (SPD) wanted the article scrapped, a demand backed by leftist opposition parties the Greens and Die Linke.

In the end the ruling parties reached a compromise that many read as a defeat for the SPD.

Health Minister Jens Spahn of the CDU said women needed access to crucial information but added that abortions should not be advertised because they are “not a medical procedure like any other.”

Andrea Nahles, the SPD leader, nonetheless welcomed the agreement, tweeting that “women are finally getting the information they need.”

The draft bill seen by AFP would allow federal health authorities and the German Medical Association to publish nationwide lists of doctors who perform abortions.

In other changes, the age limit for women entitled to free contraceptives would be raised from 20 to 22 years, and training on performing abortions will be expanded for medical students.

Greens Party co-chief Annalena Baerbock criticized the compromise deal, arguing that it signals lingering “distrust” of a woman’s ability to choose.

Linke party lawmaker Cornelia Moehring similarly charged that, by refusing to scrap the article outright, the government was continuing to treat abortion as “a grubby issue” and a “taboo subject.”

Germany, despite being a leading voice for women’s rights in the 1970s, imposes tight restrictions on abortion, permitting it only under strictly regulated circumstances.

It is left out of universities’ course books for student doctors and kept unavailable in swathes of the country.

A woman who wants to abort within the first trimester is required to attend a consultation at a registered centre.

The aim of the interview is to “incite the woman to continue the pregnancy,” according to the rules, even if in the end she has the final say.

Excluding special circumstances such as a pregnancy that threatens the life of the mother, or one arising from rape, abortion is not a procedure that is reimbursable by health insurance.

In some regions, including in the predominantly Catholic state of Bavaria, it may be necessary to travel 100 kilometers to find a doctor who performs the procedure.

Germany records an average of 100,000 abortions for 790,000 births, about half the rate of neighboring France.

Source: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/01/29/world/social-issues-world/germany-soften-advertising-ban-abortions/#.XFEf_lxKiUk

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MERKEL ON BRINK: Chancellor facing SECOND election beating in Hesse as AfD support soars

Alice Scarsi — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 07:09:09 +0000

ANGELA Merkel faces a second defeat in less than two weeks as polls show a massive drop in the support to the Chancellor’s party in the state of Hesse – while far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) looks set to be represented in all the states.

The German Chancellor’s party, the CDU, is to receive only 26 percent of the votes at the upcoming state election in Hesse, according to a survey by pollster Forschungsgruppe Wahlen for broadcaster ZDF.

This would represent a 12 percent drop for Mrs Merkel’s party compared to the Chancellor’s results in the region’s last election in 2013, when the party won 38.3 percent of the seats.

The Social Democrats (SPD), one of Mrs Merkel’s government allies at a national level,is predicted to fall to 20 percent, far below its result of 30.7 percent in 2013, the survey showed.

While the SPD and the CDU’s popularity is falling, the Greens and the AfD are booming.

The Greens will be the big winner in the federal state, the poll showed, jumping into second place with 22 percent support, right after the CDU.

The AfD could gain as much as 12 percent of the votes, a result that would make the party be represented in all state parliaments of Germany for the first time.

A similar outcome would force Mrs Merkel’s party to seek a three-party coalition, as it has happened already in the national parliament after the September 2017 election.

The CDU is likely to form a coalition with Greens and liberal FDP, dubbed ‘Jamaica’ because these parties’ colours match the Jamaican national flag.

Angela Merkel faces a defeat at the state election in Hesse (Image: GETTY)

The FDP’s support looks set to gather 8 percent of the votes, according to the poll.

But a successful outcome of such talks is far from being certain, as Mrs Merkel saw negotiations on forming a Jamaica government at the national level collapsing earlier this year, before she struck a deal with the CDU’s sister party CSU and SDP.

Hesse, a central Germany state home to the financial centre of Frankfurt, will vote on October 28, 14 days after the Bavarian election that saw the CSU suffering its weakest election performance since 1950 in a state vote, losing 16 seats, while the SDP lost 20 seats.

Their losses paved the way to a big win for the Greens and the AfD, who respectively gained 20 and 22 seats in the regional parliament.

Mrs Merkel would be left extremely weakened by a second defeat at the ballot, both at a national level and within her own party.

Angela Merkel’s party looks set to lose 12 percent of the seats at the October 28 elections (Image: GETTY)

Angela Merkel will face her party members at a CDU congress in December (Image: GETTY)

The Chancellor is to face her own party members at a CDU annual gathering in December.

If she does not emerge well from those events, her opponents will be emboldened.

Forschungsgruppe Wahlen polled 1,035 voters in Hesse from Monday October 15 to Wednesday October 17.

(Additional reporting by Monika Pallenberg)

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1033429/angela-merkel-hesse-election-germany-poll-bavaria-election-result-CDU-results-afd-seats

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German government under cyber attack, shores up defenses

Thorsten Severin, Andrea Shalal — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 08:18:47 +0000

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s government was marshalling its defenses on Thursday against a powerful cyber attack that lawmakers said had breached the foreign ministry’s computer network and whose origins officials admitted were still unclear.

The head of a parliamentary oversight panel said the attack was continuing, and security officials were trying to maintain control.

“It is a veritable cyber attack on parts of the government network,” conservative lawmaker Armin Schuster told reporters.“It is a continuing process.”

Schuster declined to give further details, saying that would provide a warning to the attackers, who he did not identify.

“The loss of sensitive information amounts to significant damage on its own,” Schuster said.“But we can say that the German government is trying, as far as we know today, to keep the process under control.”

Facing criticism from lawmakers that they were kept in the dark about the attack, which security officials said they learned of some time ago but authorities first confirmed on Wednesday, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the hack was technically sophisticated and planned long in advance.

He said security authorities were trying to gain further insight into how it was carried out.

Schuster’s remarks raised questions about Wednesday’s initial confirmation, a statement in which the interior ministry spoke of an“isolated” attack against some government agencies that had been“brought under control”.

DETECTED LAST YEAR?

Media reports said the attack was detected in December but may have been under way for up to a year.

Lawmakers said it had targeted the foreign ministry.

One deputy who was briefed on the incident, said it appeared to have originated in Russia.

The Kremlin could not immediately be reached for comment.

It was the latest in a series of assaults aimed at Germany’s political institutions and key individuals.

Security officials have blamed most of the previous attacks on a Russian hacking group APT28 that experts say has close ties to a Russian spy agency. Security experts have blamed the same group for an attack ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Economy Minister Brigitte Zypries said it would be“problematic” if Moscow were found to have launched the attack, as German media have reported.

But she added:“At this moment there is no discussion of that.”

Deputy Interior Minister Ole Schroeder told the RND newspaper group on Thursday that security officials had allowed the hackers to maintain“controlled” access to government networks so they could track the attack and how it was carried out.

Panel head Schuster said it was too early to assess the damage, but his committee would meet again next week.

Patrick Sensburg, another conservative member of the committee, told broadcaster ZDF it involved more complex software and targeted more sensitive data than a 2015 breach at parliament.

Opposition lawmakers criticized the government for not informed the parliamentary oversight committee about the attack sooner.

Committee member Konstantin von Notz, of the Greens, said the delay was“completely unacceptable”, and Andre Hahn, a member of the far-left Left party, said it was a clear violation of the law.

The incident also revived debate about a push by top German intelligence officials for more legal authority to“hack back” in the event of cyber attacks from foreign powers.

Additional reporting by Michael Nienaber; Editing by John Stonestreet

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-cyber/german-government-under-cyber-attack-shores-up-defenses-idUSKCN1GD4C8

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GERMANY’S CRISIS: Now anti-migrant AfD become second largest party in shock poll

Express UK — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 21:26:09 +0000

GERMANY’S anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) has overtaken the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) for the first time in a national poll to become the second-strongest party, an Insa survey.

Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s Christian Democrats (CDU) gained 2.5 percentage points to reach 32 percent and the AfD was up one percentage point to 16 percent, the weekly poll for mass-selling Bild on Monday.

The SPD fell one percentage point to 15.5 percent.

Nearly five months after the national election, Germany is still without a federal government as the SPD consults its members before embarking on a re-run of their ‘grand coalition’ with Merkel’s conservative bloc.

The election saw Alexander Gauland’s AfD party win seats in parliament for the first time – a political earthquake that followed Mrs Merkel’s 2015 decision to leave open German borders to more than 1 million migrants.

GETTY

Alexander Gauland’s AfD is now the second biggest party behind Angela Merkel’s CDU
The poll comes as the CDU starts to think about Mrs Merkel’s successor.

German Chancellor Mrs Merkel put forward close ally Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer today to take over as secretary general of her CDU, heeding calls from within the party to inject new blood and groom a successor.

Mrs Merkel, who was CDU secretary general before becoming chancellor, said Mrs Kramp-Karrenbauer, premier of the tiny western state of Saarland, would bring “a lot of weight” to the role in what she called “difficult times, uncertain times”.

A survey by pollster Emnid for Bild am Sonntag showed support for the SPD down one percentage point on the week at 19 percent, with Mrs Merkel’s CDU/CSU bloc also down one point, at 33 percent.

The AfD party was up two points at 14 percent, the Greens steady at 11 percent, the radical Left party up one point on 10 percent, and the business-friendly Free Democrats steady on nine points, the poll showed.

The Emnid poll comes come as leading SPD mayors favour joining a coalition government with Mrs Merkel’s conservatives, a poll showed on Sunday, boosting the prospects of the centre-left party backing the alliance in a ballot starting this week.

The SPD’s 464,000 members vote in a postal ballot from Tuesday on whether their party should go ahead with the coalition agreement its leaders clinched this month to renew their alliance with Mrs Merkel’s CDU/CSU bloc.

Newspaper Bild am Sonntag polled the mayors of the 35 biggest towns and cities ruled by the SPD and found that 26 of them said they would back the so-called ‘grand coalition’ – a re-run of the ruling alliance in power since 2013.

Of the other nine mayors, seven declined to give a view and two could not be reached, the newspaper reported.

Mrs Merkel turned to the SPD after her efforts to secure an alliance with the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats failed in November. She had to make painful concessions to the SPD to break months of political deadlock after an inconclusive election on September 24.

(Additional reporting by Monika Pallenberg.)

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/920981/Germany-poll-latest-AfD-SPD-anti-migration-Angela-Merkel

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The post GERMANY’S CRISIS: Now anti-migrant AfD become second largest party in shock poll first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Time for Germany to wake up from its political slumber

Helmut K. Anheier — Thu, 18 Jan 2018 22:21:42 +0000

Few people outside Germany are familiar with the caricature that many Germans hold of themselves in their minds. Far from the aggressive bully of 20th-century war propaganda, the perfectionist engineer of Madison Avenue car advertisements or the rule-following know-it-all of the silver screen, the German many picture today is a sleepy-headed character clad in a nightgown and cap. Sometimes clutching a candle, this German cuts a naive, forlorn figure, bewildered by the surrounding world.

This figure is not new. On the contrary, referred to as “Der deutsche Michel” or “the German Michel,” it was popularized in the 19th century as a character whose limited perspective causes him to shun great ideas, eschew change and aspire only to a decent, quiet and comfortable life.

But Michel has now made a comeback. And who can blame him? Germany now boasts a booming economy, near full employment, rising wages, and content unions. The financial crisis is long forgotten, public budgets are under control, and the 2015 influx of migrants has been relatively well managed.

What bad news there is — industrial scandals (like that at Volkswagen), airline bankruptcies, endlessly delayed infrastructure projects — does little to dampen the general sense of safety and wellbeing enjoyed by Germany’s Michels. The only real threat, it seems, is the world outside Germany’s borders.

In this sense, last autumn’s election campaign was perfectly suited to Germany’s Michels. “A land where we live well and happily,” the campaign slogan of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), resonated with them, as did the rather provincial and mostly empty messages of rival parties. With the exception of the right-wing populist Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD), the parties displayed a rote civility and drowsy acceptance of consensus that pacified the electorate.

After the election, the real politicking began, but even then pains were taken to obscure those activities from Germany’s Michels. But Germany’s political class, like its ordinary Michels, is in denial. The soporific federal elections, the breakdown of coalition talks among the CDU, its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Greens, and the Free Democrats (FDP), and the timid dance between the CDU and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) since then all point to a serious deficit in German politics.

The truth is that the various party platforms, which are meant to inform the electorate and provide a basis for coalition talks, reveal a shocking lack of imagination and paucity of new ideas. Second-order issues are presented as red lines, with largely technical questions taking center stage.

A Merkel-led minority CDU government forced to muster coalitions of the willing to address the critical issues confronting Berlin and Europe could free the system from party tacticians and enable real and much-needed reform.

Helmut K. Anheier

Considering the state of Europe and the world, and the hopes many outsiders are pinning on German leadership, these issues seem rather marginal. But the real problem is that they are distracting from larger issues relating to, say, the euro, security and defense, migration, infrastructure, and taxation.

Lacking any forward-looking political visions, German politics has degenerated into tactical plays being carried out by established players. The CDU can live neither with nor without Merkel, while the SPD is unsure of itself and fears further political decline. None of this bodes well for a country whose parliament has already been diminished, after these three parties, during their eight years forming a coalition government, marginalized the opposition and failed to build up new leadership cadres.

Coalition agreements in Germany have always been elaborate documents of a quasi-contractual nature. But there is a growing tendency to plan out four years of governing, with leaders then using legislative periods not to debate laws, but rather to enact previously agreed policies.

Moreover, no major reform has been successfully implemented in Germany since the 2000s, when Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder pushed through labor-market reforms. No forward-looking reforms of the caliber of Schroeder’s Agenda 2010 were even attempted under Merkel in over a decade.

The CDU/CSU and the SPD are now pursuing a grand coalition that would keep Germany roughly on the same path it has taken during the last eight years. The 28-page agreement that will allow formal coalition talks to proceed is overly detailed, technocratic, unambitious, and lacks vision.

It is thus unsurprising that, though CDU/CSU and SPD negotiators have touted the deal as a breakthrough, many, especially in the SPD, are unhappy with the outcome, with some calling for renegotiation. The SPD now faces a choice: At its special party congress this weekend, its leaders must decide whether to join yet another grand coalition government that promises more of the same, or move into opposition, probably triggering new elections.

But there is another option, which many have ignored: a CDU-led minority government, with Merkel as chancellor. Freed of stifling coalition agreements with a reluctant SPD or a coldly calculating FDP, Merkel could choose her cabinet based on competence and vision, rather than party politics. She could even appoint ministers from other parties.

Most important, Merkel could finally tackle the important issues that have fallen by the wayside in recent years, to which the current coalition agreement pays only lip service. This means cooperating with French President Emmanuel Macron to move the European project forward; modernizing Germany’s public administration system; preparing the labor force for digitization; and tackling immigration issues.

Michel may prefer the modest policy initiatives and incrementalism that have characterized Merkel’s chancellorships. But a minority government forced to muster coalitions of the willing to address the critical issues confronting Germany and Europe could escape the constraints of Michel’s expectations, freeing German politics from party tacticians and enabling real and much-needed reform. In other words, the modicum of political insecurity Germany faces today may well be just what the country needs to give rise to new ideas and voices, and a better future.

• Helmut K. Anheier is President and Professor of Sociology at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin.

Source: http://www.arabnews.com/node/1228461

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