GERMANY: A controversial act & more – 18th July 2024

Hallo from BA! This is the Rorshok Germany Update from the 18th of July twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Germany.

The week began with president Frank-Walther Steinmeier signing the new controversial climate protection act. The president delayed his signature until the very last moment. Monday the 15th was the day the ministries of traffic and building had to present their direct action plans to reach their sectors’ emission goals. The new law abandoned individual sector goals and instead will now only measure the emission cuts that the government as a whole achieves. Therefore, the ministries of traffic and building, led by the Free Liberals, or FDP, and the Socialdemocrats, or SPD, will not have to enact direct action plans and can continue to disregard Germany’s climate goals. A group of environmental NGOs has already announced that they will sue the government at the constitutional court once again. They believe the new law violates a ruling by the court from twenty twenty-one in which it was determined that the government has to do more for climate protection.

Still on politics, on Monday the 15th, Friedrich Merz, head of the conservative Christian Democrats and possible candidate for the chancellery, gave an interview for Sommerinterview, a television program. He talked about respect in the political debate and about his plans to make the public train system more efficient. Merz said that he wants to fight hard in terms of content, but keep the culture of discussion respectful. That is interesting coming from someone who has made waves with several episodes of racist and xenophobic comments or harsh personal attacks on political opponents. His plans for the development of public transport follow a clear line: less supply and higher prices. He said that the national train company has to shrink its supply in order to become more efficient and be able to service the routes it already has instead of offering new routes. At the same time, he said that the ninety-two billion euros of needed investments into infrastructure should come from the consumers and commuters.

Moving on, Nancy Faeser, minister of the interior, has announced that during the Olympic Games, border controls along the Franco-German border will continue. Along all other German borders, the border controls put into place during the EUROs are going to be stopped. CDU and FDP had called for an expansion of the general border controls around German territory. Faeser pointed out the dramatic impact border controls would have on cross-border commuters and Pan-European trade routes to justify her decision to open the borders again. On top of that, keeping the borders of one European country continuously closed is against EU laws.

Moving on to economy. The cabinet has agreed on a final budget proposition for next year. Until the budget is passed it still has to go through parliament, where the MPs will be able to make considerable changes. The budget that the government has now agreed to doesn’t cut as much expenses as many had expected. Nonetheless, the proposed budget contains several billions of cut expenses that won’t be going into reviving the German economy. Among the biggest losers of the budget, of course, are the poorest. Along with less money in the budget for social welfare, the welfare system is getting a reform that will make it more restrictive again.

In unrelated news, a member of the North-Rhine Westphalian, or NRW, Parliament of the Alternative for Germany, or AFD, has caused a diplomatic uproar. Sven Tritscher, the AFD MP, participated in a travel of MPs from NRW to Namibia. The travel’s goal was acknowledging the German genocide of Herero an Nama. On this trip the far-right politician posted pictures of himself posing in front of a cemetery for German soldiers, the perpetrators of the genocide. He added heroic military music into the post and even laid down flowers on the soldiers’ graves. Namibian authorities and activists were unsurprisingly outraged.

Let’s go back to politics. Angela Merkel turned 70 on Wednesday the 17th and participated in a celebration in Berlin in her honor. Several high-ranking politicians took part in the celebrations as well. But the echo from political Berlin and commentators isn’t purely positive. While of course there are many who chose to think back positively to the Merkel-Era, many others on all sides of the political divide, have a lot of criticism of her. On the right, it’s her handling of the so-called refugee crisis, while on the left, many accuse her of having done far too little to get Germany ready for the future with climate change.

Speaking of politicians, foreign minister Annalena Baerbock of the Greens has just finished her visit to West-Africa. On the Ivory-Coast she visited a training camp where elite German soldiers and policemen are training the military of the country. Just a couple of days before, in an interview on CNN, the minister ended speculations on whether she will run for the chancellorship. She answered with a clear no.

To wrap up this update, the bitcoin value crashed last Thursday when the Saxony state police sold fifty thousand bitcoins, valuing around three billion euros. The state police had acquired this huge amount of bitcoins already in twenty thirteen when they closed movie2k, the illegal movie streaming platform. A few right-wing politicians criticized the sales and said that the state should hold small reserves in bitcoins. But nobody is actually seriously thinking about this option.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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