GERMANY: European Elections & more – 13th Jun 2024

Hallo from BA! This is the Rorshok Germany Update from the 13th of June twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Germany.

On Sunday the 9th, the European Parliamentary elections were held in Germany. The results didn’t surprise anyone: The conservatives and the far-right were the clear winners, while the government coalition was punished for their unpopular domestic policies. The Conservative Democratic Union (or CDU) increased their share by 1% compared to the last elections, and managed to get 30 % overall. The far-right Alternative for Germany (or AFD) won with their best European results so far, 16%, an increase of 5% compared to the last European Elections. The parties in the German government, The Greens, the Social Democrats (or SPD) and the Neoliberals (or FDP) got fewer votes compared to the last elections. The Greens only managed to secure 12%, the SPD 14% and the FDP 5% of the total votes. The new party of Sarah Wagenknecht (or BSW) managed to get a bit over 6% in their first-ever elections, while The Left only got 3% overall and suffered a loss of 3%. In the next European Parliament, German delegates will occupy ninety-six out of the 720 seats.

Staying with the European elections, following a corruption case and the arrest of one of his employees for espionage, Maximilian Krah of the AFD didn’t go on the campaign trail for his party. After that, some of his remarks concerning the SS also led to the expulsion of the AFD from their EU-Parliamentary faction. Now, following the election, his party in the EU Parliament has asked him to step down and not offered him a seat in the next Parliament. Where his political career will go from now is unclear, but he is expected to remain in German domestic politics.

Many people in the east of Germany did not only vote for their European representatives, but also cast their ballots for their respective municipalities and districts. Again, the AFD is the clear winner and now holds a majority in almost all municipal and district parliaments in the east of the country. However, where citizens had to vote for their mayors, not a single candidate of the AFD won the direct competition against their democratic rivals.

In other news, last week, on Thursday the 6th, Europe commemorated the 80th anniversary of the allied landings in Normandy, or D-Day. For this occasion, many heads of state traveled to Northern France, including German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He attended a ceremony remembering the German massacre in the town of Oradour-sur-Glane, where, soldiers of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich massacred almost 650 non-combatants, mostly women and children. German soldiers locked civilians in a church and then burnt it. Following the end of the war, not a single SS-man was convicted by a German court. Steinmeier is the first German president to have recognized and apologized for the massacres and the injustice of not trying the soldiers.

Speaking of the German military, with the invasion of Ukraine, the conservative CDU started calling for a reintroduction of the draft. Germany never completely abolished the law which forced men and women of a certain age to either serve in the military or do one year of social work, like helping in retirement homes Still, the government paused the law in twenty eleven.

On Wednesday the 12th Boris Pistorius, the minister of defense, presented his plans for a new draft model. They are based on the Swedish model, which is built on voluntary service, but it will be mandatory in certain situations. This model would entail that everyone, men and women, turning eighteen, will have to fill in a questionnaire, and undergo a first evaluation of their willingness and fitness for service. There would be around 400.000 possible candidates each year and around 40.000 of those could be interested. The military would then choose 5.000 to be drafted into service. Even though the numbers look plausible, it’s doubtful that there will be enough people to fill the total requirements the military currently has and will have in the future.

Moving on, on Saturday the 8th, a suspected ISIS terrorist was apprehended at Cologne Airport. He planned to take a flight to Istanbul. The police already knew that the man had donated money directly to ISIS. To be exact he sent 1.600 Euros in Bitcoin to the the Islamic State Province Khorsan, or ISPK, which is currently considered the most dangerous chapter of ISIS. Afterward, the man applied for several jobs at the upcoming European Championship in Germany. The suspect is now in jail, while authorities conduct an investigation.

The recent knife attack on a far-right agitator in Mannheim sparked a new deportation debate in Germany. The Social Democrats now voice opinions that a few years ago were exclusively reserved for the extreme right and are considering deportations to Afghanistan and Syria. Those countries are considered unsafe countries of origin and nobody is supposed to be deported there. But Nancy Faeser, the minister of the interior of the SPD, is now publicly considering deporting “criminal migrants” to Afghanistan and Syria. Humanitarian organizations are raising the alarm and many commentators see this as part of a pan-European trend of liberal and left parties to copy the rhetoric and policies of the far right, in the hope of gaining a few percentages on that side of the aisle.

Another debate has yielded fruits and a new law was signed: There’s finally a little more clarity about how much THC, which is found in cannabis, can be in your blood while driving. For now, this law only applies to drivers of motor vehicles. The new law, that will become effective on the 5th of July, allows for no more than 3.5 Nanogram of THC per milliliter of blood. This amount of THC could be compared roughly to 0.2 per mille of alcohol. Experts say that drivers should wait around three hours after consumption before operating a motor vehicle again.

On another note, the activists in Berlin who had been on hunger strike for the past weeks have started eating again. Their demands were not met but they couldn’t keep going because their conditions were deteriorating rapidly and at least one of the activists’ life was in danger. Wolfgang Metzeler-Kick, the most influential activist whom we talked about last week, didn’t eat for ninety-seven days. Their demands were quite simple, they wanted Chancellor Olaf Scholz to officially recognize the scientific truth that climate change was endangering human life on earth and that there is no remaining CO2 budget. The chancellor refused and the activists starved themselves until Thursday the 13th.

And to wrap up this edition, the parliament has agreed to raise the government aid given to low-income students by around 5%, that is an extra twenty euros per month and puts the total aid to a maximum of 380 Euros. With prices well above 20% over the twenty twenty level, this 5% is a drop in the bucket. Currently, the majority of German university students, and almost all university students not living at home anymore, are under the poverty line.

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

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