GERMANY: Protests & more – 4th July 2024

Hallo from BA! This is the Rorshok Germany Update from the 4th of July twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Germany.

From Friday the 28th until Sunday 30th the right-extremist Alternative for Germany, or AFD, held its party convention in the North-Rhine Westphalian town of Essen. Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in several locations to protest and disrupt the convention. There were some highlights on the delegates’ arrival. For instance, Delegate Stefan Hrdy got out of his car, walked up to a seated blockade of protestors, and spat in the faces of two people. A little later he violently attacked a protester and bit him in the leg.

At the convention, the party re-elected its leaders, Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla. The delegates also discussed the party’s foreign policy and reaffirmed its pro-Russian stance.

Staying with the AFD, one of their state-level organizations, the AFD in Bavaria, is now under the watchful eye of the Constitutional Protection, the internal intelligence service. After three days of trial, a court in Munich ruled that there was enough evidence of the AFD’s racism and their rejection of democracy to let the Constitutional Protection surveil them and publish the results. So now the agency will be allowed to use all surveillance methods at their disposal. For instance, they will be able to tap phones and read e-mails. The verdict is not yet in effect, as the AFD’s lawyers announced that they would appeal the ruling. However, the date of the trial hasn’t been set yet.

More on fascists, as on Monday the 1st, four members of Knockout 51, the German chapter of the Pan-European network of radical fascists, were sentenced to time in prison for drug and weapons trafficking and for being members of a criminal organization. In this trial, the lawyers also investigated policemen from the state of Thuringia, for allegedly passing on internal information to the defendants. The police officers haven't been charged yet but there’s a high chance that they will go to trial.

Moving on to football, because of the Euro Cup hundreds of thousands of party-patriots all over Germany have not only taken to the streets to celebrate, but many have also taken to social media to spread misinformation. Some of the most curious and dangerous lies floating around on the web these days include German flags not being allowed at fan festivals, an alleged prayer room only for Muslims at a fan area for public viewing in Berlin, and the center back Antonio Rüdiger being an islamist fanatic. Let’s clear this up, shall we? Flags are allowed everywhere, but flag poles should stay at home as they could be used as weapons. The prayer room in Berlin is open and furnished for every religion. And Antonio Rüdiger is a muslim, and has shown the outstretched index finger, which is a sign affirming that there’s only one God and has nothing to do with islamism. So far the hate, racism, and misinformation have stayed online and there haven't been incidents of major violence. Let’s hope it stays that way.

On a related note, Germany has reached the quarter finals and will go up against Spain on Friday the 5th. On Saturday the 29th the German team beat Denmark by 2-0. The starting eleven is expected to stay mostly the same, as Julian Nagelsman, the trainer, has relied on the same players since the beginning of the tournament.

Monday the 1st of July saw the law for adjustment to the effects of climate change come into effect. This law obliges cities, municipalities, states, and the national level to alleviate, reduce, and prevent damages caused by heavy rain, storms, and heat waves. On Monday, the head of the association of cities and municipalities called on the states and the national government to honor their responsibilities and not let the weakest shoulders carry the heaviest burden. The association estimates that fulfilling their responsibilities under the new law will cost the local level around 38 billion Euros in total. The law does not specify where the money is supposed to come from, and there are no extra expenditures planned for these expenses in the national twenty twenty-five budget, which is expected to be published within this month.

With the beginning of July a few other laws and changes came into effect. Cannabis Social Clubs are now allowed to grow cannabis and pass on the harvest to their members in return for a membership fee.

Starting on Sunday the 7th of July, all newly licensed cars will have to be equipped with something like a black box, such as the ones that planes have. It will record all important inputs and events in case of a crash. Newly licensed cars will also have to be equipped with an array of other safety features, including cruise control, and emergency brake assistance.

Another change is that heavy smokers above fifty will now also have free access to lung cancer detection and prevention programs.

Lastly, pensions will increase by 4.5 %.

The neoliberal Free Democratic Party, or FDP, has voted on a positional paper demanding a stricter legal framework for organized labor. The paper demands several restrictions on the right to strike. For example, in critical infrastructure areas (a very vague legal term), strikes would have to be announced at least three days prior, service efficiency can’t be affected by more than 50 %, and warning strikes can’t last more than four hours. Germany’s strike laws are some of the tightest in all of Europe.

Still on organized labor, employees in six cities have protested against Mercedes’ plans to sell its dealerships. The workers, who after a sale would no longer be employed by Merecedes, fear worsening working conditions and lower wages. Working at such an established German engine and car manufacturer has a lot of benefits, including company pension, a thirty-six-hour working weeks, and thirty days of paid vacation per year. Therefore they demanded that, in case of a sale, Mercedes compensate them adequately.

From one economic issue to another, the coalition partners in the German government, the FDP, the Social Democratic Party or SPD, and the Greens, are again debating over the next annual budget. The FDP is demanding more cuts in social welfare spending, while the Social Democrats and Greens are publicly calling into question the debt brake. The debt brake only allows the state to take a small percentage of the GDP in new loans. The SPD and the Greens, and even many members of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, are arguing that the debt brake should be reformed to allow for new investments. Current numbers estimate the required investments into public infrastructure alone to be between 400 and 600 Billion Euros. These are estimations that are based on investments that could or should have been made in the last thirty years.

of asset taxes was paused in: 1996

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

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