GERMANY: Scholz’s Interview & more – 27th Jun 2024

Hallo from BA! This is the Rorshok Germany Update from the 27th of June twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Germany.

Every year, the first public German broadcast channel, or ARD, conducts Summer Interviews with high-ranking politicians. The first interview was held on Monday the 23rd with chancellor Olaf Scholz. As per usual, this thirty-minute interview tried to cover all current debates, such as the budget, social welfare, the threat to democracy from the right, the after-effects of the pandemic, housing, and football. Thirty minutes was very little time for Scholtz to address these topics in detail, answer standard questions, and not face overly critical or in-detail questions. In the end, the audience could take away very little about his standings and opinions. Still people got to know that he doesn’t take part in the European Championship betting game that’s going on in his office. Recall that betting is legal if it’s private.

Despite the impression Olaf Scholz’s interview could have left on the public, not everything is well within the Social Democratic Party, or SPD. On Monday the 24th, different factions within the SPD-parliament ranks stood united behind a declaration that demanded changes to the debt brake. They want to spend more money on investments into infrastructure, education, among other sectors within the debt brake, and not fully abandon it. The debt brake aims to prevent the government from spending too much money, which means that the German state is hamstrung in moments of economic hardship.

However, Olaf Scholz has no desire to change the rules of the debt brake or use the Russian-Ukranian war and environmental disasters in Germany as a reason to pause it temporarily. The fact that a united SPD in parliament now stands behind changes to the debt brake, which is written into the constitution, certainly puts the chancellor under pressure to change his stance on the issue. He would have to turn his back on Christian Lindner, the neoliberal minister of finance, who is a staunch supporter of the debt brake.

Moving on, Bernd Höcke, the leading candidate for the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AFD, is in court again. The district attorney accused Höcke of using the forbidden SS-Slogan “Everything for Germany” in a campaign rally. He had already been accused, tried and convicted of hate speech for using the exact same slogan in May. The court ruled a fine, which he has not yet had to pay, since he has appealed the court’s decision and a verdict on the appeal hasn’t come out yet. So far, the frequent court appearances for using Nazi Slogans have not hurt his voters.

Staying with the AFD, the decision is final: the members of the the Identity and Democracy faction or ID-Faction in the EU parliament kicked out the AFD, so the party will now work on building a new faction with other smaller far-right parties all over Europe. The new alliance will be called The Sovereigns. This would add a third faction to the right of the conservatives. Currently, there is the Conservatives and Reformer faction with far-right members such as Vox from Spain, Fratelli d'Italia, and the Greek Solution. Then there’s the ID-Faction with members like Dansk Folkspartiet from Denmark, Resseblement Nationale from France, and Lega from Italy. The new faction of the AFD will be built with people with even more extreme right ideologies than the ones already present in the other two factions.

Moving on, the new Argentinian president Milei was in the chancellery in Berlin on Monday the 24th. This meeting was clearly not a state visit. According to the German government, Milei asked for the meeting to be as short as an hour and not to receive any of the usual military honors. Reportedly, the chancellor and the president talked about the free-trade agreement between the EU and the South American States’ Mercoursor. Scholz warned of the disastrous impact Milei’s controversial economic policies have on the social-economically weak Argentines. Demonstrators gathered outside the chancellery upon Milei’s arrival to protest the Argentine statesman.

Last Monday, the 17th, the neoliberals in the Free Democratic Party, or FDP, said that refugees from Ukraine should no longer be part of the social welfare scheme, but instead receive support like any other person with refugee status. This would considerably decrease the services each refugee is entitled to. On Monday the 24th the Christian Conservatives, or CSU, did them one better and demanded that, firstly, all Ukrainian men of fighting age no longer receive any welfare payments, and secondly, that whoever does not work in Germany should be deported back to Ukraine. It’s unlikely that the demands of the CSU will be met. However, the FDP is making a strong case, and there might be further cutbacks to social security and welfare for migrants in the future.

Speaking of migrants, the cabinet has approved a draft of a bill that would make the deportation of migrants easier. The deportation will be easier if migrants approve or show their approval of terrorism. For instance, something such as a Like on social media could be seen as approval of terrorism.

There were more party politics at the meeting of the national and state governments over the weekend from Friday the 21st to Monday the 24th. The National-State Convention can often be a place for heated debates and showdowns on policy changes, but this year it seemed to be much fruitless than usual. The government representatives of the states and the national level mostly talked about migration policies. This included some kind of a third-state solution. The debate at the convention was inconclusive. The only consensus reached was on the payment card for migrants: all participants agreed on the concept and wished to continue with the scheme. The payment card basically makes it impossible for migrants to send money anywhere or withdraw more than fifty euros in cash. The government wants to implement this scheme because it wants to make sending money home harder.

In other news, Robert Habeck, the Minister of Economy, has traveled to China for the first time during his term. He had a successful discussion with Zheng Shanjie, the Chinese Minister of Development, about the tolls on electric cars from China that the EU is planning on implementing. Habeck is not a proponent of these tolls, but he sees China as a “partner, competitor, and systematic rival.”

During the pandemic, Jens Spahn, the then minister of health from the conservative Christ Democrats party or CDU, made deals with several producers of FFP2 masks that will now cost the state Billions. Spahn had made deals to buy millions of masks at 4.5 € a piece from several producers. Later, the ministry realized that they were overpaying, and tried to void the contracts, which has now been ruled illegal. The former minister of health has been involved in several other corruption cases. Spahn is not the only one in the CDU who made more than questionable mask deals. Several high-ranking CDU politicians suddenly became mask producers and then, in their role as state-officials, sold themselves masks at stunning prices.

In the city of Bonn in North-Rhine Westfalia, the trial of the biggest heist of modern German history has ended without a verdict. The head of the Hamburgian Wartburg Bank and defendant Christian Olearius has been declared unfit for trial because his blood pressure is too high. Olearius was accused of being the point man of his Bank’s CumEx operations. The Wartburg Bank alone, an influential private bank from Hamburg, has allegedly stolen 280 Million Euros from the German state. Back then, Olaf Scholz was the mayor of Hamburg. He had met several times with Olearius. However, Scholz says to have forgotten all about it. Now, the trial of Olearius comes to an end, without Scholz having been called as a witness.

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

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