Weapon Exports & more – 28th Dec 2023

Hallo from BA! This is the Rorshok Germany Update from the 28th of December twenty twenty-three A quick summary of what's going down in Germany.

According to the Ministry of the Economy, twenty twenty-three has been the year with the highest number of German weapon exports since the foundation of the Republic in nineteen forty-nine. This is, firstly, not surprising, since both the attacks on Ukraine and Israel meant that an increase in gun exports was warranted. The total amounts to 11.7 billion euros. Still, the number is above 7 billion without counting weapon exports to Ukraine. In the sixteen years of Merkel’s reign, the 7 billion mark has only been surpassed three times. In Germany, the government has to approve every weapon export. This progressive government that promised a drastic reduction in weapon exports and a total halt on gun exports to regions of conflict has approved a record high of weapon exports, including to states actively involved in wars, such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Moving on, after warnings from foreign security services that an attack on the dome of Cologne, in North-Rhine-Westphalia, or NRW, was imminent, police have ramped up security around the church. In connection with the situation, a thirty-year-old man from Tajikistan has been arrested in Wesel. The police suspect that the Islamic State Province Khorsan (or ISPK), a regional chapter of ISIS in Afghanistan, is behind the allegedly planned attacks. The ISPK is an organization that the president of the Constitutional Protection Service had already pointed out to be highly dangerous in June. International security services assume this regional chapter of ISIS is one of or even the only islamistic terror organization capable of planning and executing complicated international terror attacks.

Next up, on Saturday the 23rd, the Mannheim police killed a man. This is the third fatality this year following a police operation in Mannheim. The man called the police, saying that he had committed a crime. When the police arrived at the scene they found a forty-nine-year-old, top-less, mentally ill man holding a knife. What happened next is unclear. The police said, as always, that they were attacked but videos on social media paint a different picture. In the footage, the police is surrounding the man and at least three officers are standing right in front of him and pointing guns. The man is standing still for most of the time, until he makes a small step forward and is then shot four times, presumably in the shoulder. The police then rushed in and violently arrest him, he later died from the gunshot wounds in his chest. The police are now conducting an investigation.

In some news on politics… Already in November, Bavarian prime minister Markus Söder has called for re-elections, and Friedrich Merz, head of the Christian Democratic Party, or CDU, has joined him weeks later. Now, leading members of lobby organizations for big businesses have come out and said that re-elections will bring political instability and uncertainty. Even though the party-union of the Christian Social Union, or CSU from Bavaria, and the CDU are saying that they would be able to rule right away, and that the electorate allegedly trusted them more, polls say otherwise. The governing coalition is at a record low in the polls, but if asked if the CDU/CSU would do it better, a majority said: “Equally bad,” meaning that the union would do just as bad as the current government is doing. Regular elections are set for twenty twenty-five, and they probably won’t be rescheduled for June twenty twenty-four like Merz and Söder want.

The well-known German politician Wolfgang Schäuble died at eighty-one years old in his sleep. Schäuble was the most senior member of the Parliament, the Bundestag, in which he served from nineteen seventy-two until twenty twenty-three. He was best known for being the driving force behind the strict austerity measures imposed on Greece and other countries during the financial crash of two thousand eight. Schäuble instated the “black-zero” doctrine —not taking new debts—, strengthening the debt brake. The black-zero ideology meant extreme cuts in public spending and led to a drastic drop in living standards in Germany over the past ten years. Schäuble was also involved in a corruption scheme in nineteen ninety-nine in which he received a conspicuous 100,000 euro donation from an arms dealer.

Since we mentioned the debt brake, recall that it is part of the German constitution and applies both to the federal and the states’ budgets. It states that “The budget shall, in principle, be balanced without revenue from credits.” No other country of the G7 has such strict budgetary rules. The coalition of Social Democrats and Conservatives introduced the debt brake in two thousand nine. Even though the debt brake is absolute, meaning no borrowing whatsoever is allowed, the federal government can take out loans accounting for 0.35 % of the GDP. In extraordinary circumstances, the national parliament can lift the debt brake, which happened in twenty twenty, twenty twenty-one, and twenty twenty-two due to the coronavirus and the Ukraine war.

Between Christmas and New Year many doctors are taking some time off. However, we are not talking about vacations only. Some are using this time to strike. Doctors are going on strike all over the country to protest the growing and overwhelming bureaucracy they have to face on a daily basis and that, according to them, the government and the health ministry aren’t doing anything about it. What’s worse is that this comes amidst the flu season.

Ten years ago, the Alternative for Germany, the AFD. The party was founded and it had one clear goal: Get rid of the Euro and go back to the Deutschmark. Today, other ideas are associated with the far-right party, such as Holocaust denial, hate, violence against refugees, and conspiracy beliefs. Founded in twenty thirteen, it started as a moderate and conservative party of professors. But just two years later, during the migration crisis, a process of radicalization started. Today, the moderates in the AFD are a shrinking minority, and already three states in Germany have declared the AFD to be a proven right-extremist party, which means that it has been proven that the party is working to overthrow democracy and democratic society. In national polls, the AFD is the second strongest party behind the conservative Christian Democrats.

And to close this edition -the last one of the year- Heavy rain-fall has hit the north-west and north-east of Germany during Christmas, leading to flooding The authorities have said that in most regions such as Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate and Bavaria the floods are under control and people should be able to return to their homes soon, while in other places like Lower Saxony and North-Rhine-Westphalia, the situation doesn’t look like it’s turning for the better. Towns along the river of the Saale and the Rhein have experienced heavy flooding. Even though more rain is expected in the coming days, the situation probably won’t be catastrophic.

Aaand that's it for this week!

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