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Germany

More At Stake Than Merkel In Germany's Political Crisis

'Out with coal, Frau Merkel'
"Out with coal, Frau Merkel"

-Analysis-

Are we witnessing "the twilight of Angela Merkel"? The question, asked Tuesday in Le Figaro"s lead editorial, is on everybody's mind, both inside and outside Germany. To be sure, in her 12 years as German Chancellor, Merkel has never been as vulnerable as she now appears to be. The collapse of post-election talks to form a coalition with the liberal party FDP and the Green party have revealed Merkel and her own party's showing in the September vote for what it really was: a Pyrrhic victory.

Foreseeing a possible "miserable ending", Der Spiegel"s columnist Jakob Augstein writes that "the woman who, like no other, has stood for stability and predictability has maneuvered herself into a hopeless situation. Because she could not let go of power in time, she will now experience how it is to see it slip through her fingers."

But the focus on Merkel and the intra-party negotiations as a mere ego-driven tussle risks missing the bigger picture. What is at stake with the future German government extends well beyond one woman's personal legacy and affects the whole of Europe, if not more.

What stood at the center of the coalition talks were real issues, with real-world consequences. Chief among them was immigration. Much like in the rest of Europe, the anti-immigration movement in on the rise in Germany, a fact most visible by the entry of a far-right party, the AfD, in the German Parliament for the first time since World War II. There is now a sort of consensus in Germany that any future government that refuses to take into account people's concerns about the effects of immigration will be exposing itself, and the country, to a far more extremist alternative gaining ever more ground at the next election.

What is at stake with the future German government extends well beyond one woman's personal legacy.

Just how far the government can or should go in its attempts to stem the influx of migrants is a question the three parties engaged in coalition talks were unable to agree on. Whatever the outcome, whether Berlin opts for more or less drastic measures will send an important signal throughout Europe.

Environmental policy was another source of genuine antagonism in the coalition talks — more particularly the issue of a planned elimination of coal power in the coming years. Though the country is often described as a model for green political action, Germany's energy mix still relies heavily on coal, all the more so since the 2011 Fukushima disaster and Merkel's subsequent decision to phase out nuclear energy. As Deutsche Wellereported on Monday, Germany is set to miss its 2020 target for CO2 emissions' reduction and it will likely miss the goals it pledged two years ago at the Paris Climate Conference.

Germany's reliance on coal was plain to see at the UN climate conference that ended this weekend in Bonn, where it refused to join a 20-country alliance led by Canada and the UK that pledges to rapidly phase out coal. Besides the signal it sends to other countries, such discrepancy between its public stance and its actions is like music to the ears of Donald Trump and the like.

Will Merkel be able to form a coalition? What price will be paid in the process? As melodramatic as it may sound, the future of the planet is always on the negotiating table — and in the voting booth.

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

Belarus May Be Pushing Migrants Into The EU Again — This Time With Russian Help

In 2021, Belarus strongman Lukashenko triggered a migration crisis when he actively drove asylum seekers to the EU. According to the German government, those numbers are on the rise again.

Belarus May Be Pushing Migrants Into The EU Again — This Time With Russian Help

Migrants on the Belarusian side of the Polish border wall in Bialowieza.

Hannelore Crolly, Ricarda Breyton

-Analysis-

BERLIN — In the nine months between July 2022 and March 2023 alone, Germany's Federal Police registered 8,687 people who entered Germany undocumented after a Belarus connection. This has emerged from the Ministry of the Interior's response to an inquiry by MP Andrea Lindholz, deputy chair of the Christian Social Union (CSU) parliamentary group, which was made available to Die Welt.

The migration pressure on the Belarus route — which was now supposedly closed after a huge crisis in 2021 that saw Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko threatening to "flood" the EU with drugs and migrants — has thus increased significantly again.

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"Apparently, about half of the people who enter the EU illegally every month via the German-Polish border enter the EU via Belarus," Lindholz told Die Welt. In an autocratic state like this, border crossings on this scale are certainly no coincidence, she said. "It is obvious that these illegal entries are part of a strategy to destabilize the EU."

In addition to flexible controls at the border with Poland, stationary ones are also needed, said Lindholz. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser should agree on a concrete roadmap with Poland "on how to significantly reduce illegal entries into Germany." Lindholz also called on the German government to revoke landing permits for airlines that facilitate illegal migration via Russia and Belarus.

The Belarus route had already caused concern throughout the EU in 2021. At that time, sometimes highly dramatic scenes took place at the border with Poland. Thousands of migrants tried to enter the EU undocumented — many of them transported there by soldiers or border guards of Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko. Poland even feared an attempt to break through the border en masse.

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