Former German government ministers and lobbyists have been meeting Putin associates in the Gulf, preparing reciprocal visits that could undermine Berlin’s official Russia policy.
Tag: merkel
As Berlin and Tel Aviv mark a diplomatic milestone, the relationship born out of pragmatism, guilt and survival faces its toughest questions yet — especially amid war, protest and growing calls for criticism.
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Be Humble, Olaf Scholz — Sit Down
The Chancellor has lost the voters’ trust—and his finger-pointing and failure to take responsibility only deepens the damage. The fallout will be felt far beyond his own tenure and may weigh on Germany for years to come.
A German politician lashed out after Angela Merkel spoke on the phone with Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko. But like in other hot spots, avoiding the worst along the Belarus-Poland border means casting aside moral superiority and naiveté.
Austria’s conservative-green coalition, though currently facing a crisis linked to corruption allegations, has been cited as a possible model for Germany’s current post-election talks to form a new government. Could there be a logic to pairing the center-right CDU and the Greens in Berlin?
? Laphi!* Welcome to Monday, where post-Merkel Germany looks set shift to a center-left coalition, San Marino and Switzerland catch up with the rest of Europe on two key social issues, and a turtle slows things down at a Japan airport. Meanwhile, we take an international look at different ways to handle beloved, yet controversial, […]
? Բարև Ձեզ!* Welcome to Friday, where Kim Jong-un’s sister extends an olive branch to South Korea, top Catalan separatist leader is arrested in Italy, and a kindergarten thief gets busted by technology. Meanwhile, we bid an international auf wiedersehen to Angela Merkel’s through iconic front pages that featured the German chancellor over the years. […]
? Ia Orana!* Welcome to Tuesday, where Norway veers left, Putin is self-quarantining, and German scientists try to potty-train cows. Meanwhile, Delhi-based news website The Wire applauds India’s recent Olympic gold medals but asks why it can’t win Nobel Prizes? [*Tahitian] 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW • Taliban deny death of top leader: […]
? Jambo!* Welcome to Friday, where Biden and Xi Jinping hold their first call in seven months, Denmark becomes the first EU country to lift all COVID restrictions and an unexpected romance is making news in Spain. Die Welt reporter Daniel-Dylan Böhmer also meets with key Taliban officials in Kabul to give a glimpse of […]
Germany and the U.S. have agreed on a compromise to complete the gas pipeline — or rather, the Americans have submitted to Angela Merkel, who in turn had a farewell gift for Russia.
London is taking a hardline against Moscow since Trump’s departure left Putin increasingly isolated.
It is a speech that stands out from all those we’ve heard from world leaders in the 10 months since the pandemic began — a far cry from the fact-defying rhetoric of Jair Bolsonaro or the cool logic of Emmanuel Macron. As Germany reported a record 590 deaths in one day from Covid-19, Chancellor Angela […]
No country has profited from the Pax Americana as much as Germany. Now, as U.S. influence wanes, it has a key role to play in filling the power vacuum.
Welcome to Friday, where the European flood death toll tops 100, Lebanon’s prime minister steps down and a teenager gets a seat on Jeff Bezos’ trip to space. We also get a look from Kommersant on the rising hopes of the reformist revolution in the post-Soviet state of Moldova. • Germany death toll rises to […]
“The nation-state on its own has no future… ” Angela Merkel’s apparently ominous declaration in late May was actually part of what might be the strongest vote of confidence in recent memory to ensure the future of the European Union. After years of touting austerity and protecting national fiscal sovereignty, the German Chancellor has suddenly […]
Germany has the resources to weather the storm, but not everyone in Europe is convinced that’s a good thing.
The coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated tensions between Beijing and Washington. It’s time that cooler heads prevail, and Germany has just the right person for the job.
The debate about Angela Merkel’s successor shows that her CDU party is lacking in powerful women to take the party forward. As strange as it seems, her party still has a long way to go to achieve gender equality.
-OpEd- MOSCOW — Despite the predictions before this past week’s NATO summit of a major split in the alliance, and some awkward moments among its respective leaders, the meeting itself concluded without any real substantive complications. Even traditional anti-globalist clashes we’ve come to expect from these kinds of gatherings were absent. As for Russia, it […]
The world is becoming divided again as China takes the USSR’s place facing the United States. This new situation makes the European project more relevant than ever, exactly at the moment it is most in jeopardy.
Even as it contends still with Brexit and the rise of right-wing populists, the European Union did enjoy some ‘almost good news’ this year.
The EU remains a work in progress, especially with Britain’s messy exit efforts. But if there’s one constant, it’s that Europe still needs France and Germany to be partners.
-Analysis- MUNICH — Angela Merkel has seldom sounded so straightforward and genuine. It was a clear speech, it was an honest speech. It was such a remarkably clever speech too that you could almost believe that after retreating as party chief, Merkel actually wants to and will remain chancellor until Germany’s next general election. But […]
-OpEd- This must have been the moment he was waiting for: an energetic handshake with Donald Trump, with a smile and a deep look into his eyes to top it off. The two men seemed to be sealing a fresh pact. Cameras flashed, capturing the important moment for newspapers and history books — the five […]
The Asian giant is like a super-charged Formula 1 car racing past a beautiful, but old Fiat 500.
As Donald Trump stares down NATO, we may be witnessing the dying days of the post-War alliance between Europe and the U.S..
BERLIN — Angela Merkel has yielded. It was just this past Saturday that the chancellor’s sticking to her guns had brought her Interior Minister Horst Seehofer to the threat of resignation over the government’s migration policy, the issue that has created a deep wedge between the pair. For her relentlessly tough stance on the matter, […]
Finger pointing isn’t going to help Italy solve its migration problems. What it needs is help, and for the EU to stop dilly-dallying. A view from Berlin.
-OpEd- BERLIN — With his most recent visit to Vienna, made on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin has now met Austria’s 32-year-old Chancellor Sebastian Kurz for the second time this year. Meanwhile, Richard Grenell — U.S. ambassador to Berlin and a Donald Trump confidant — has called Kurz a “rock star” in a recent interview […]
The German chancellor’s upcoming visit to Washington will be a sober affair, particularly in contrast to the glitzy, red-carpet welcome the White House gave her French counterpart.
In a time of Trump, Putin, and Xi Jinping, Europe represents a democratic ideal alone—respectful of both humanity and the planet. And Europe needs a revival of the Berlin-Paris alliance to make it possible.
The very notion of “political instability” is baked into democratic life. If you want something predictable and unchanging you can have a 17th-century French monarchy or 21st-century Chinese autocracy. Still, a look around European parliamentary democracies these days shows a particularly bumpy road ahead, as ideologies and party machinations are being side-swiped by an accelerating […]
German-Turkish relations are a high-stakes affair. Not only does Germany count some three million residents with roots in Turkey, the two countries are strategic to both the global economy and international diplomacy. In recent years, however, the relationship has been fraught with tension, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently declared her desire to “reinforce” bilateral […]
The route from Turkey to Greece was once crowded with Syrian asylum seekers fleeing to Europe. But some are now moving in the opposite direction because of a rise in anti-Muslim sentiment
-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 […]
-Analysis- Lord Acton’s famous phrase about the corrupting effect of power (and absolute power) should have come with a footnote about the “clinging” factor. On any given day, it isn’t hard to find someone in charge, somewhere in the world, using all their wits and energy to hold onto power beyond any reasonable claim to […]
-Analysis- PARIS — A wave of popular revolt against the establishment, globalization and immigration is washing over the West. And as the recent election results in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic suggest, it won’t be ending anytime soon. After the staggering victories of Brexit and Donald Trump in 2016, Western elites, always eager for […]
BERLIN — Sebastian Kurz was faster than Emmanuel Macron. Following the rapid rise of this year’s other young political superstar, Kurz’s victory Sunday in Austria“s parliamentary election was even more stunning — and swift. He needed only five months to pull off three unbelievable feats: to rebuild the washed-out Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) into a […]
-Analysis- Donald Trump, the world’s biggest cyberbully, has issued another Twitter threat. The target this time wasn’t North Korea’s “Rocket Man,” but another favorite: the media. Yesterday, hours after NBC News aired a report claiming the president wanted a “nearly tenfold” increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, Trump took to social media to retaliate. In […]