French President Emmanuel Macron hailed the restoration of close ties between Paris and Berlin as he hosted German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at his summer residence on Thursday before high-level talks between ministers from both states.
After years of strained relations with Merz’s predecessor, Olaf Scholz, the French leader said the successful restart of relations can serve as a driving force for strengthening Europe.
Following the change of government in Berlin earlier this year, the two leaders have “opened a new chapter in Franco-German relations,” Macron said after welcoming his German counterpart to the Fort de Brégançon on the Côte d’Azur.
“I believe that the Franco-German tandem is now perfectly coordinated to create a stronger Europe in the areas of economy, trade and currency,” he stated.
Merz also emphasized the importance of the “axis” of the two countries’ ties, saying “Germany and France play a central role in this European Union, on this European continent.”
He also highlighted the crucial role of unity among all 27 EU member states. If this unity is achieved, “then we are truly strong, and Europe becomes a factor in the world,” Merz said.
“The developments in this world show how important it is for us to become a powerful factor in the world — economically, politically, and also in terms of security policy.”
Macron added that the relationship would be key in establishing “a Europe that asserts its geopolitical position in the Ukraine conflict in light of Russia’s war of aggression, and a Europe that has decided to rearm itself to ensure its protection.”
The relationship between Macron and Merz is considered significantly better than with predecessor Olaf Scholz.
However, a long list of differences in policy remains between the two countries, including the nuclear energy debate, France’s support for joint European debt and Germany’s backing for the MERCOSUR trade deal with South American countries.
Ministerial Council on Friday
Merz arrived in southern France on Thursday ahead of the two governments holding consultations on economic and security policy against the backdrop of a political crisis in Paris.
On Friday, half of Merz’s Cabinet will participate in the Ministerial Council in Toulon.
Among those expected to attend on the German side are Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil, Economy Minister Katherina Reiche, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, and Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt.
A Franco-German Defence and Security Council will later convene to discuss, in a smaller circle, the production of weapons systems in Europe as well as joint Franco-German armament projects.
But the meetings may be overshadowed by a deep government crisis in France.
Prime Minister François Bayrou has called a vote of confidence in parliament on September 8.
The government is expected to fall, and new elections cannot be ruled out. Although the crisis does not directly affect the presidency, it weakens Macron.
Merz and his German ministers will therefore be negotiating on Friday with a French Cabinet whose tenure remains uncertain.
BERLIN (AP) — The far-right Alternative for Germany could become the strongest party for the first time in two state elections Sunday in eastern Germany, while a months-old party founded by a prominent leftist also hopes to shake up the picture as the national government has squabbled its way to deep unpopularity.
Germany’s main opposition conservative party hopes to keep Alternative for Germany at bay in Saxony and Thuringia, home to around 4.1 million and 2.1 million people, respectively. But prospects look grim for the three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition, whose constant infighting has added to a flatlining economy and other problems to turn voters off.
An election campaign poster of the far-right Alternative for Germany, AfD, showing the top candidate for Thuringia Bjoern Hoecke and the slogans ” The East does it” and “Almost forbiddenly good” is displayed at a street in Jena, Germany, Aug. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Wins for Alternative for Germany, or AfD, would be a potent signal for the party just over a year before the next national election is due. But it would most likely need a coalition partner to govern, and it’s highly unlikely anyone else will agree to put it in power. Even so, its strength could make forming new state governments extremely difficult.
Problem in Berlin
High ratings for AfD and the new Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, both at their strongest in Germany’s formerly communist east, have been fed in part by discontent with the national government. Scholz’s alliance argued throughout the campaign for the European Parliament election in June and obtained dismal results. The internal hostilities have intensified over a summer plagued by disagreements about the 2025 budget.
Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats, the environmentalist Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats were weak in these two states to start with, though the former two parties are the junior partners in both outgoing regional governments. They now risk dropping under the 5% support needed to stay in the state legislatures.
Over 50 countries go to the polls in 2024
Scholz said recently that “gun smoke from the battlefield” is masking the successes of his government of uneasy allies, which set out to modernize Germany. Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said that the government isn’t a “self-help group.” One of the Greens’ national leaders, Omid Nouripour, described the coalition as a “transitional government.”
The mainstream opposition Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, won the European Parliament election. It has led Saxony since German reunification in 1990 and hopes that governor Michael Kretschmer can power it past AfD again, as he did five years ago. In Thuringia, surveys show it trailing AfD, but it hopes to cobble together a governing coalition.
Thuringia’s politics are particularly complicated because the Left Party of governor Bodo Ramelow has slumped into electoral insigificance nationally. Wagenknecht, long one of its best-known figures, left last year to form a new party that is now outperforming it.
Migration, war and peace
Election campaign posters of the Christian Democratic Union party, CDU, with top candidate Mario Voigt and of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance are displayed at a lamp post in Jena, Germany, Aug. 13, 2024. State elections in Thuringia and Saxony scheduled on Sunday Sept. 1, 2024, in the eastern Germany states. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
AfD has tapped into high anti-immigration sentiment in the region, with one campaign poster in Thuringia promising “summer, sun, remigration” and depicting a plane with the logo “Deportation-Hansa.”
A national AfD leader, Alice Weidel, assailed both the governing parties and the CDU — which previously ran Germany under Angela Merkel — for their “policy of uncontrolled mass immigration” following last week’s knife attack in Solingen in which a suspected extremist from Syria is accused of killing three people.
Wagenknecht’s new party, known by its German acronym BSW, combines left-wing economic policy with a migration-skeptic agenda. The CDU also has stepped up pressure on the national government for a tougher stance on migration.
Germany’s stance toward Russia’s war in Ukraine is also an issue in these eastern states. Berlin is Ukraine’s second-biggest weapons supplier after the United States; those weapons deliveries are something both AfD and BSW oppose. An AfD poster combining the German and Russian flags declares that “Peace is Everything!”
Wagenknecht also has assailed a recent decision by the German government and the U.S. to begin deployments of long-range missiles to Germany in 2026. She has declared that her party will only join state governments that have a “clear position for diplomacy and against the preparation of war.”
Who will govern with whom?
FILE – Opposition leader Friederich Merz delivers a speech during a debate about Germany’s budget crisis at the parliament Bundestag in Berlin, Germany, Nov. 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
AfD secured its first mayoral and county government posts last year, but the party hasn’t yet joined a state government. In June, national co-leader Tino Chrupalla said that “the sun of government responsibility must rise for us in the east.”
That doesn’t look likely in Saxony and Thuringia, where no other party wants to join it in a coalition. The domestic intelligence agency has AfD’s branches in both states under official surveillance as “proven right-wing extremist” groups. Its leader in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, has been convicted of knowingly using a Nazi slogan at political events, but is appealing.
Depending on how badly the national governing parties perform, that could leave the CDU looking for improbable coalition partners. The party has long refused to ally with Ramelow’s Left Party, which is descended from East Germany’s communist party, but hasn’t ruled out working with Wagenknecht’s BSW.
The CDU’s national leader, Friedrich Merz, told the RND newspaper group that “we can’t work with” AfD.
ŠABAC – Thousands of people rallied in several towns in Serbia on Monday to protest a lithium excavation project the Balkan country’s government recently signed with the European Union.
The protests were held simultaneously in the western town of Sabac and the central towns of Kraljevo, Arandjelovac, Ljig and Barajevo. They followed similar gatherings in other Serbian towns in recent weeks.
The deal reached earlier this month on “critical raw materials” could reduce Europe’s dependency on China and push Serbia, which has close ties to Russia and China, closer to the EU. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz attended the summit in Belgrade.
The deal, however, has been fiercely criticized by environmentalists and opposition groups in Serbia who argue it would cause irreversible damage to the environment while bringing little benefit to its citizens.
The biggest lithium reserve in Serbia lies in a western valley that is rich in fertile land and water. Multinational Rio Tinto company had started an exploration project in the area several years ago which sparked huge opposition, forcing its suspension.
Earlier this month, however, Serbia’s constitutional court overturned the government ‘s previous decision to cancel a $2.4 billion mining project launched by the British-Australian mining company in the Jadar valley, paving the way for its revival.
The Serbian government’s decision to cancel the excavation plans came after thousands of protesters in Belgrade and elsewhere in Serbia blocked major roads and bridges in 2021 to oppose Rio Tinto. Those protests were the biggest challenge yet to the increasingly autocratic rule of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić.
Vucic has said that any excavation would not start before 2028 and that the government would seek firm environmental guarantees before allowing the digging. Some government officials have hinted a referendum on the issue could also be held.
Protesters who gathered on Monday in Serbian towns said they did not trust the government and would not allow the excavations to go ahead.
“They have usurped our rivers, our forests,” said activist Nebojsa Kovandzic from the town of Kraljevo. “Everything they (government) do they do for their own interests and never in the interest of us, citizens.” The crowd in Kraljevo chanted ‘thieves, thieves.’
In Sabac, protesters waved Serbian flags and held a march through the town after the rally.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
LONDON – Rishi Sunak’s campaign to remain Britain’s prime minister showed a lack of political touch.
The Conservative Party’s problems were grave before Friday’s resounding election defeat but missteps by Britain’s richest prime minister contributed to its defeat.
Predecessors such as Tony Blair and Boris Johnson were more politically astute and able to connect with voters. As for Sunak, he didn’t have to call the election until Jan. 2025. He defied political advice by doing so in May — with Conservative support dwindling steadily amid an economic slump, ethics scandals and a revolving door of leaders over the last two years — and announced the July 4 date in the pouring rain.
What’s more, the Conservative Party didn’t appear ready for the campaign compared with Labour, and voters haven’t really felt the improvement in Britain’s economy yet.
“I have heard your anger, your disappointment, and I take responsibility for this loss,” Sunak said in his final speech as prime minister outside the residence at 10 Downing Street.
Arguably, Sunak’s biggest blunder — one that prompted him to apologize and which many analysts think was the final death knell of the Conservative Party’s campaign — was his decision to leave early from the 80-year D-day commemorations in northern France on June 6.
Critics said the decision to skip the international event that closed the commemorations showed disrespect to the veterans and diminished the U.K.’s international standing. Other world leaders including President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy all were present. As was Keir Starmer, the U.K.’s new prime minister.
Born in 1980 in Southampton on England’s south coast to parents of Indian descent, Sunak became Britain’s first leader of color and the first Hindu to become prime minister. At 42, he was Britain’s youngest leader for more than 200 years.
A former hedge fund manager at Goldman Sachs who married into a billionaire Indian family, Sunak rose rapidly within Conservative ranks. Now 44, he become Treasury chief on the eve of the coronavirus pandemic. Within weeks, he had to unveil the biggest economic support package of any Chancellor of the Exchequer outside wartime, a package that many saw as saving millions of jobs.
Long a low-tax, small-state politician despite the high-spending nature of that package, Sunak had a record of idolizing former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Smooth, confident and at ease with the march of modern technology, Sunak was dubbed “Dishy Rishi” and quickly became one of the most trusted and popular faces within Johnson’s administration during the rigors of the pandemic.
Johnson was forced to quit in the summer of 2022 after being adjudged to have lied to Parliament over breaches of coronavirus lockdowns at his offices in Downing Street. As if that wasn’t bad enough, trust in the Conservatives tanked further when his successor Liz Truss backed a package of unfunded tax cuts that roiled financial markets and sent borrowing costs surging, particularly for homeowners already struggling with the most acute of cost of living crisis in decades. Her premiership was the shortest in the history of the U.K.
When Sunak replaced Truss, he pitched himself as a stable pair of hands. He constantly reminded voters that he had warned Conservative Party members about the recklessness of Truss’s economic plan when he challenged her to succeed Johnson. The day he replaced Truss after her traumatic 49-day premiership in Oct. 2022, the Conservatives were trailing Labour by around 30 percentage points.
As Treasury chief, Sunak was lauded for rolling out his COVID-19 job retention package that arguably saved millions of jobs. But that came at a cost, bringing the country’s tax burden to its highest level since the 1940s.
In his 21 months as prime minister, Sunak struggled to keep a lid on bitter divisions within his Conservative Party. One side wanted him to be much tougher on immigration and bolder in cutting taxes, while another urged him to move more to the center of politics, the space where, historically, British elections are won.
In his concession speech, Sunak said he would serve a full term in parliament until 2029, and that he would stay on as leader until the Conservative Party has elected a successor.
“It is important that, after 14 years in government, the Conservative Party rebuilds, but also that it takes up its crucial role in opposition professionally and effectively,” he said,
Many think he may be tempted to return to the U.S. in the years to come, perhaps to pursue his interest in artificial technology.
After his school years at Winchester College, one of Britain’s most expensive boarding schools, Sunak went to Oxford University to study politics, philosophy and economics — the degree of choice for future prime ministers. He then got an MBA at Stanford University, which proved to be a launchpad for his subsequent career as a hedge fund manager at Goldman Sachs in the U.S.
There, he met his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of the billionaire founder of Indian tech giant Infosys. They have two daughters. The couple are the wealthiest inhabitants yet of No. 10 Downing Street, according to the Sunday Times’ 2024 Rich List, with an estimated fortune of 651 million pounds ($815 million). They’re even richer than King Charles III, a level of wealth that many said left him out of touch with the daily problems of most people.
With his fortune secure, Sunak was elected to Parliament for the safe Tory seat of Richmond in Yorkshire in 2015. In Britain’s 2016 Brexit referendum, he supported leaving the European Union, a “leave” that came unexpectedly and that many Britons today regret.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Citing the EU’s decision to allocate more funding for Ukraine at the extraordinary European Council summit last week, the German chancellor urged the U.S. Congress to do its part to defend Ukraine by green-lighting the further aid proposed by Biden.
Scholz said congressional approval of the aid package would “send the right message to the Russian president that his hopes are in vain, that he simply has to wait long enough for the support of Ukraine’s friends in Europe, North America and elsewhere to wane.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, meanwhile, said the defense alliance needs to improve its military capabilities and be prepared for a decades-long conflict with Russia.
If Russian President Vladimir Putin “wins in Ukraine, there is no guarantee that Russian aggression will not spread to other countries,” Stoltenberg warned in an interview with German newspaper Welt Am Sonntag.
“We have to prepare ourselves for a confrontation that could last decades,” he said. “We need to restore and expand our industrial base more quickly so that we can increase deliveries to Ukraine and replenish our own stocks,” Stoltenberg said.
Germany’s Scholz, asked about the ongoing crisis in the Middle East and Israel’s planned offensive in Rafah, said that the Israeli government needed to conduct military operations in a balanced manner. “I have already said it very precisely: the type of warfare must meet the demands that Israel makes on itself, but which are also imposed by international law,” Scholz said.
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday he plans to sign a bilateral security agreement with Kyiv during a visit to Ukraine next month.
Macron said France would “continue to help Ukraine to hold the front line and protect its skies,” and that the two countries “were finalizing a deal.” Speaking at a Paris press conference, Macron also announced the delivery of 40 Scalp long-range missiles and “several hundred” bombs to Ukraine in the coming weeks.
France has been working on a deal for several months, aiming to shore up Ukraine’s defenses and finances in the long term. Macron’s statement comes in the wake of last week’s visit to Kyiv by British PM Rishi Sunak, during which he signed a bilateral security deal and pledged €3 billion in military aid to Ukraine over the next two years.
European partners are under pressure to up their military support for Ukraine as Russia continues its relentless air strikes and U.S. aid seems stalled in Congress.
Earlier this month, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz issued an unusually stark call to other EU countries to deliver more weapons to Ukraine. The arms deliveries planned so far are “too small,” he said, despite Berlin’s pledge to double its military aid to Kyiv to €8 billion this year.
According to the Kiel Institute, which tallied military aid to Ukraine in the public domain, Germany was the second-highest donor last year after the U.S., with €17.1 billion, followed by the U.K. with €6.6 billion, and then Nordic and Eastern European countries. France, in comparison, has only contributed €0.54 billion, Italy €0.69 billion and Spain €0.34 billion.
Macron also said France and Europe would have to take “new decisions in the weeks and months ahead,” likely a reference to talks in Brussels to resolve a dispute over a €50 billion aid package to Ukraine.
BERLIN — As the far-right Alternative for Germany continues to rise — and its radicalism becomes increasingly pronounced — a growing chorus of mainstream politicians is asking whether the best way to stop the party is to try to ban it.
The debate kicked off in earnest after Saskia Esken, the co-chief of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD), came out earlier this month in favor of discussing a ban — if only, as she put it, to “shake voters” out of their complacency.
Since then, politicians from across the political spectrum have weighed in on whether a legal effort to ban Alternative for Germany (AfD), while possible under German law, would be tactically smart — or only further fuel the party’s rise.
Like so much of German politics, the conversation is colored by the country’s Nazi past. In a society mindful that Adolf Hitler initially gained strength at the ballot box, with the Nazis winning a plurality of votes in federal elections before seizing power, a growing number of political leaders, particularly on the left, view a prohibition of the AfD — a party they view as a dire threat to Germany’s democracy — as an imperative rooted in historical experience.
Others fear the attempt would backfire by allowing the AfD to depict their mainstream opponents as undermining the democratic will of the German people, desperate to ban a party they can’t beat.
Indeed, the AfD appears to be trying to turn the debate to its tactical advantage.
“Calls for the AfD to be banned are completely absurd and expose the anti-democratic attitude of those making these demands,” said Alice Weidel, co-leader of the party, in a written statement to POLITICO. “The repeated calls for a ban show that the other parties have long since run out of substantive arguments against our political proposals.”
The debate is assuming greater urgency in a key year in which the AfD appears set to do better than ever in June’s European Parliament election as well as in three state elections in eastern Germany in September. The party is currently in second place with 23 percent support in national polls; across all the states of the former East Germany, not including Berlin, the AfD is currently leading in polls.
Calls for a party ban grew louder this week following revelations that AfD members attended a secretive meeting of right-wing extremists where a “master plan” for deporting millions of people, including migrants and “unassimilated citizens,” was discussed. The news sent shockwaves across the country, with many drawing parallels to similar plans made by the Nazis. One of the people reportedly in attendance was Roland Hartwig, a former parliamentarian and now a close personal aide to Weidel, the party’s co-leader.
In a post on X, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz suggested it was a matter for the German judiciary.
“Learning from history is not just lip service,” he said. “Democrats must stand together.”
Many of the AfD’s most extreme leaders operate in eastern Germany, where the party is also the most popular. In two of the three states where the AfD will be competing in state elections next year — Thuringia and Saxony — state-level intelligence authorities have labeled local party branches as “secured extremist” — a designation that strengthens legal arguments for a ban.
Saskia Esken of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) called for a ban on the AfD party to ‘shake’ up complacent voters | Michele Tantussi/Getty Images
Germany’s constitution allows for bans of parties that “seek to undermine or abolish the free democratic basic order” — essentially allowing the state to use anti-democratic means to prevent an authoritarian party from corroding democracy from within.
In reality, the legal hurdle for imposing a ban is very high. Germany’s constitutional court has only done it twice: The Socialist Reich Party, an heir to the Nazi party, was banned in 1952, while the Communist Party of Germany was prohibited in 1956.
More recently, in 2017, the court ruled that a neo-Nazi party known as the National Democratic Party (NPD), while meeting the ideological criteria for a prohibition, was too fringe to ban, as it lacked popular support and therefore the power to endanger German democracy.
Given the AfD’s poll numbers, however, an effort to ban it would pose an entirely different dilemma: How would politicians handle the backlash from the party’s many supporters?
Germany’s postwar democracy has arguably never faced a greater test, and politicians — as well as the public — remain divided over how to respond.
Center-right conservatives, who are leading in national polls, tend to view a ban attempt unfavorably.
“Such sham debates are grist to the AfD’s mill,” Friedrich Merz, the leader of the center-right Christian Democratic Union, told the Münchner Merkur newspaper. In response to Esken, the SPD leader who favors exploring a ban, Merz added: “Does the SPD chairwoman seriously believe that you can simply ban a party that reaches 30 percent in the polls? That’s a frightening suppression of reality.”
For the SPD, the stakes in terms of their political survival are much higher. The party has experienced a sharp decline in its popularity, and in two states in Germany’s east it is dangerously close to falling below the 5 percent hurdle needed to win seats in state parliaments.
Even within the SPD — a party whose history of resistance to the Nazis is a source of great internal pride — there is sharp disagreement over whether a ban is a good idea.
“If we ban a party that we don’t like, but which is still leading in the polls, it will lead to even greater solidarity with it,” Carsten Schneider, a social democrat who serves as federal commissioner for eastern Germany, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “And even from people who are not AfD sympathizers or voters, the collateral damage would be very high.”
Europe’s leaders and top officials are descending on Kyiv with pledges of fresh support as Russia continues its relentless air attacks against Ukraine.
Newly appointed French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné said on Saturday in Kyiv that Ukraine will remain “France’s priority” despite “the multiplying crises” during his first foreign trip after his appointment last week. Séjourné hailed a “new phase” in joint weapons production with Ukraine during a press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba.
Séjourné’s trip came on the heels of a visit Friday by U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during which he announced a multi-year security pact with Ukraine. The British leader committed £2.5 billion (€2.9 billion) in military aid to Ukraine for 2024/2025, as he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
France’s Séjourné pledged to boost joint cooperation with Ukraine and “reinforce Ukraine’s capacity to produce on its territory” with France’s top firms. France has also been negotiating a security pact with Ukraine but the details have yet to be announced.
Poland’s Donald Tusk is expected to visit Kyiv this week, possibly on Monday.
The visits by European leaders come in the wake of weeks of renewed Russian air strikes against Ukraine and amid fears that U.S. help has stalled due to a blocked Congress and this year’s American presidential election. On Saturday, Ukrainian air defenses recorded a total of 40 attacks.
Earlier this month, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz issued an unusually stark call to other EU countries to deliver more weapons to Ukraine. The arms deliveries planned so far were “too small,” he said, despite Berlin’s pledge to double its military aid to Kyiv to €8 billion this year.
According to the Kiel Institute, which tallied up military aid to Ukraine in the public domain, Germany was the second-highest donor last year after the U.S., with €17.1 billion; it was followed by the U.K. with €6.6 billion and by Nordic and eastern EU countries. France, in comparison, has only contributed €0.54 billion, Italy €0.69 billion and Spain €0.34 billion.
BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday urged other EU nations to deliver more military aid to Ukraine, saying Berlin has asked Brussels to check with countries on their planned support for Kyiv.
Speaking to reporters, Scholz warned that while his government is planning to double its military aid to Ukraine to €8 billion this year within a draft budget, “this alone will not be enough to guarantee Ukraine’s security in the long term.
“I therefore call on our allies in the European Union to also step up their efforts in support of Ukraine. The arms deliveries for Ukraine planned so far by the majority of EU member states are by all means too small,” he said. “We need higher contributions.”
The chancellor’s unusually frank remarks, delivered at a press conference with Luxembourg Prime Minister Luc Frieden, reflect the growing frustration and concern among German officials that other EU countries appear to be delivering insufficient military resources to Ukraine, about to enter its third year of full-scale invasion by Russia.
Scholz said other EU countries are “perhaps” planning further weapons deliveries, “but we are not aware of them” — and that, accordingly, Berlin has asked the EU to verify with member scountries what support they are planning. “At the latest” by the next summit of EU leaders on February 1, Scholz added, “we need an overview as precise as possible of what concrete contribution our European partners will make to support Ukraine this year.”
The chancellor also expressed optimism that EU countries can overcome Hungary’s objections to a €50 billion EU aid package for Ukraine, which is slated to be adopted during the February summit.
“I am confident that we will manage to get a decision by all 27 member states,” Scholz said. “That is what we are working on very intensively and where we are putting a lot of effort into actually making this possible.”
BRUSSELS — Western leaders are grappling with how to handle two era-defining wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine. But there’s another issue, one far closer to home, that’s derailing governments in Europe and America: migration.
In recent days, U.S. President Joe Biden, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak all hit trouble amid intense domestic pressure to tackle immigration; all three emerged weakened as a result. The stakes are high as American, British and European voters head to the polls in 2024.
“There is a temptation to hunt for quick fixes,” said Rashmin Sagoo, director of the international law program at the Chatham House think tank in London. “But irregular migration is a hugely challenging issue. And solving it requires long-term policy thinking beyond national boundaries.”
With election campaigning already under way, long-term plans may be hard to find. Far-right, anti-migrant populists promising sharp answers are gaining support in many Western democracies, leaving mainstream parties to count the costs. Less than a month ago in the Netherlands, pragmatic Dutch centrists lost to an anti-migrant radical.
Who will be next?
Rishi Sunak, United Kingdom
In Britain, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is under pressure from members of his own ruling Conservative party who fear voters will punish them over the government’s failure to get a grip on migration.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during a press conference in Dover on June 5, 2023 in Dover, England | Pool photo by Yui Mok/WPA via Getty Images
Seven years ago, voters backed Brexit because euroskeptic campaigners promised to “Take Back Control” of the U.K.’s borders. Instead, the picture is now more chaotic than ever. The U.K. chalked up record net migration figures last month, and the government has failed so far to stop small boats packed with asylum seekers crossing the English Channel.
Sunak is now in the firing line. He made a pledge to “Stop the Boats” central to his premiership. In the process, he ignited a war in his already divided party about just how far Britain should go.
Under Sunak’s deal with Rwanda, the central African nation agreed to resettle asylum seekers who arrived on British shores in small boats. The PM says the policy will deter migrants from making sea crossings to the U.K. in the first place. But the plan was struck down by the Supreme Court in London, and Sunak’s Tories now can’t agree on what to do next.
Having survived what threatened to be a catastrophic rebellion in parliament on Tuesday, the British premier still faces a brutal battle in the legislature over his proposed Rwanda law early next year.
Time is running out for Sunak to find a fix. An election is expected next fall.
Emmanuel Macron, France
The French president suffered an unexpected body blow when the lower house of parliament rejected his flagship immigration bill this week.
French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on June 21, 2023 | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
After losing parliamentary elections last year, getting legislation through the National Assembly has been a fraught process for Macron. He has been forced to rely on votes from the right-wing Les Républicains party on more than one occasion.
Macron’s draft law on immigration was meant to please both the conservatives and the center-left with a carefully designed mix of repressive and liberal measures. But in a dramatic upset, the National Assembly, which is split between centrists, the left and the far right, voted against the legislation on day one of debates.
Now Macron is searching for a compromise. The government has tasked a joint committee of senators and MPs with seeking a deal. But it’s likely their text will be harsher than the initial draft, given that the Senate is dominated by the centre right — and this will be a problem for Macron’s left-leaning lawmakers.
If a compromise is not found, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally will be able to capitalize on Macron’s failure ahead of the European Parliament elections next June.
But even if the French president does manage to muddle through, the episode is likely to mark the end of his “neither left nor right” political offer. It also raises serious doubts about his ability to legislate on controversial topics.
Joe Biden, United States
The immigration crisis is one of the most vexing and longest-running domestic challenges for President Joe Biden. He came into office vowing to reverse the policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump, and build a “fair and humane” system, only to see Congress sit on his plan for comprehensive immigration reform.
U.S. President Joe Biden pauses as he gives a speech in Des Moines, Iowa on July 15, 2019 | Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The White House has seen a deluge of migrants at the nation’s southern border, strained by a decades-old system unable to handle modern migration patterns.
Ahead of next year’s presidential election, Republicans have seized on the issue. GOP state leaders have filed lawsuits against the administration and sent busloads of migrants to Democrat-led cities, while in Washington, Republicans in Congress have tied foreign aid to sweeping changes to border policy, putting the White House in a tight spot as Biden officials now consider a slate of policies they once forcefully rejected.
The political pressure has spilled into the other aisle. States and cities, particularly ones led by Democrats, are pressuring Washington leaders to do more in terms of providing additional federal aid and revamping southern border policies to limit the flow of asylum seekers into the United States.
New York City has had more than 150,000 new arrivals over the past year and a half — forcing cuts to new police recruits, cutting library hours and limiting sanitation duties. Similar problems are playing out in cities like Chicago, which had migrants sleeping in buses or police stations.
The pressure from Democrats is straining their relationship with the White House. New York City Mayor Eric Adams runs the largest city in the nation, but hasn’t spoken with Biden in nearly a year. “We just need help, and we’re not getting that help,” Adams told reporters Tuesday.
Olaf Scholz, Germany
Migration has been at the top of the political agenda in Germany for months, with asylum applications rising to their highest levels since the 2015 refugee crisis triggered by Syria’s civil war.
The latest influx has posed a daunting challenge to national and local governments alike, which have struggled to find housing and other services for the migrants, not to mention the necessary funds.
The inability to limit the number of refugees has put German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under immense pressure | Michele Tantussi/Getty Images
The inability — in a country that ranks among the most coveted destinations for asylum seekers — to limit the number of refugees has put German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under immense pressure. In the hope of stemming the flow, Germany recently reinstated border checks with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, hoping to turn back the refugees before they hit German soil.
Even with border controls, refugee numbers remain high, which has been a boon to the far right. Germany’s anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party has reached record support in national polls.
Since overtaking Scholz’s Social Democrats in June, the AfD has widened its lead further, recording 22 percent in recent polls, second only to the center-right Christian Democrats.
The AfD is expected to sweep three state elections next September in eastern Germany, where support for the party and its reactionary anti-foreigner policies is particularly strong.
The center-right, meanwhile, is hardening its position on migration and turning its back on the open-border policies championed by former Chancellor Angela Merkel. Among the new priorities is a plan to follow the U.K.’s Rwanda model for processing refugees in third countries.
Karl Nehammer, Austria
Like Scholz, the Austrian leader’s approval ratings have taken a nosedive thanks to concerns over migration. Austria has taken steps to tighten controls at its southern and eastern borders.
Though the tactic has led to a drop in arrivals by asylum seekers, it also means Austria has effectively suspended the EU’s borderless travel regime, which has been a boon to the regional economy for decades.
Austria has effectively suspended the EU’s borderless travel regime, which has been a boon to the regional economy for decades | Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty Images
The far-right Freedom Party has had a commanding lead for more than a year, topping the ruling center-right in polls by 10 points. That puts the party in a position to win national elections scheduled for next fall, which would mark an unprecedented rightward tilt in a country whose politics have been dominated by the center since World War II.
Giorgia Meloni, Italy
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made her name in opposition, campaigning on a radical far-right agenda. Since winning power in last year’s election, she has shifted to more moderate positions on Ukraine and Europe.
Meloni now needs to appease her base on migration, a topic that has dominated Italian debate for years. Instead, however, she has been forced to grant visas to hundreds of thousands of legal migrants to cover labor shortages. Complicating matters, boat landings in Italy are up by about 50 per cent year-on-year despite some headline-grabbling policies and deals to stop arrivals.
While Meloni has ordered the construction of detention centers where migrants will be held pending repatriation, in reality local conditions in African countries and a lack of repatriation agreements present serious impediments.
Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni at a press conference on March 9, 2023 | Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images
Although she won the support of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for her cause, a potential EU naval mission to block departures from Africa would risk breaching international law.
Meloni has tried other options, including a deal with Tunisia to help stop migrant smuggling, but the plan fell apart before it began. A deal with Albania to offshore some migrant detention centers also ran into trouble.
Now Meloni is in a bind. The migration issue has brought her into conflict with France and Germany as she attempts to create a reputation as a moderate conservative.
If she fails to get to grips with the issue, she is likely to lose political ground. Her coalition partner Matteo Salvini is known as a hardliner on migration, and while they’re officially allies for now, they will be rivals again later.
Geert Wilders, the Netherlands
The government of long-serving Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was toppled over migration talks in July, after which he announced his exit from politics. In subsequent elections, in which different parties vied to fill Rutte’s void, far-right firebrand Geert Wilders secured a shock win. On election night he promised to curb the “asylum tsunami.”
Wilders is now seeking to prop up a center-right coalition with three other parties that have urged getting migration under control. One of them is Rutte’s old group, now led by Dilan Yeşilgöz.
Geert Wilders attends a meeting in the Dutch parliament with party leaders to discuss the formation of a coalition government, on November 24, 2023 | Carl Court/Getty Images
A former refugee, Yeşilgöz turned migration into one of the main topics of her campaign. She was criticized after the elections for paving the way for Wilders to win — not only by focusing on migration, but also by opening the door to potentially governing with Wilders.
Now, though, coalition talks are stuck, and it could take months to form a new cabinet. If Wilders, who clearly has a mandate from voters, can stitch a coalition together, the political trajectory of the Netherlands — generally known as a pragmatic nation — will shift significantly to the right. A crackdown on migration is as certain as anything can be.
Leo Varadkar, Ireland
Even in Ireland, an economically open country long used to exporting its own people worldwide, an immigration-friendly and pro-business government has been forced by rising anti-foreigner sentiment to introduce new migration deterrence measures that would have been unthinkable even a year ago.
Ireland’s hardening policies reflect both a chronic housing crisis and the growing reluctance of some property owners to keep providing state-funded emergency shelter in the wake of November riots in Dublin triggered by a North African immigrant’s stabbing of young schoolchildren.
A nation already housing more than 100,000 newcomers, mostly from Ukraine, Ireland has stopped guaranteeing housing to new asylum seekers if they are single men, chiefly from Nigeria, Algeria, Afghanistan, Georgia and Somalia, according to the most recent Department of Integration statistics.
Ireland has stopped guaranteeing housing to new asylum seekers if they are single men, chiefly from Nigeria, Algeria, Afghanistan, Georgia and Somalia | Jorge Guerrero/AFP via Getty Images
Even newly arrived families face an increasing risk of being kept in military-style tents despite winter temperatures.
Ukrainians, who since Russia’s 2022 invasion of their country have received much stronger welfare support than other refugees, will see that welcome mat partially retracted in draft legislation approved this week by the three-party coalition government of Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.
Once enacted by parliament next month, the law will limit new Ukrainian arrivals to three months of state-paid housing, while welfare payments – currently among the most generous in Europe for people fleeing Russia’s war – will be slashed for all those in state-paid housing.
Justin Trudeau, Canada
A pessimistic public mood dragged down by cost-of-living woes has made immigration a multidimensional challenge for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
A housing crunch felt across the country has cooled support for immigration, with people looking for scapegoats for affordability pains. The situation has fueled antipathy for Trudeau and his re-election campaign.
Trudeau has treated immigration as a multipurpose solution for Canada’s aging population and slowing economy. And while today’s record-high population growth reflects well on Canada’s reputation as a desirable place to relocate, political challenges linked to migration have arisen in unpredictable ways for Trudeau’s Liberals.
Political challenges linked to migration have arisen in unpredictable ways for Trudeau’s Liberals | Andrej Ivanov/AFP
Since Trudeau came to power eight years ago, at least 1.3 million people have immigrated to Canada, mostly from India, the Philippines, China and Syria. Handling diaspora politics — and foreign interference — has become more consequential, as seen by Trudeau’s clash with India and Canada’s recent break with Israel.
Canada will double its 40 million population in 25 years if the current growth rate holds, enlarging the political challenges of leading what Trudeau calls the world’s “first postnational state”.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain
Spain’s autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in Northern Africa, are favored by migrants seeking to enter Europe from the south: Once they make it across the land border, the Continent can easily be accessed by ferry.
Transit via the land border that separates the European territory from Morocco is normally kept in check with security measures like high, razor-topped fences, with border control officers from both countries working together to keep undocumented migrants out.
Spain’s autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in Northern Africa, are favored by migrants seeking to enter Europe | Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP
But in recent years authorities in Morocco have expressed displeasure with their Spanish counterparts by standing down their officers and allowing hundreds of migrants to pass, overwhelming border stations and forcing Spanish officers to repel the migrants, with scores dying in the process.
The headaches caused by these incidents are believed to be a major factor in Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s decision to change the Spanish government’s position on the disputed Western Sahara territory and express support for Rabat’s plan to formalize its nearly 50-year occupation of the area.
The pivot angered Sánchez’s leftist allies and worsened Spain’s relationship with Algeria, a long-standing champion of Western Saharan independence. But the measures have stopped the flow of migrants — for now.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece
Greece has been at the forefront of Europe’s migration crisis since 2015, when hundreds of thousands of people entered Europe via the Aegean islands. Migration and border security have been key issues in the country’s political debate.
Human rights organizations, as well as the European Parliament and the European Commission, have accused the Greek conservative government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis of illegal “pushbacks” of migrants who have made it to Greek territory — and of deporting migrants without due process. Greece’s government denies those accusations, arguing that independent investigations haven’t found any proof.
Mitsotakis insists that Greece follows a “tough but fair” policy, but the numerous in-depth investigations belie the moderate profile the conservative leader wants to maintain.
In June, a migrant boat sank in what some called “the worst tragedy ever” in the Mediterranean Sea. Hundreds lost their lives, refocusing Europe’s attention on the issue. Official investigations have yet to discover whether failures by Greek authorities contributed to the shipwreck, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
In the meantime, Greece is in desperate need of thousands of workers to buttress the country’s understaffed agriculture, tourism and construction sectors. Despite pledges by the migration and agriculture ministers of imminent legislation bringing migrants to tackle the labor shortage, the government was forced to retreat amid pressure from within its own ranks.
Nikos Christodoulides, Cyprus
Cyprus is braced for an increase in migrant arrivals on its shores amid renewed conflict in the Middle East. Earlier in December, Greece sent humanitarian aid to the island to deal with an anticipated increase in flows.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has called for extra EU funding for migration management, and is contending with a surge in violence against migrants in Cyprus. Analysts blame xenophobia, which has become mainstream in Cypriot politics and media, as well as state mismanagement of migration flows. Last year the country recorded the EU’s highest proportion of first-time asylum seekers relative to its population.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has called for extra EU funding for migration management | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
Legal and staffing challenges have delayed efforts to create a deputy ministry for migration, deemed an important step in helping Cyprus to deal with the surge in arrivals.
The island’s geography — it’s close to both Lebanon and Turkey — makes it a prime target for migrants wanting to enter EU territory from the Middle East. Its complex history as a divided country also makes it harder to regulate migrant inflows.
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Tim Ross, Annabelle Dickson, Clea Caulcutt, Myah Ward, Matthew Karnitschnig, Hannah Roberts, Pieter Haeck, Shawn Pogatchnik, Zi-Ann Lum, Aitor Hernández-Morales and Nektaria Stamouli
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Sunday called for a “sustainable cease-fire” in the Middle East, lamenting that “too many civilians have been killed” in the Israel-Hamas war.
In a joint article in the Sunday Times, Baerbock and Cameron made clear that: “We do not believe that calling right now for a general and immediate cease-fire, hoping it somehow becomes permanent, is the way forward.”
“We must do all we can to pave the way to a sustainable cease-fire, leading to a sustainable peace,” they said.
The article represents an apparent shift in the stances of both countries on the conflict in Gaza. The British government has called for a “humanitarian pause” in the fighting, but has stopped short of urging a cease-fire. Germany has staunchly defended Israel’s right to defend itself since the attacks by Hamas on October 7.
“Our goal cannot simply be an end to fighting today. It must be peace lasting for days, years, generations,” the two ministers said in their article, stressing that they support “a cease-fire, but only if it is sustainable.”
The international calls for an immediate cease-fire are “an understandable reaction to such intense suffering, and we share the view that this conflict cannot drag on and on,” Baerbock and Cameron wrote. That is why the two governments “supported the recent humanitarian pauses” and are “pushing the diplomatic effort to agree further pauses to get more aid in and more hostages out,” they said.
“Only extremists like Hamas want us stuck in an endless cycle of violence, sacrificing more innocent lives for their fanatical ideology,” the two ministers wrote.
However, “the Israeli government should do more to discriminate sufficiently between terrorists and civilians, ensuring its campaign targets Hamas leaders and operatives,” Cameron and Baerbock said.
“We do not believe that calling right now for a general and immediate cease-fire, hoping it somehow becomes permanent, is the way forward” because “it ignores why Israel is forced to defend itself: Hamas barbarically attacked Israel and still fires rockets to kill Israeli citizens every day,” they said. Baerbock and Cameron prefer “a sustainable cease-fire, leading to a sustainable peace. The sooner it comes, the better — the need is urgent,” they said.
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, meanwhile, on Sunday urged an “immediate and durable” truce in the Gaza Strip. Speaking in Tel Aviv during a meeting with her Israeli counterpart, Eli Cohen, Colonna said that “the truce should lead to a lasting cease-fire with the aim of releasing all hostages and delivering aid to Gaza.”
BERLIN — Germans gave the world schadenfreude for a reason. And southern Europe couldn’t be more pleased.
For countries that spent years on the receiving end of Europe’s German-inspired fiscal Inquisition, there’s no sweeter sight than to see Germany splayed on the high altar of Teutonic parsimony.
The irony is that Germany put itself there on purpose and has no clue how it will find redemption.
A jaw-dropping constitutional court ruling earlier this month effectively rendered the core of the German government’s legislative agenda null and void left the country in a collective shock. In order to circumvent Germany’s self-imposed deficit strictures, which give governments little room to spend more than they collect in taxes, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition relied on a network of “special funds” outside the main budget. Scholz was convinced the government could tap the money without violating the so-called debt brake.
The court, in no uncertain terms, disagreed. The ruling raises questions about the government’s ability to access a total of €869 billion parked outside the federal budget in 29 “special funds.” The court’s move forced the government to both freeze new spending and put approval of next year’s budget on hold.
Nearly two weeks after the decision, both the magnitude of the ruling and the reality that there’s no easy way out have become increasingly clear. Though Scholz has promised to come up with a new plan “very quickly,” few see a resolution without imposing austerity.
The expectation in the Bundestag is that Scholz will find enough cuts to deal with the immediate €20 billion hole the decision created in next year’s budget, but not much more.
In the meantime, his government is on edge. While Economy Minister Robert Habeck, a Green, has been telling any microphone he can find that Germany’s economic future is hanging in the balance, Finance Minister Christian Lindner has triggered panic and confusion by announcing a series of ill-defined spending freezes.
On Thursday, the government was forced to deny a report that a special fund created to bolster Germany’s armed forces after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine would be affected by the cuts.
At a press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni late Wednesday, Scholz endured the humiliation of a reporter asking his guest whether she considered Germany to be a reliable partner given its budget crisis. A magnanimous Meloni, whose country knows a thing or two about creative accounting, gave Scholz a shot in the arm, responding that in her experience he was “very reliable.”
Greek accounting
Between the lines, the justices of Germany’s constitutional court suggested the use of the shadow funds by Scholz’s coalition amounted to a bookkeeping sleight of hand — the same sort of accounting alchemy Berlin upbraided Greece for more than a decade ago. Perhaps unwittingly, the court ruling echoed then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s unsolicited advice to Athens during Greece’s debt crisis: “Now is the time to do the homework!”
For eurozone countries with a recent history of debt trouble — a group that alongside Greece includes the likes of Spain, Portugal and Italy — Germany’s financial pickle must feel like déjà vu all over again. From 2010 onwards, they found themselves in the unenviable position of trying to explain to Wolfgang Schäuble, Merkel’s taskmaster finance minister, how they planned to return to the path of fiscal rectitude. At Schäuble’s urging, Greece nearly ditched the euro altogether.
The expectation in the Bundestag is that Scholz will find enough cuts to deal with the immediate €20 billion hole the decision created in next year’s budget, but not much more | Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images
In recent months, Germany has once again assumed the role of the fiscal scold in Brussels, where officials have been negotiating a new framework for the eurozone’s rulebook on government spending, known as the Stability and Growth Pact. The pact, which dates to 1997, has been suspended since the pandemic hit, but it is set to take effect again next year. Many countries want to loosen the rules given the huge budget pressures that have followed multiple crises in recent years. Berlin is open to reform but skeptical of granting its fellow euro countries too much leeway on spending.
The latest budget mess certainly won’t help the Germans make their case.
Simple hubris
The allure of the strategy the court has now deemed illegal was that the government thought it could spend money it salted away in the special funds without violating Germany’s constitutional debt brake, which restricts the federal deficit to 0.35 percent of GDP, except in times of emergency.
Put simply, Scholz’s coalition wanted to have its cake and eat it too, creating a veneer of fiscal discipline while spending freely to finance an ambitious agenda.
Despite ample warning from legal experts that the government’s plan to repurpose a huge chunk of emergency pandemic-related funds might not withstand a court challenge, Scholz and his partners went ahead anyway. What’s more, they staked their entire political agenda on the assumption that the strategy would go off without a hitch.
Last week’s court decision is the national equivalent of a rich kid being cut off from his trust fund: Daddy’s money is still there, but junior can’t touch it and has to exchange his Porsche for an Opel.
What many in Berlin cite as the main reason for what they are calling derSchlamassel (fiasco), however, is simple hubris.
Scholz’s mild-mannered public persona belies a know-it-all approach to governing. A lawyer by training who has served for decades in the top ranks of German government, Scholz, at least in his own mind, is generally the smartest person in the room.
During coalition negotiations in 2021, Scholz sold the budget trick idea to his future partners — the conservative liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens — as a way to square the circle between the welfare agenda of his own Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens’ expensive climate agenda, and the FDP’s demands for fiscal rigor (or at least the appearance thereof).
Indeed, it’s doubtful the coalition would have ever been formed in the first place without the plan. The Greens and FDP happily went along; after all Scholz, Germany’s finance minister from 2018-2021, knew what he was doing. Or so they thought.
Finance minister or ‘fuck-up’?
Scholz’s role notwithstanding, his successor as finance minister, FDP leader Christian Lindner, shares a lot of the responsibility for the snafu, for the simple reason that it was his ministry that oversaw the strategy.
During the coalition talks in 2021, Lindner was torn between a desire to govern and the fiscal strictures long championed by his party. Scholz offered him what appeared to be an elegant way to do both.
Scholz’s role notwithstanding, his successor as finance minister, FDP leader Christian Lindner, shares a lot of the responsibility for the snafu | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
When Lindner, who had never served in an executive government role before, was poised to secure the finance ministry, some critics questioned his qualifications to lead the financial affairs of Europe’s largest economy.
Many Germans have no doubt made their determinations in recent weeks.
Green machine
In contrast to the FDP, the Greens, had no qualms about endorsing Scholz’s bookkeeping tricks.
When it comes to realizing the Greens’ environmental goals, the ends have long justified the means.
In the early 2000s, for example, party leaders sold Germans on the idea of switching off the country’s nuclear plants and transitioning to renewables. They won the argument by promising that the subsidies consumers would be forced to finance to pay for the rollout of solar and wind power wouldn’t cost more every month than a “scoop of ice cream.”
In the end, the collective annual bill for German households was €25 billion, enough to have cornered the global ice cream market many times over.
The Greens’ ice cream strategy — secure difficult-to-reverse legislative commitments and worry about the financial details later — also informed their approach to what they call the “social, ecological transformation,” a plan to make Germany’s economy carbon neutral.
That’s why the shock of the court decision has hit the Greens hardest. After more than 15 years in opposition, the Greens saw the alliance with Scholz and Lindner as the culmination of their effort to convince Germans to embrace their ecological vision for the future. Just as the hoped-for revolution was within reach, it has slipped from their grasp.
Habeck, the face of the Green transformation, has looked like a man at his wits’ end in recent days, making dire predictions about the coming economic Armageddon.
“This marks a turning point for both the German economy and the job market,” Habeck told German public television this week, predicting that it would become much more difficult for the country to maintain the level of prosperity it has enjoyed for decades.
Road to perdition
For all his candor, Habeck failed to address the elephant in the room: It’s a fake debt crisis.
There is no objective reason for Germany to be in this dilemma. A best-of-class credit rating means Berlin can borrow money on better terms than almost any country on the planet. With a budget deficit of 2.6 percent of GDP last year and a total debt load amounting to 66 percent of GDP, Germany is also well above average compared to its eurozone peers in terms of fiscal discipline — even counting the debt raised for the special funds.
The only reason Germany can’t spend the money in the special funds is not because it can’t afford to, but rather because it remains beholden to an almost religious fiscal orthodoxy that views deficit debt as the road to perdition.
That conviction prompted Germany to anchor the so-called debt brake in its constitution in 2009, thereby allowing the government to run only a minor deficit, barring a natural disaster or other emergency, such as a war.
For eurozone countries with a recent history of debt trouble — a group that alongside Greece includes the likes of Spain, Portugal and Italy — Germany’s financial pickle must feel like déjà vu all over again | Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images
The constitutional amendment passed by a comfortable margin with broad support from both the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the SPD, which shared power in a grand coalition led by Merkel. At the time, Germany was still recovering from the shock triggered by the 2008 collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers and had to commit billions to shore up its banking sector.
The country’s federal government and states had begun planning a reform of fiscal rules even before the crisis. The emergency gave them additional impetus to pursue a debt brake enshrined in the constitution as a way to restore public trust.
In that respect, it worked as planned. As countries such as Greece and Spain struggled with their public finances in the years that followed, Germany’s debt brake looked prescient.
Even as southern Europe struggled, the German economy went into high gear powered by strong demand for its wares from Asia and North America, allowing the government to not just balance its budget but to run a string of surpluses, peaking in 2018 with a €58 billion windfall.
Goodbye to all that
The good times ended with the pandemic. Germany, along with the rest of the world, was forced to dig deep. It had the fiscal capacity to do so, however, as the pandemic justified lifting the debt brake in both 2020 and 2021.
The fallout from Russia’s attack on Ukraine forced the government to do so again in 2022.
By drawing from special funds, Scholz and Lindner believed they could avoid a repeat in 2023. But the court’s ruling dashed that plan.
Long before the current crisis, it had become clear to most in government — both conservative and left-leaning — that the debt brake was a hampering investment in public infrastructure (Merkel’s coalition emphasized paying down debt instead of investing the surpluses) and, by extension, Germany’s economic competitiveness. Hence the liberal use of the now-closed special fund loophole.
Trouble is, even as many politicians have woken up to the perils of the debt brake, the public remains strongly in favor of it. Nearly two-thirds of Germans continue to support the measure, according to a poll published this week by Der Spiegel.
Repealing or even reforming the brake would require Germany’s political class not just to convince them otherwise, but also to muster a super majority in parliament, which at the moment is unlikely.
Late Thursday, the finance minister signaled that the debt brake would have to fall for 2023 as well. That means the government will have to retroactively declare an emergency — likely in connection with the war in Ukraine — and then hope that the constitutional court buys it.
BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday his ruling coalition would seek to present new budget plans “very quickly” to Parliament, after a constitutional court ruling last week plunged his government and its finances into disarray.
The chancellor is facing mounting criticism that he still hasn’t managed to offer a proposal on how to make up Germany’s yawning budgetary shortfall one week after the bombshell court ruling blew a €60 billion hole in the books.
It’s an accounting mess that now throws into doubt future payments for energy, the green transition of industry and microchip manufacturing.
Crucially, last week’s ruling means not only a delay to next year’s budget — which became evident on Wednesday when a parliament committee postponed a preliminary adoption of spending plans for 2024 — but may also require a supplementary “emergency” budget for this year to deal with the fallout of the court decision.
Speaking at a press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Berlin, Scholz evaded specifics on what happens next, arguing the consequences of the ruling must still “be examined very carefully,” which should now be done “very swiftly and promptly.”
The Social Democratic chancellor argued his three-party coalition, which also includes the Greens and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), was determined to “very quickly” move forward with new budget plans, and “ensure that what we have set out to do — for good cohesion in Germany, for the further development of our welfare state, for the modernization of our economy — can actually be pursued further.”
Still, he did not say where he could make the spending cuts that appear to be needed to make this possible.
Scholz had already sounded upbeat on Tuesday that, despite budget cuts, Germany could still pay subsidies to chipmakers Intel and TSMC for building new plants in eastern Germany.
A key consequence of last week’s ruling is that it will probably limit the ability of German leaders, both at the federal and state level, to use money from a variety of special funds that have been established to circumvent the debt brake. This mechanism restricts the federal deficit to 0.35 percent of GDP, except in times of emergency.
During a budgetary committee hearing on Tuesday, several legal experts argued Scholz’s government would have to present a supplementary “emergency” budget for this year to account for more than €30 billion of expenses for energy subsidies. These subsidies had been financed via a special fund outside the regular budget — a practice that is likely to be unlawful in the light of last week’s ruling.
Controversially, such a decision would probably require the suspension of the debt brake for this year.
Questioned by POLITICO during an event in Berlin on Tuesday evening, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner, who has expressed great pride about upholding the debt brake in the past, evaded making a clear reply on potentially relaxing debt rules for this year.
Lindner also argued the 2024 budget would be “a little less moderate and a little more restrictive.”
The Egyptian-controlled Rafah border crossing from the Gaza Strip opened on Saturday morning, letting trucks carrying humanitarian aid into the blockaded enclave, which has been under siege from the Israeli military for almost two weeks.
The first of 200 trucks loaded with about 3,000 tons of aid, which have been blocked near the Rafah crossing for days, started moving toward Gaza early Saturday, the Associated Press reported.
Earlier this week, U.S. President Joe Biden said Egypt had agreed to open the border and let 20 trucks enter the Palestinian enclave, while Israel said it would allow the delivery of food, water or medicine — but no fuel — from Egypt, provided they were limited to civilians in the southern part of Gaza and would not go to Hamas militants.
European leaders were quick to welcome the border’s opening. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on social media that the crossing’s opening was “an important first step that will alleviate the suffering of innocent people.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it was “good and important that the first humanitarian aid is now coming to the people in Gaza.”
“They need water, food and medicine – we won’t leave them alone,” Scholz said.
The Gaza Strip has been besieged by Israeli forces since October 9, when Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallan moved to restrict all access to food, water and energy in the enclave in retaliation for a surprise incursion from the Hamas militant group that killed at least 1,400 people in Israel.
The U.N. has called on Israel to reverse course, with a spokesperson saying an evacuation in Gaza “could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation.”
The news of the border crossing’s opening comes as leaders of a dozen countries — including top officials from Germany, France, Turkey and Qatar — are set to meet in Cairo on Saturday at the invitation of Egypt’s leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in an attempt to prevent the conflict from escalating into a broader regional war.
Meanwhile, Israel asked its citizens living in neighboring Jordan and Egypt to leave those countries “as soon as possible” and to “avoid staying in all the Middle East/Arab countries,” according to a joint statement from the prime minister’s office and the foreign ministry.
It’s as if one front in the Israel-Hamas war is playing out on the streets of Berlin.
The main battleground has been an avenue lined with chicken and kebab restaurants in Neukölln, a neighborhood in the south-east of the city that’s home to many Middle Eastern immigrants. Some pro-Palestinian activists have called for demonstrators to turn out almost nightly, and, as one post put it, turn the area “into Gaza.”
On October 18, hundreds of people, many of them teenagers, answered the call.
“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” chanted many in the crowd as a phalanx of riot police closed in on them. Berlin public prosecutors say the slogan is a call for the erasure of Israel, and have moved to make its utterance a criminal offense.
While similar scenes have played out across much of the world, for Germany’s leaders, they are profoundly embarrassing and strike at the heart of the nation’s identity, on account of the country’s Nazi past.
Germany’s “history and our responsibility arising from the Holocaust make it our duty to stand up for the existence and security of the State of Israel,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said during a visit to Israel on October 17 intended to illustrate Germany’s solidarity.
The difficulty for Scholz is that far from everyone in Germany sees it his way.
German leaders across the political spectrum expressed outrage when, after the Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack on Israeli civilians, dozens of people assembled in Neukölln to celebrate. One 23-year-old man, a Palestinian flag draped over his shoulders, handed out sweets.
A community on edge
Since then, tensions in Berlin and in other German cities have rapidly escalated. A surge in antisemitic incidents has left many in the country’s Jewish community on edge and German police have stepped up security at cultural institutions and houses of worship.
At the same time, German police have moved to ban many pro-Palestinian demonstrations, saying there is a high risk of “incitement to hatred” and a threat to public safety. Demonstrators have come out anyway, leading to violent clashes with police.
Some in Germany, particularly on the political left, have questioned whether the bans on pro-Palestinian protests are an overreach of the state, arguing that they stifle legitimate concerns about civilian casualties in Gaza stemming from Israel’s retaliatory strikes.
But Berlin authorities say, based on past experience, the likelihood of antisemitic rhetoric — even violence — at prohibited pro-Palestinian demonstrations is too high.
Protesters demanding a peaceful resolution to the current conflict in Israel and Gaza demonstrate under the slogan “Not in my name!” in Berlin | Maja Hitij/Getty Images
Many on the far-left have joined those protests that do take place.
On Wednesday night, around the same time demonstrators assembled in Neukölln, a group of a few hundred leftist activists showed up at a planned vigil for peace outside the foreign ministry.
“Free Palestine from German guilt,” they chanted in English. Germany, the argument went, should get over its Holocaust history, at least when it comes to support for Israel. The irony is that there is much sympathy for this view on the far right.
One recent poll showed that 78 percent of supporters of the far-right Alternative for Germany disagreed with the idea that the country has a “special obligation towards Israel.” Extreme-right politicians have also called on Germany to get over its “cult of guilt.”
For many in the country’s Jewish community — which in recent years has grown to an estimated 200,000 people, including many Israelis — the conflagration in the Middle East has made fear part of daily life.
Molotov cocktails
In the pre-dawn hours on Wednesday, two people wearing masks threw Molotov cocktails at a Berlin Jewish community hub that houses a synagogue. The incendiary devices hit the sidewalk, and no one was hurt. But the attack stoked profound alarm.
“Hamas’ ideology of extermination against everything Jewish is also having an effect in Germany,” said the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the country’s largest umbrella Jewish organization.
Since the Israel-Hamas war broke out, several homes in Berlin where Jews are thought to live have been marked with the Star of David.
“My first thought was: ‘It’s like the Nazi time,’” said Sigmount Königsberg, the antisemitism commissioner for Berlin’s Jewish Community, an organization that oversees local synagogues and other parts of Jewish life in the city. “Many Jews are hiding their Jewishness,” he added — in other words, concealing skullcaps or religious insignia out of fear of being attacked.
It remains unclear who perpetrated the firebombing attack and Star of David graffiti. But historical data shows a clear correlation between upsurges in Middle East violence and increased antisemitic incidents in Europe, according to academic researchers.
In the eight days following Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, there were 202 antisemitic incidents connected to the war, mostly motivated by “anti-Israel activism,” according to data compiled by the Anti-Semitism Research and Information Center.
Fears within the Jewish community were particularly prevalent after a former Hamas leader called for worldwide demonstrations in a “day of rage.” Many students at a Jewish school in Berlin stayed home. Two teachers wrote a letter to Berlin’s mayor to express their dismay that, as they put it, the school was nearly empty.
A pro-Palestinian demonstrator displays a placard during a protest against the bombing in Gaza outside the Foreign Ministry in Berlin on October 18, 2023 | John Macdougall/AFP via Getty Images
“This means de facto that Jew-haters have usurped the decision-making authority over Jewish life in Berlin,” they wrote. The teachers then blamed Germany’s willingness to take in refugees from war-torn places like Syria and Lebanon. “Germany has taken in and continues to take in hundreds of thousands of people whose socialization includes antisemitism and hatred of Israel,” they wrote.
Day of rage
Surveys show that Muslims in Germany are more likely to hold antisemitic views than the general population. Politicians often refer this phenomenon as “imported antisemitism,” brought into the country through immigration from Muslim-majority nations.
At the same time, it was a far-right attacker who perpetrated some of the worst antisemitic violence in Germany’s recent history. That came in 2019, when a gunmen tried to massacre 51 people celebrating Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, in a synagogue in the eastern German city of Halle. Two people were killed.
German neo-Nazis have praised Hamas’s October 7 attacks in Israel. One group calling itself the “Young Nationalists” posted a picture of a bloodstained Star of David on social media next to the slogan “Israel murders and the world watches.”
During the Neukölln demonstration, officers arrested individual protestors one by one, picking them out from the crowd and dragging them off by force.
The atmosphere grew increasingly tense. Demonstrators lobbed fireworks and bottles at the police. Dumpsters and tires were set alight. By the end of the night, police made 174 arrests, including 29 minors. Police said 65 officers were injured in the clashes.
At one point amid the chaos, a 15-year-old girl with a Palestinian keffiyeh — a black and white scarf — wrapped around most of her face emerged amid the smoke and explosions to pose for a selfie in front of a row of riot police.
She said she was there to demonstrate for “peace.” When asked how peace would be achieved, she replied: “When the Israeli side pisses off our land, there will be peace. Won’t there?”
BERLIN — Facing war on two fronts — in Ukraine and in the Middle East — Kyiv is calling on Western democracies to ramp up investment in weapons, saying that arms factory output worldwide is falling miles short of what is needed.
In an interview, Ukraine’s Minister for Strategic Industries Oleksandr Kamyshin told POLITICO Western countries needed to accelerate production of missiles, shells and military drones as close to frontlines as possible.
“The free world should be producing enough to protect itself,” Kamyshin said, on a mission to the German capital to persuade arms producers to invest in war-ravaged Ukraine. “That’s why we have to produce more and better weapons to stay safe.”
Current factory capacity was woeful, he argued. “If you get together all the worldwide capacities for weapons production, for ammunition production, that will be not enough for this war,” said Kamyshin of the state of play along Ukraine’s more than 1,000 kilometers of active frontline.
As the Israel Defense Forces continue to pummel Gaza and fighting gathers pace along the contact line in Ukraine, armies are burning through ammunition at a rate not seen in decades. Policymakers are asking whether Western allies can support both countries with air defense systems and artillery at once.
The answer, says Kamyshin, is to start building out production facilities now. “What happens in Israel now shows and proves that the defense industry globally is a destination for investments for decades,” he said.
Since Russia’s war on Ukraine started in February 2022, western governments have been funneling arms to Kyiv. That includes hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, armored vehicles and other equipment.
But as the grind of war continues, Kyiv has changed tack — appointing Kamyshin, the former boss of Ukraine’s state railway — to the post of minister for strategic industries. Ukraine, formerly a major military hub in the Soviet Union, is now trying to increase output of armored vehicles, ammunition and air defense systems, he said, and wants Western partners to invest.
A key step is expected on Tuesday, when German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal will announce a new joint venture between Rheinmetall and Ukroboronprom, a Ukrainian defense company, Kamyshin said.
In late September, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office gave the green light to the cooperation agreement after a review that found the proposed venture “does not result in any overlaps in terms of competition in Germany.”
Building local
Last March, EU countries pledged to send a millionartillery rounds to Ukraine over the following year as part of a program to lift production. Ukraine may need as much as 1.5 million shells annually to sustain its war effort, a daunting task that Kamyshin hopes he can help, at least partially, with domestic output.
In total, Ukraine has received over 350 self-propelled and towed artillery systems from NATO countries and Australia. Combined with Soviet-era pieces in Ukrainian stocks prior to the Russian invasion, Kyiv has approximately 1,600 pieces of artillery in service — but must cover a massive front.
Ukraine has received over 350 self-propelled and towed artillery systems from NATO countries and Australia | Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images
And although the deepening of the German-Ukrainian defense relationship is a boon for Kyiv’s war effort, the enemy on the battlefield — Russia — can also leverage its own international relationships for war materiel, and has been quick to agree military hardware deals with the likes of Iran and North Korea.
Earlier this month, reports pointed out Pyongyang likely transferred a sizable shipment of artillery ammunition to Russia. The details of the deal are secret, but the shipment came on the heels of a visit to Pyongyang by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in turn made a trip to Russia by rail and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia previously struck a deal with Tehran for Iranian loitering munitions that hammered cities across Ukraine last winter in an intentional targeting of civilian infrastructure.
The increasingly international scope of sourcing for the war in Ukraine is not limited to non-NATO countries. Poland recently started taking delivery of tanks, howitzers, rocket launchers and light attack aircraft from South Korea, a nod to how quickly Seoul can ramp up production affordably.
For Kamyshin, the key was to make plans for the long term.
“This war can be for decades,” he said. “[The] Russians can come back always.”
BRUSSELS — Defense ministers flying into the Belgian capital for a NATO meeting starting Wednesday were expecting to spend their time backing Ukraine — instead, they find their intel briefings full of a region mostly forgotten in the past two years: the Middle East.
From the White House’s new military support for Israel to emergency meetings across European capitals, to a fumbled EU response to the crisis, NATO allies are grappling with a renewed sense of urgency over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hamas’ surprise attacks on Israel over the weekend has led to the Israeli government’s vow of total retaliation in the Gaza Strip, with a record number of 300,000 reservists already drafted within 48 hours.
The timing is an inconvenience for the Ukrainians, who aim to galvanize further support from NATO countries in what will be the first defense ministers’ meeting following a NATO leaders’ summit in July that saw beefed-up pledges for Ukraine’s security and military support.
Oleksandr Merezhko, chairman of the Ukrainian parliament’s committee on foreign policy, acknowledged the “fears” among his compatriots over whether the West can stay focused on Russia’s invasion while also dealing with the ongoing Israeli-Hamas situation.
“I can only speak for myself. Yes, there are such fears,” Merezhko told POLITICO. “But, at the same time, I think that in the end it will not be a problem, because the USA is such a powerful country in economic and military terms.”
While Ukraine’s new Defense Minister Rustem Umerov is scheduled to get hours of attention, Israel is also expected to be discussed — at least on the sidelines.
“I would be surprised if the situation in the Middle East isn’t mentioned at the meeting,” said a NATO diplomat granted anonymity to speak freely. A second diplomat said they expected strong interest in what U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had to say.
The interest isn’t unusual because Israel has a longtime partnership with NATO, another diplomat pointed out, so it would only be “natural” for the alliance to be concerned about its next steps.
Just a week before the Hamas attack, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, the chair of the NATO Military Committee, visited Israel to meet with President Isaac Herzog and military officials. Bauer also visited the Gaza border crossing, where he praised the Israeli military’s “unique expertise in underground counterterrorism activity.”
While the line from the White House is that the United States can deal with two regional crises at the same time, domestic skeptics of helping Ukraine are already piling on.
“Israel is facing existential threat. Any funding for Ukraine should be redirected to Israel immediately,” Josh Hawley, a Republican senator allied with former President Donald Trump, said on social media.
Pledges for Kyiv
U.S. officials are trying to dispel Ukrainian concerns, pointing out that the two countries have differing needs because they face very different threats.
“On the question of whether or not U.S. support for Israel could possibly come at the expense of U.S. support for Ukraine, we don’t anticipate any major challenges in that regard,” U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith told reporters on Tuesday. “I suspect the United States will be able to stay focused on our partnership and commitment to Israel’s security, while also meeting our commitments and promise to continue supporting Ukraine as it defends its territory.”
Hamas’ surprise attacks on Israel over the weekend has led to the Israeli government’s vow of total retaliation in the Gaza Strip | Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images
“I think allies no doubt will want to talk about what happened in Israel and express their solidarity. We’ve seen all members of the alliance issue their own national statements — really in real time almost as the attack was ongoing. And I suspect that will be part of our conversation,” Smith said.
Ukraine still remains a key focus for this week’s NATO meeting.
It begins on Wednesday with the U.S.-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a regular gathering of NATO and Ukrainian ministers to discuss what weapons to give Ukraine. It will be followed by the NATO-Ukraine Council meeting, a format that’s already in its fourth edition since it was created in July, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attended the NATO Summit in Lithuania.
“I anticipate that the emphasis will be mostly on air defense and ammunition although no doubt the Ukrainians will come in with a variety of other requests,” Smith said. “It always is an organic meeting where ministers step forward and offer assistance in real time.”
Shortly before the NATO meeting, Umerov, the Ukrainian defense minister, reached out to his Dutch counterpart, Kajsa Ollongren, on Ukraine’s “urgent needs” for air defense systems, long-range missiles and artillery. The Netherlands has also been leading on the F-16 fighter jet training for Ukraine’s pilots.
That’s a sign that the alliance can juggle both Ukraine and Israel, Ollongren told POLITICO.
“Splits? No. But I think of course there will also be attention and focus on Israel and how the situation is developing over there,” she said. “But I think it’s very important, it’s a good thing that we are meeting tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, to underline that the support for Ukraine is not affected.”
CORRECTION: This article has been updated to correct the spelling of the Dutch defense minister’s name: it is Kajsa Ollongren.
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Veronika Melkozerova, Stuart Lau, Paul McLeary and Laura Kayali
At least Europe no longer has to endure that hackneyed Henry Kissinger quip about whom to call if you want “to call Europe.”
No one’s calling anyway.
Of the myriad geostrategic illusions that have been destroyed in recent days, the most sobering realization for anyone residing on the Continent should be this: No one cares what Europe thinks. Across an array of global flashpoints, from Nagorno-Karabakh to Kosovo to Israel, Europe has been relegated to the role of a well-meaning NGO, whose humanitarian contributions are welcomed, but is otherwise ignored.
The 27-member bloc has always struggled to articulate a coherent foreign policy, given the diverse national interests at play. Even so, it still mattered, mainly due to the size of its market. The EU’s global influence is waning, however, amid the secular decline of its economy and its inability to project military might at a time of growing global instability.
Instead of the “geopolitical” powerhouse Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised when she took office in 2019, the EU has devolved into a pan-Europeanminnow, offering a degree of bemusement to the real players at the top table, while mostly just embarrassing itself amid its cacophony of contradictions.
If that sounds harsh, consider the past 72 hours: In the wake of Hamas’ massacre of hundreds of Israeli civilians over the weekend, European Enlargement Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi announced on Monday that the bloc would “immediately” suspend €691 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority. A few hours later, Slovenian Commissioner Janez Lenarčič contradicted his Hungarian colleague, insisting the aid “will continue as long as needed.”
The Commission’s press operation followed up with a statement that the EU would conduct an “urgent review” of some aid programs to ensure that funds not be funneled into terrorism, implying such safeguards were not already in place.
As far as the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell was concerned, the outcome of any review of assistance for the Palestinians was a foregone conclusion: “We will have to support more, not less,” he said on Tuesday.
To sum up: Over the course of just 24 hours, the Commission went from announcing it would suspend all aid to the Palestinians to signaling it would increase the flow of funds.
The EU’s response to the events on the ground in Israel was no less confused. Even as Israel was still counting the bodies from the most horrific massacre in the Jewish state’s history, Borrell, a longtime critic of the country who has effectively been declared persona non grata there, resorted to bothsidesing.
Borrell, a Spanish socialist, condemned Hamas’ “barbaric and terrorist attack,” while also chiding Israel for its blockade of Gaza and highlighting the “suffering” of the Palestinians who voted Hamas into power.
The Spaniard’s approach stood in sharp contrast to that of von der Leyen, who unequivocally condemned the attacks (albeit in a series of tweets) and had the Israeli flag projected onto the façade of her office.
Borrell organized an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers in Oman to discuss the situation in Israel, but Israel’s foreign minister declined to participate, even remotely | AFP via Getty Images
Those moves immediately drew protest from other corners of the EU, however, with Clare Daly, a firebrand leftist MEP from Ireland, questioning von der Leyen’s legitimacy and telling her to “shut up.”
By mid-week, ascertaining Europe’s position on the crisis was like throwing darts — blindfolded.
Bloody hands
Compare that with the messaging from Washington.
“In this moment, we must be crystal clear,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a special White House address Tuesday. “We stand with Israel. We stand with Israel. And we will make sure Israel has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself, and respond to this attack.”
Biden noted that he’d called France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom to discuss the crisis. Notably not on the list: any of the EU’s “leaders.”
On Tuesday, Borrell organized an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers in Oman, where they were already gathering, to discuss the situation in Israel. Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, declined to participate, even remotely.
That’s not too surprising, considering Europe’s record on Iran, which has supported Hamas for decades and whose leadership celebrated the weekend attacks. Though Iran denies direct involvement, many analysts say Hamas’ carefully planned assault would not have been possible without training and logistical support from Tehran.
“Hamas would not exist if not for Iran’s support,” U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, said on Wednesday. “And so it is a bit of splitting hairs as to whether they were intimately involved in the planning of these attacks, or simply funded Hamas for decades to give them the ability to plan these attacks. There’s no doubt that Iran has blood on its hands.”
Despite persistent signs of Tehran’s malevolent activities across the region, including the detention of a European diplomat vacationing in Iran, Borrell has repeatedly sought to engage with the country’s hard-line regime in the hope of reigniting the so-called nuclear deal with global powers that then-U.S. President Donald Trump exited in 2018.
Last year, Borrell even traveled to Iran in a bid to restart talks, despite the loud objections of Israel’s then-foreign minister, Yair Lapid.
If nothing else, Borrell is consistent.
“Iran wants to wipe out Israel? Nothing new about that,” he told POLITICO in 2019 when he was still Spanish foreign minister. “You have to live with it.”
European Council President Charles Michel mounted an ambitious diplomatic effort earlier this year amid a resurgence in tensions | Jorge Guererro/AFP via Getty Images
Now Europe has to live with the consequences of that misguided policy and its loss of credibility in Israel, the region’s only democracy.
The Charles Michel Show
Another glaring example of Europe’s geopolitical impotence is Nagorno-Karabakh, the disputed, predominantly Armenian, region in Azerbaijan.
The long-simmering conflict there was all but forgotten by most of the world, but not by European Council President Charles Michel, who mounted an ambitious diplomatic effort earlier this year amid a resurgence in tensions.
In July, Michel hosted leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Brussels, the sixth such meeting. He described the discussions as “frank, honest and substantive.” He even invited the leaders to a special summit in October for a “pentalateral meeting” with Germany and France in Granada.
It wasn’t meant to be. By then, Azerbaijan had seized the region, sending more than 100,000 refugees fleeing to Armenia. Europe, in dire need of natural gas from Azerbaijan, was powerless to do anything but watch.
Earlier this month, Michel blamed Russia, traditionally Armenia’s protector in the region, for the fiasco.
“It is clear for everyone to see that Russia has betrayed the Armenian people,” Michel told Euronews.
A similar pattern has played out in Kosovo, where the Europeans have been trying for years to broker a lasting peace between its Albanian and Serbian populations. The main sticking point there is the status of the northern part of Kosovo, bordering Serbia, where Serbs comprise a majority of the roughly 40,000 residents.
Borrell even appointed a “Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue and other Western Balkan Regional Issues.”
The incumbent in the post, Miroslav Lajčák, Slovakia’s former foreign minister, hasn’t had much luck. Though Lajčák was awarded the grandiose title more than three years ago, the parties are, if anything, further apart today than ever.
The EU has spent untold millions trying to stabilize the region, funding civil society organizations, schools and even a police force.
When tensions threatened to devolve into all-out combat following an incursion into northern Kosovo by Serbian militiamen last month, however, the EU was forced to resort to its tried-and-true crisis resolution mechanism: Uncle Sam.
”We get criticized for too little leadership in Europe and then for too much,” U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke said in 1998, after Washington dragged its reluctant European allies into an effort to halt the “ethnic cleansing” campaign unleashed by Yugoslavian leader Slobodan Milošević in Kosovo.
”The fact is the Europeans are not going to have a common security policy for the foreseeable future,” Holbrooke added. “We have done our best to keep them involved. But you can imagine how far I would have got with Mr. Milošević if I’d said, ‘Excuse me, Mr. President, I’ll be back in 24 hours after I’ve talked to the Europeans.”’
Risky business
One needn’t look further than Ukraine for proof that his point is no less valid today. Though the EU has done what it can, providing tens of billions in financial, humanitarian and military aid, it’s not nearly enough to help Ukraine keep the Russians at bay. If it weren’t for American support, Russian troops would be stationed all along the EU’s eastern flank, from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
Ukraine’s plight highlights the divide between Europe’s geostrategic aspirations and reality. Even though Europe didn’t anticipate Russia’s full-scale invasion, it had been talking for years about the need to improve its defense capabilities.
“We must fight for our future ourselves, as Europeans, for our destiny,” then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared in 2017.
And then nothing happened.
The reality is that it will always be easier to lean on Washington than to achieve European consensus around foreign policy and military capabilities.
That’s why Europe’s discussions about security sound more like fantasy football than Risk.
After Biden decided to send a U.S. aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean in response to the Hamas attack this week, Thierry Breton, France’s EU commissioner, said Europe needed to think about building its own aircraft carrier. Even in Brussels, the comment generated little more than comic relief.
Despite all the rhetoric about the necessity for Europe to play a more global role, not even the leaders of the EU’s biggest members, France and Germany, seem to be serious about it.
As Biden hunkered down in the White House Situation Room to discuss the crisis in Israel, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz were busy conferring in Hamburg.
After agreeing to redouble their efforts to cut red tape in the EU, they took a harbor cruise with their partners.
The leaders celebrated their successful deliberations on a local wharf with beer and Fischbrötchen, a Hamburg fish sandwich. The sun even came out.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz sought to justify his reluctance to supply Ukraine with Taurus cruise missiles on Thursday by naming constitutional constraints and the risk of an “escalation of the war.”
However, Scholz did announce additional military support for Kyiv in the form of another “Patriot” air defense system “for the winter months” and argued that “this is what is most needed now.”
The chancellor has come under increased pressure from allies like the United Kingdom — but also from within his own ruling coalition — to hand over the German long-distance, high-precision Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine, especially as the U.K. and France have already supplied Kyiv with their “Storm Shadow” and “Scalp” cruise missiles.
Yet Scholz continues to rule out delivery of the Taurus “for now,” a German official told POLITICO on Wednesday, confirming a report by Bild. And when asked by reporters on Thursday why he does not want to send the cruise missiles, the chancellor argued that such a decision could only be made after “careful consideration.”
“After all, when a war lasts so long, these considerations can’t stop at once,” Scholz said during a press conference on the sidelines of the European Political Community summit in Granada, Spain, adding that his government “must always take into account what the constitution requires of us and what our options for action are.”
He added: “This includes in particular the fact that we must of course ensure that there is no escalation of the war and that Germany does not become part of the conflict. It is also my task as chancellor to ensure that.”
Scholz did not elaborate on what potential constitutional constraints he had in mind, but Bild reported that the chancellor was concerned that for Ukraine to use the Taurus missiles, Berlin would have to deliver geo-data of Russian targets and thereby take a more active role in the war. Scholz is also reportedly worried that Ukraine might use the missiles to hit the Kerch bridge connecting occupied Crimea with Russia.
Yet Christian Mölling, the deputy director of the German Council on Foreign Relations and a renowned security expert, argued on X, formerly Twitter, that Germany would not take an active role in the war once it hands the cruise missiles over to Ukraine, and denounced Scholz’s concerns as “smoke grenades.”
Among the harshest critics of Scholz’s decision is Andreas Schwarz, a defense policy lawmaker from the chancellor’s Social Democratic Party: “History books will find their verdict on our politics today,” Schwarz wrote Wednesday evening on X, adding: “My opinion is and remains clear: Deliver Taurus — immediately!”
Seemingly trying to calm down the growing criticism, Scholz repeatedly emphasized during his press conference on Thursday how “very far-reaching” but also “very effective” was his decision to supply Ukraine with another Patriot air defense system.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the delivery of the Patriot system on X, and wrote: “I’m grateful for Germany’s support in defending our freedom and people.”
In two German state elections that are seen as a bellwether of the national mood, the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, surged while the three parties that make up the country’s federal coalition government suffered significant losses.
Conservative forces won clear victories in both the states of Bavaria and Hesse. In Bavaria, the Christian Social Union (CSU), a sister-party to the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), is projected to win 37 percent of the vote. In Hesse, the CDU is set to win 34.6 percent of the vote.
But the biggest winner of the night was arguably the AfD, a party that has become increasingly extreme since its founding in 2013. The AfD came in second place in Hesse and third place in Bavaria, according to preliminary results, landmark gains for the party.
The AfD’s strong performance outside its traditional bastion in the states of the former East Germany suggests the party has successfully expanded its base of support. This development has already sparked a renewed flurry of soul-searching among leaders of mainstream parties.
“The increased performance of the AfD can only worry every democrat in this country,” Ricarda Lang, a co-leader of the Greens, said on public television. “I would like to see us move away from finger-pointing and for every democratic party to now consider what we can do to make [the election results] look different again in the future.”
In both Bavaria and Hesse, the three parties that make up German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ruling coalition — the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens, and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) — all saw their support drop. That outcome demonstrated widespread dissatisfaction with the federal government at a time of growing economic and social insecurity.
The German economy has been stuck in an extended rut, precipitated in part by the surge in energy prices that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A sharp rise in the number of asylum seekers entering Germany this year and a growing shortage of affordable housing has also fueled voter dissatisfaction.
The AfD was clearly able to capitalize on this discontent. Robert Lambrou, the AfD’s parliamentary group leader in Hesse, where the party was projected to win 18.4 percent of the vote, called the party’s performance in the state “breathtaking.” Many people, he added, “feel that a change in policy is needed. We have high inflation, high energy prices, high rents. We have completely unchecked mass immigration. There is a lot to be done here.”
In Bavaria, the AfD was projected to win 14.6 percent of the vote, just behind the Free Voters, a right-wing upstart party that governs in coalition with the CSU in the state. The outcome means that, in both state elections, the AfD outperformed all parties in Germany’s federal ruling coalition, a scenario that would have been hard to imagine some years ago.
Germany’s ruling coalition had already been beset by infighting, particularly between the Greens and the FDP — parties that are in many ways ideological opposites. The poor outcome for the coalition parties may well make the discord worse, as each party seeks to reinforce its base of support.
In Hesse, a former SPD stronghold, the Social Democrats suffered an embarrassing defeat, winning just 15.1 percent of the vote, according to projections. The loss is all the more stinging for the party because its candidate in the state is Scholz’s federal interior minister, Nancy Faeser, who in a speech called the result “very disappointing.”
With such a poor result, many are now speculating on whether Faeser will be able to keep her job as interior minister. Chancellor Scholz is likely to face pressure to make sweeping changes in order to reverse the fortunes of his party and coalition.
The election outcome was particularly disastrous for the FDP, a junior partner in Scholz’s coalition. The party won just three percent of the vote in Bavaria and five percent of the vote in Hesse, according to projections. The party is in danger of crashing out of both state parliaments if it fails to meet the required five-percent hurdle.
For the leaders of Germany’s federal coalition government, the election outcome has already raised loud alarm bells. The only question is whether there’s enough unity within the coalition to turn the tide.
“Of course, we are not deaf and blind,” SPD Secretary-General Kevin Kühnert said on German public television after the initial election results came in. “All of us together in this coalition should recognize the signals.”
