Latest news with #DieLinke
Local Germany
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Local Germany
Germany deports 'above average' number of people at the start of 2025
In the first three months of the year, 6,151 people were deported from Germany -- more than the average number of deportations seen per quarter in the past two years. This figure was announced by the federal government in response to an inquiry brought by the Left Party ( Die Linke ) in the Bundestag, and reported by Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) . In 2024 a total of about 20,100 people were deported from Germany. The repatriations, carried out from January to March, took place under the previous federal government. But the conservative Christian Democrat and Christian Socialist (CDU/CSU) parties have announced ambitious plans to carry out even more repatriations going forward. Why is Germany carrying out more deportations The increase in deportations carried out in Germany comes in part as the effect of the Repatriation Act ( Rückführungsverbesserungsgesetz ), which came into force on February 27th, 2024. Proponents of the law said it was aimed at tightening and enforcing deportation rules for people who had been convicted of criminal offences, but it also grants authorities more power to deport asylum seekers who had not committed offences. The law also extended the amount of time people could be detained and granted police more power to search their accommodation and smartphones. 'Dublin transfers' People were most frequently deported to Turkey, Georgia, France, Spain and Serbia. A total of 157 people were deported to Iraq, and five to Iran. According to the government report, around 1,700 of the deportations were so-called "Dublin transfers" . According to EU immigration rules, refugees must apply for asylum in the EU country where they first set foot on European territory. So when asylum seekers enter the country on land by first crossing through neighbouring countries, Germany can send them back to the first EU country where they were registered. READ ALSO: EU paves way for states to set up controversial return hubs for migrants Advertisement High costs and 'brutal' procedures Conservative leaders argue that repatriations save Germany money and resources that would be spent on social benefits for new arrivals, but the deportation process itself is also expensive. According to the government report, more than a third of the deportations took place with expensive charter flights. Most other deportees were sent on pre-scheduled flights. In total 5,216 deportations were carried out by air, 913 by land and 22 by sea. Collective deportations to Pakistan were particularly expensive and time-consuming. The costs for this amounted to €462,000. Similarly, the costs for deportation flights to Ethiopia amounted to €418,000, and deportation flights to Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon totalled €380,000. For many of these flights, however, the European border protection agency Frontex bore the costs. The Left Party MP Clara Bünger criticized the way authorities carry out departations. She said she was aware of several cases in which the police acted "brutally and without any empathy". "We are talking about families being torn apart ice-cold or about sick people being literally kidnapped from the hospital, and carted directly from there to the deportation flight," Bünger told RND .
The Guardian
07-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Friedrich Merz arrives as a humbled new German chancellor – but that may not be the worst way to start
There goes the cliche about German politics being stable but dull. Germany finally has a new leader, but only after a day of drama, suspense and historic twists. The conservative Friedrich Merz failed to secure a majority confirming him as chancellor in the first round of voting in the Bundestag. In eight decades of postwar Germany, this has never happened before. When Merz's cabinet was finally sworn in later on Tuesday afternoon, after a successful second round, both parties in the governing coalition – the conservative CDU/CSU and the Social Democrats (SPD) – were eager to play down the failure as a mere hiccup. But the high drama indicates a new degree of fragmentation and instability in the German party system. It is certain to affect the way this new administration will govern. Merz starts his term as a weakened, somewhat humbled leader. There is some poetic justice in that, certainly from the viewpoint of the opposition. Ironically, Merz had to rely on the support of the Greens and the far-left Die Linke on Tuesday to table a second round of voting. Merz had fiercely attacked both parties during the campaign. But because a two-thirds majority was needed to change the Bundestag's proceedings to allow a second vote on the same day, the conservatives had to beg the loony left (or 'leftwing weirdos' as Merz calls them) for help. Technically, they could also have relied on votes by the hard-right AfD, now the leading opposition party. But that move would have blown up the new coalition. Its governing consensus is based on maintaining the 'firewall' against the AfD, excluding cooperation with the party that was confirmed as 'rightwing extremist' by the German domestic security service just days ago. Merz had promised to take the Christian Democrats back to their roots after Angela Merkel's decidedly moderate reign. But coalition dynamics draw him even closer to the centre than his predecessor. This, in turn, exposes him to attacks from the AfD, whose leaders constantly assail Merz for his supposed 'treason' of conservative principles. Berlin is rife with speculation about who the rebels were. Disaffected conservatives, unhappy with the abolition of the strict deficit rules, the so-called debt brake? Distrustful Social Democrats holding Merz in contempt for pushing a migration bill through the Bundestag earlier this year with help from the AfD? Maybe both? Because of the secret ballot, Merz and his vice-chancellor, Lars Klingbeil, the co-leader of the SPD, cannot be sure what triggered the extraordinary vote of no confidence by the 18 dissidents who denied them a smooth confirmation. Yes, they succeeded in re-establishing discipline before the second vote. But the brush with disaster will be remembered whenever contentious legislation comes to a vote in the next four years. It is also all but certain that Germany's challenges will demand painful compromises from both coalition partners. The conservatives must accept a looser fiscal policy so the country can finally invest heavily in defence and replace crumbling infrastructure, while the centre-left will find it hard to take ownership of the harsher stance on irregular immigration that a majority of voters want. The challenges that this new German government faces are enormous. Germany's business model is under assault from China and the US at the same time, with Donald Trump's tariffs looming and a flood of Chinese EVs threatening to wipe out the German car industry. Not to mention America's desire to wash its hands of Ukraine and leave the security of the continent to the Europeans. However, not everything is gloomy. Merz, for all his strategic mishaps, has the right instincts about Germany's European destiny. The lifelong Atlanticist spent some of his happiest professional years working for the American investment company BlackRock. He has a genuine affection for the US, yet he is remarkably sober about the dire future of the transatlantic relationship. In his first television interview as chancellor, he told the Trump administration to 'leave German domestic politics alone'. After all the meddling by JD Vance, Elon Musk and Marco Rubio in favour of the German hard right, that was a welcome tone of polite defiance. Interestingly, Merz seems to view the US reversal on European security and free trade as a tragic mistake, but also as an opportunity. He wants to work closely with the UK, Poland, France and others to put Europe on a path to more independence and self-reliance. This calls for robust leadership in Berlin. The new German chancellor will need a stable governing majority to be a credible 'servant leader' in Europe. To be taken seriously abroad, Merz must change his leadership style at home. The early near-death experience of the new coalition might yet be helpful in reminding everybody what is at stake.
The Guardian
29-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘It's in our DNA to be anti-fascist': Germany's leftwing ‘TikTok queen' Heidi Reichinnek
The latest tattoo on Heidi Reichinnek's lower right arm reads 'Angry Woman'. A 'present to myself', she says, after the unexpected return to the German parliament of her party, Die Linke (The Left), in February's elections. Months before the vote, it had been widely predicted the far-left party, successor to the east German communists, would be decimated. But the naysayers were proved wrong: Die Linke won nearly 9% of the vote, an increase of almost 4% on the previous election, giving them a healthy 64 seats in the new Bundestag. Much of the credit for their upswing has gone to Reichinnek, who in the run-up to the vote gave a fulminating speech in which she admonished the incoming chancellor, Friedrich Merz, for having used the votes of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) to try to push through migration reform. 'Don't give up, but fight back, resist fascism … We'll all take to the streets … To the barricades!' the 36-year-old urged fellow MPs and those watching at home. The speech, says Reichinnek, was spontaneous – 'I quickly scribbled some things down but then couldn't read my scrawl' – but proved dynamite. Shared on social media almost 30m times in just five days, it became the most widely watched speech in the history of the Bundestag and catapulted Reichinnek – who polls show is the country's favourite female politician - to a level of political stardom, particularly among young people, that just months previously the then beleaguered party could have only dreamed of. 'It earned us a lot of support. People said I spoke to them from the heart, but also lots of others said things like: 'What's that hysterical old bint screaming about?' – hence the tattoo. 'My 'welcome back' and 'Bundestag tattoo',' she says. (The qualification is necessary for Reichinnek has others: one of her Marxist idol, Rosa Luxemburg, another of Nefertiti, the ancient Egyptian queen, donning a gas mask, and a 'zoo' of animals including an otter, raven, cat and snake. 'Because being an MP – in this prison and bureaucratic complex,' Reichinnek says, pointing to her surroundings in a room off her Bundestag office, 'I have no time to have pets.') Germany, Europe's biggest economy and stalwart if embattled democracy, is preparing for a new era: Merz, the leader of the CDU/CSU conservative alliance, is expected to be sworn in as chancellor in early May. He will lead a coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats of the outgoing chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in what is expected to be a tempestuous parliament where the far right will be the leading opposition force and hold an unprecedented amount of power. Reichinnek sees the role of her smaller party as crucial, both in keeping at bay the AfD (which now stands, for the first time ever, neck and neck with the conservatives in the polls) and holding Merz to account. At the same time Die Linke does not want to be portrayed as a disruptor, but as a collaborator on important issues 'with all democratic parties, where we agree with them', she says. With a combined total of 216 seats, Die Linke and the AfD have a so-called blocking minority in the new Bundestag: the new government will be too weak to make up the two-thirds majority needed to make any changes to the constitution. But Reichinnek – whose trademark red lipstick is an anti-fascist nod to the many women who 'during the Nazi era wore [it] … because Hitler did not like makeup' – swiftly rejects any suggestion the parties could collaborate. 'We're very familiar with the 'horseshoe theory' which attempts to equate left and right,' she says. 'But we have nothing to do with that party. We don't work with or vote with the AfD. It's rightwing extremist. We're leftwing. It's part of our DNA to be anti-fascist and we will fight against it at every turn, in parliament and on the streets.' For her, the obvious way to fight the far-right populists is to create 'good social policy'. 'It's been shown time and again in so many studies that people whose personal and economic circumstances are deteriorating are more likely to vote for rightwing extremists. This means that strong social policies are needed to counter the AfD.' 'Everything', she adds, has been run down over the past few decades. 'Public services have been continually dismantled. Wages and pensions have increased far too little; they have actually been devalued, while rents have risen. Hospitals are closing, schools are decaying, bridges are collapsing. Of course, people are frustrated. That's no excuse for voting for a party, but it is definitely a reason that must be addressed. That's our first approach.' Deeply critical of the new government's coalition agreement, calling it 'irresponsible' and 'fainthearted', Reichinnek says Merz's plans for a massive rearmament through historical spending and debt reforms, pushed through the old parliament at the 11th hour, have 'no clear concept' on how a multi-billion euro infrastructure fund is to be spent. A big sticking point with a fair few would-be Die Linke voters is that the party is against the further delivery of weapons to Ukraine. Critics say this is a disturbing remnant of the party's pro-Russian allegiance, a suggestion Reichinnek rejects. Die Linke is 'very much on the side of Kyiv', she insists, but the approach to ending the war must change and include not more weaponry but more pressure on Vladimir Putin. 'It only works if you force Putin to the negotiating table. He won't come there voluntarily. We're saying: there's a whole lot between supplying weapons and doing nothing,' she says. Domestically, she fears that Merz's promised cuts to social welfare spending to finance rearmament will come at the expense of social cohesion and will ultimately drive more voters to the AfD. Born in a village in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to an electrician father and chemical worker mother, Reichinnek was just 19-months-old when the Berlin Wall fell. Her formative political experience took place when she was a member of the city council and a youth worker in Osnabrück, in north-west Germany, where she lives. Referred to as Germany's TikTok queen, whose reels on everything from domestic violence and contraception to rent and migration have long earned her supporters, particularly among young female voters, she joined Die Linke in 2015 and became its parliamentary group spokesperson last year. Every time she approaches the podium in the Bundestag, she typically bats off with good humour jeering cries from the CDU and AfD benches in particular: TV cameras often show Merz and his colleagues rolling their eyes and shaking their heads. She admits she has had to grow a thick skin to cope with these critics, who deem her too 'woke' and too mouthy, and who say her 'leftist activist look' is contrived to appeal to a particular youth demographic. Her response? That her politics is based on people's real concerns, citing her fight against rent extortion and her campaign for the legalisation of abortion (while rarely punished, it remains illegal in Germany, except for specific circumstances including when a woman's life is in danger or she is a victim of rape). She has had the same fringe-defined hairstyle 'forever' and no one advises her on what she wears or what she says. She counters her critics bluntly with the question: 'The bottom line is, do you act out of solidarity with others, or are you an arsehole?' The message is getting through – at least to a certain group of people. Under her guidance, the party has seen an astonishing revival among Germany's youth: at the election, Die Linke proved the most popular choice for voters aged between 18 and 24. Her wish to make the rich pay their fair share has been the inspiration for a track by rappers MC Smook and Fruity Luke, and in her office there is an overflowing box of friendship bracelets she has received from fans. Among her trademark items of attire, they bear slogans such as 'Do it for us' and 'Only the Young'. Since first entering parliament in 2021, she has gained a reputation as the fastest-talking MP, leading to the coining of the phrase 'a Reichinnek' as a benchmark of political temperament. Her way of speaking, Die Zeit recently pointed out, 'has peak speeds of approximately 200 words a minute' – considerably faster than her parliamentary colleagues. 'Useful for TikTok', she admits, as well as in the debating chamber 'when we've only ever had two or three minutes to put our point across, so it's really paid off'. Younger people like it, she says, 'because they say, they don't have to listen at double speed. But when I'm on TV, older people often say that I talk too fast.' Will Merz's Germany move at the speed Reichinnek thinks is necessary to save it from the economic doldrums and political peril? The answer is unclear. For now, she is focused on building on her party's unexpected momentum and girding herself for the fights to come. She recently attended a Die Linke meeting in Osnabrück. 'There were lots of young people among new members there who are keen to make a change,' she says. 'That's what matters most to me.'
The Guardian
25-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
German parliament sits for first time with AfD as main opposition
Germany's new parliament sits for the first time on Tuesday with the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) the strongest opposition faction, as negotiators seek to iron out key differences on tax and migration that are likely to dominate a new coalition government under Friedrich Merz. The 630 members of the Bundestag, 230 of whom are newly elected, will sit in parliament at a unique time in postwar German history. The AfD has doubled its number of seats to 152, while centrist parties are overhauling the country's military and fiscal policy in response to rising threats to European security. The MPs taking seats on Tuesday range in age from 23 to 84. The youngest is Luke Hoss, a student from the far-left Die Linke who has promised to give away most of his €11,000-a-month salary. The oldest is Alexander Gauland, a former journalist from the AfD who in 2018 downplayed Hitler and the Nazis as 'just birdshit in our more than 1,000-year history'. The new parliament contains about 100 fewer MPs than the previous one after the outgoing government reformed Germany's electoral law to shrink persistent bloat. Fewer than a third of MPs in the new Bundestag are women, slightly below the share in the previous legislature. The gender inequality is lowest in the Greens, where women make up 61.2% of MPs, and highest in the AfD, where they make up 11.8%. Women are also greatly underrepresented in the centre right, accounting for 22.6% of MPs in the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and 25% of MPs in the Christian Social Union (CSU). Lawmakers of foreign descent are also disproportionately rare in the new parliament. The share of MPs with a migration background – those with at least one parent who was born without German citizenship – is 11.6%, according to estimates from the nonprofit group Mediendienst Integration, compared to about 30% in the general population. Zada Salihović, a 24-year-old from Die Linke who has become the second-youngest MP in the Bundestag after Hoss, said the new parliament was 'still a reflection of a privileged minority' that did not adequately represent women, workers, young people, eastern Germans and people with migrant backgrounds. 'It's not a coincidence, it's an expression of structural barriers and power relations,' she said. 'When parliaments are so homogeneous, it's not only the perspective of the majority that's missing – there's also a lack of fair solutions.' The first sitting will open with a speech from Gregor Gysi, the longest-serving member of parliament, who began his political career in the Socialist Unity party in communist East Germany. The 77-year-old will be free to decide the length and content of his speech, and will chair the session until the president of the Bundestag is elected. Sign up to Headlines Europe A digest of the morning's main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day after newsletter promotion The CDU/CSU has nominated the CDU party treasurer, Julia Klöckner, to be Bundestag president, a position similar to that of the speaker in other countries. The Greens had protested after reports that Klöckner, the former agriculture minister under Angela Merkel, had planned to introduce herself to the AfD faction this week, arguing that it would 'send a wrong signal of normalisation'. Klöckner's presence at the meeting appeared to have been cancelled after scheduling conflicts, the news outlet Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland reported on Monday. Tense coalition talks are under way between the CDU/CSU, the largest faction in parliament, and the Social Democratic party (SPD). The chancellor-in-waiting, Merz, hopes to form a government before Easter. The probable incoming government scored an early win this month after securing the support of the Greens to amend the constitution and loosen Germany's debt brake. The proposal, which was approved on Friday by the Bundesrat, a legislative body akin to an upper house of parliament, paves the way for a debt-financed package of investments in defence, infrastructure and climate action. The proposal would have probably failed to pass in the new parliament, which contains a 'blocking minority' from the AfD and Die Linke, who oppose sending weapons to Ukraine.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Germany's parliament gives final approval to landmark spending package
Friedrich Merz's plan to ramp up defense and infrastructure spending cleared its final parliamentary hurdle Friday, in a boost for Germany's chancellor-in-waiting and Europe's rearmament efforts. The upper house of the Bundestag voted overwhelmingly in favor of the reforms proposed by Merz, whose center-right party won last month's general election. Their approval disrupts decades of fiscal conservatism in Germany by loosening the legal limit on government borrowing. Merz had been under pressure to get the deal passed before the end of the month, when Germany's new parliament convenes: The far-right Alternative for Germany and the far-left Die Linke — both of which oppose military aid to Ukraine — jointly secured the one third of seats necessary to block the proposal in the February elections. Merz 'has shown he can deliver' by 'pulling together a complex ad hoc coalition with parties he was until very recently in opposition with,' a German academic told the Financial Times. But his emphasis on the need for 'structural reforms' could complicate coalition talks with the center-left Social Democrats, the paper noted.
