Latest news with #GermanParliament
India Gazette
4 days ago
- Politics
- India Gazette
We understand the necessity of why India took action: Jurgen Hardt
Berlin [Germany], June 6 (ANI): In a key diplomatic engagement, an Indian All-Party Parliamentary Delegation led by BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad held wide-ranging discussions in Berlin with members of the German Bundestag and representatives from leading think tanks, deepening strategic cooperation and mutual understanding. One of the standout voices during the dialogue was Jurgen Hardt, Member of the German Parliament and Spokesperson for Foreign Policy of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, who strongly addressed regional threats emanating from Pakistan and the need for peaceful conflict resolution. 'We see the terror threat coming from Pakistan and we have asked the Pakistani government to eliminate terror groups in their country. We hope for a peaceful solution. We encourage the Indian government to do it diplomatically. Hopefully, the conflict between India and Pakistan can be calmed,' Hardt stated. Referring to the April 22 terrorist attack in Pahalgam, he added, 'It was a terrible attack on several people. I hope India finds a way to install a mechanism to resolve such conflicts peacefully, but we understand the necessity of why India took action.' The meeting with German lawmakers, including Armin Laschet, Ralph Brinkhaus, Hubertus Heil, and Omid Nouripour, reaffirmed the growing convergence between India and Germany on regional security and counterterrorism. Armin Laschet, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bundestag, expressed solidarity with India and called for the preservation of peace and dialogue. 'We also discussed the brutal 22 April terrorist attack in Pahalgam. I'm deeply shocked. Germany stands with India in the fight against terrorism. Now it's vital the ceasefire holds and dialogue continues. Peace serves us all,' Laschet said in a statement. The Indian Embassy in Germany confirmed the series of engagements, noting that the delegation 'conveyed India's unwavering united stand for Zero Tolerance for Terrorism and outlined its resolve to not give in to nuclear blackmail.' The embassy also noted that leaders on both sides 'recognised momentum in the India-Germany Strategic Partnership and joint role in ensuring global Peace and Security.' Vice President of the German Bundestag, Omid Nouripour, also hosted the delegation and highlighted the need for stronger cooperation amidst current global challenges. He acknowledged India's rising role in ensuring security and appreciated the delegation's outreach. Reflecting on the significance of the meetings, BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad remarked, 'A very good meeting with Vice Chairman of this majestic Parliament. We exchanged views on terrorism, he was very forthright. Terrorism is a global curse and also appreciated India's efforts to give security to its people and globally, we need to work together in the field of terrorism and also good economic cooperation between these two great countries. Germany is a big economic powerhouse in the world. India is a big economic powerhouse in the world.' With high-level participation across parties and institutions, the visit reinforced the shared values and mutual trust that underpin the India-Germany relationship. From counterterrorism and nuclear restraint to economic engagement and geopolitical dialogue, both sides signalled a clear commitment to a rules-based global order and a collaborative future. (ANI)
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
A former chef declared himself King of Germany. This week Germany arrested him
As dawn broke over Germany's eastern state of Saxony on Tuesday morning, heavily armed police massed outside a property in the picturesque village of Halsbrücke and prepared to smash down its front door. It was 6am, and inside the house was a declared enemy of the state. But this was no ordinary criminal, but a monarch, a self-described one at least. Peter Fitzek, a 59-year-old former chef and karate instructor, has spent more than a decade denying the legitimacy of the Federal Republic of Germany and advocating for a return to the borders established during the Second Reich of 1871-1918. Following his arrest, it now seems likely that 'Peter I's' political aspirations as 'King of Germany' will meet a similarly ignominious end to those of his hero, the Kaiser. 'This is illegal and unlawful,' he told reporters on Tuesday as he was ushered into a police car. According to the rules of his own self-proclaimed seat, the so-called Kingdom of Germany, he may have been right. The son of a digger driver, Fitzek was brought up in East Germany. Having failed to secure elected office, either as a mayor or member of the German Parliament, he felt he had no choice but to proclaim an independent kingdom from the grounds of a former hospital in the city of Wittenberg. Fitzek filmed his own coronation in 2012, adorned in ermine robes and holding a mediaeval sword. No stranger to publicity, he has continued to be the subject of bemused profiles in media outlets from New York to Tel Aviv to Sydney in the years since. Life under a king, he told one interviewer, was 'the natural state of the German people'. The country's borders should, he argued, expand to reclaim countries like Poland 'if the people there wanted it'. His own constitution 'came through God – I just dictated it'. And he, himself, was, of course, the reincarnation of the Archangel Uriel. For all the attention he generated, Fitzek and the disparate grouping of nostalgic, anti-state conspiracy theorists who made up his following were largely dismissed as harmless eccentrics prior to the Covid pandemic. But after purchasing a 300-acre estate in Saxony in 2022, he boasted that his kingdom was 'now two and a half times the size of the Vatican'. As his influence grew, there were plenty of signs that the divine right of Peter I to rule small pockets of eastern Germany risked coming into conflict with the secular rights of the federal German authorities. In 2017, Fitzek was convicted of embezzlement of £1.2 million, although a higher court overturned the verdict the following year. He has subsequently been convicted for driving without a licence (the court didn't recognise the one issued by his own kingdom), running his own health insurance programme and assault, a district court taking a dim view of his attempt to claim immunity as a head of state. By 2022, he had claimed 5,000 'citizens', many of them refusing to send their children to school, which is illegal in Germany, or pay tax, which is illegal almost everywhere. Instead, some of his subjects joined his 'system drop-out' seminars, priced at £295 and payable in 'Engelgeld' (angel money), his own currency. Despite Fitzek's protestations that his kingdom simply stands for a 'willingness to take responsibility', it was designated an extremist organisation in 2022 by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany's domestic intelligence agency. Three years of close observation culminated in this week's raids involving 800 security personnel in seven states. After being arrested along with several other senior 'subjects', Fitzek was accused by Alexander Dobrindt, German's interior minister, of 'undermining the rule of law' and spreading 'antisemitic conspiracy narratives to back up their supposed claim to authority'. His organisation, the Kingdom of Germany, has been banned. 'Today, a significant blow was struck against the so-called Reich Citizens and Self-Governors,' Dobrindt wrote on X. 'With the so-called 'Kingdom of Germany,' the largest association of this scene, which has been growing for years, was banned.' Dobrindt's tweet is a reminder of the strange, overlapping world of extremist German nostalgics. Abutting the Venn diagram of Fitzek's 'subjects' is the much larger circle of some 25,000 Reichsbürger ('Reich Citizens') who also deny the legitimacy of the country's 1949 constitution and want to re-establish a monarchy that was deposed in 1918. They have been under observation by the BfV since 2016, when one of its members shot dead a police officer during a raid at his home. The Covid lockdown in 2020 swelled their ranks – and their extremism. 'People spent a lot of time in isolation, in front of computers,' explains Jakob Guhl, an expert in far-Right extremism at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. 'Chat forums, such as Telegram, which are [largely] unregulated, saw a huge inflow of anti-vaccine people and far-Right groups. Part of that mix was Reichsbürger, and there was suddenly a far larger audience.' According to German government figures, Reichsbürger committed 1,000 extremist criminal acts in 2021, a twofold increase from the previous year. Officials estimate that 10 per cent of its members are potentially violent and five per cent Right-wing extremists. 'The ideology of rejecting state authority and holding historical revisionist ideas, many of them anti-Semitic, always had the potential to unload itself very badly,' says Guhl. As Covid ebbed and flowed, this first manifested itself in protestors attempting to storm the parliament building in Berlin in August 2020, while waving the pre-1918 flag of the German Empire. The following April, the police foiled a plot by a group calling themselves United Patriots, a subset of the Reichsbürger movement, who wanted to kidnap the health minister, foster a civil war and overthrow the democratic system. Four men aged 46 to 58 and a 77-year-old former teacher were jailed in March this year. The most infamous manifestation of the Reichsbürgers' violent, revisionist intentions was an attempted coup in December 2022, foiled by 5,000 police officers operating in 11 of Germany's 16 states, the largest such operation since 1945. The plot contained many farcical elements, notably a belief that Elizabeth II was part of a global, child-abusing elite and a cast of conspirators that included minor aristocrats, a chef and an opera singer. However, its deadly intentions were apparent from the discovery of 380 guns, 350 bladed weapons and more than 148,000 rounds of ammunition. Its alleged members, whose trials started last year and are still ongoing, included a former AfD member of the Bundestag and a founding member of the German special forces. Interviewed by the BBC shortly after the attempted coup, Fitzek said he had no intention of doing something similar himself (although he did describe the German state as 'destructive and sick', adding he had 'no interest in being part of this fascist and satanic system'). It is, however, interesting to note that some of the conspirators espoused the same historical views as the 'Kingdom of Germany', notably the self-proclaimed Heinrich XIII, a 73-year-old prince from the House of Reuss, who was alleged to have been central to their plans. Prince Reuss, whose family ruled parts of Thuringia until 1918, has recorded videos complaining that his '1,000-year dynasty' had been unjustly usurped. His co-conspirators allegedly shared a vision of returning Germany to elements of its Bismarckian constitutional settlement – a sentiment which enjoys a low but substantial level of support across Germany. Recent polls have shown that almost 10 per cent of the population would like to see the return of the monarchy, a figure that doubles for those under the age of 34. 'The Second Reich is a bit less problematic than harking back to the Nazis,' explains Guhl. 'It doesn't have the same level of toxicity attached to it. The symbols don't tend to be banned; the flags won't necessarily get you into trouble. It's a past that's easier to idealise for movements that want an idealised version of the past.' But this idealised version of the Second Reich ignores the reality of a new country riven by political and cultural divisions and destroyed in the First World War by the Kaiser's ham-fisted Weltpolitik. And as Dobrindt, the interior minister said of Fitzek's arrest this week: 'We are not talking about a group of harmless nostalgics, as the title of the organisation might suggest, but about criminal structures and a criminal network.' There is also an argument that these German nostalgics, however ill-intentioned, would benefit from a better grasp of the historical period they claim to fetishise. The Kaiser died unhappily in exile in 1941, rejected by his own people. Even at the start of the second Reich, a mere Prussian aristocrat knew how to put minor royalty in its place. When Bismarck, the German chancellor, was unifying Germany in 1870, he placated the reluctant King Ludwig of II of Bavaria by offering him his own separate postal service – and little else. 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The National
07-05-2025
- Politics
- The National
Newly-elected German Chancellor Friedrich Merz
Mr Merz sits down for talks with Mr Macron at the Elysee Palace, one day after being elected Chancellor. He was voted in by the German parliament in a second round, after suffering a surprise defeat at the first attempt. Getty Images
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Germany can co-finance European nuclear deterrence
With Donald Trump's open support for Russia and his turning away from Europe and NATO, the question of the credibility of the American nuclear promise has taken center stage. Unlike during Trump's first term in office, however, this time Europe has recognized the dramatic nature of the situation and developed ideas to strengthen the British and French nuclear deterrent. Both European nuclear powers want to intensify their nuclear consultations and, in addition, French President Emmanuelle Macron has once again called for a dialogue between nuclear and non-nuclear states in Europe. Germany is open to such a dialogue. The German British Defence Agreement (Trinity House), concluded in autumn 2024, already explicitly provides for an exchange on nuclear issues. Friedrich Merz, Germany's designated chancellor, also spoke out in favor of the nuclear dialogue proposed by Macron at an early stage. The idea of such talks is to send a signal of commitment and determination not only to Moscow, but also to Washington. This is not (yet) about replacing the American 'extended deterrent' with a European version as it is far from certain that Washington will close the nuclear umbrella over Europe, especially as the damage to the USA itself would be considerable. The goal of nuclear non-proliferation, which America has always pursued, would be jeopardized and new nuclear states could emerge in Eastern Europe or Asia, for example. However, the Trump administration is not known for taking the negative consequences of its own impulsive actions into account in advance. What could Germany bring to such talks, and what would be its contribution to strengthening a European nuclear deterrent? There's certainly nothing along the lines of Germany attempting to develop its own nuclear weapons. Germany has repeatedly and formally renounced this option and, apart from a few academics, there is no politically serious voice in Berlin that would want to change this – not to mention the enormous costs of such a project. Even the conceivable possibility of stationing French nuclear weapons on German soil – similar to the U.S. nuclear bombs in deployed in Germany – is currently only a theoretical one. Paris has not yet abandoned its long-standing skepticism towards the idea of a nuclear umbrella for non-nuclear allies and sees nuclear weapons as a strictly national matter. Furthermore, France only has around 40 nuclear cruise missiles and the same number of land-based, nuclear-capable Rafale fighter-bombers. The rest of the approximately 290 French nuclear warheads are intended for use at sea – either from submarines or with Rafale bombers from the aircraft carrier 'Charles de Gaulle.' The British nuclear arsenal is stationed exclusively on submarines. What Germany can offer London and Paris, however, is to contribute to the considerable costs of both countries' nuclear capabilities. Back in May 2017, the Scientific Service of the German Parliament analyzed the co-financing of foreign nuclear weapons potentials from the federal budget in a publicly accessible report. This assessment was commissioned by parliamentarians because the question of the reliability of the American nuclear commitments had already arisen during President Trump's first term in office. The report concluded that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which has been binding for Germany since 1975, does not contain a ban on support or funding from non-nuclear states for nuclear powers. Nor can such a ban be derived from the Two-Plus-Four Treaty, in which Germany's non-nuclear status is enshrined, or from general international law. Only some international treaties on 'nuclear-weapon-free zones' contain indirect prohibitions on assistance. However, Germany is not a party to such treaties. Apparently, Germany has not yet provided such nuclear co-financing, even though there were occasional rumors that the Federal Republic had provided financial support for the development of Israel's nuclear weapons potential in the 1950s and 1960s. However, such rumors have never been substantiated. What follows from all this is that financial support for British or French nuclear deterrence is possible in principle. Of course, this would only take place if a direct link were established between the nuclear weapons potential of both countries and the security of Germany and Europe. The corresponding benefits and counter-benefits would have to be set out in legally binding bilateral agreements. It is worth noting that the German Federal Ministry of Finance has already created a branch called 'Geo-Economics and Security Policy' in order to assess the various financial implications of the new security challenges – this branch could conceptually assess the implications of such an agreement. If Germany were to include such an option in the planned dialogue between nuclear and non-nuclear states, the talks would immediately be elevated to a politically concrete and presumably mutually beneficial level. It would also be an example of a strategically forward-looking German security policy – something that has not often been the case in Berlin in the past. Karl-Heinz Kamp is an associate fellow of the German Council on Foreign Relations and was president of the Federal Academy for Security Policy.
New York Times
18-03-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Why Germany Wants to Loosen Its Debt Brake
The German Parliament is set to vote on Tuesday on a plan to loosen government borrowing limits in order to spend heavily on defense and infrastructure, in an effort to offset America's pivot away from Europe and to lift the country out of years of economic stagnation. If the measure eventually becomes law, it will radically reorient Germany's relationship to government debt — and, its authors hope, allow Germany to shoulder a more powerful leadership role at a critical moment for Europe. The center of the plan is a push led by Friedrich Merz, the likely next chancellor, to relax what is colloquially known as the 'debt brake,' a limit on government borrowing that Germany enshrined in its Constitution. That brake has reduced German debt, but it has also kept the government from investing in roads, software, bridges, tanks and other areas. Lawmakers say that spending is now urgently needed to address declining German competitiveness and shrinking American security guarantees. Here is a quick guide to the debt brake, how Mr. Merz and his allies want to change it, and the challenges they will face. What is the debt brake? Like most wealthy nations, Germany borrows money to help balance its annual federal budget. But unlike some peers, most notably the United States, Germany has a Constitution that limits its yearly borrowing to just 0.35 percent of the country's gross domestic product. There are exceptions for economic downturns and natural disasters. German lawmakers have voted in recent years to circumvent the limits with some special pots of money, including emergency pandemic spending starting in 2020 and a recent bump in military spending. But by and large, the debt brake has constrained borrowing. In 2009, when the debt brake was introduced, Germany, the United States and Britain had roughly similar levels of debt as a share of their economies. Since then, that share has soared in Britain and America, but fallen in Germany. Why does Germany have it? The debt brake was added to Germany's Constitution after the country's budget deficit grew during the 2008 financial crisis. It became a signature economic policy and a point of national pride. But the country's aversion to large deficits and debt predates the crisis. Its leaders borrowed heavily to help smooth reunification between West and East Germany in the early 1990s, with mixed economic effects. More notoriously, high government debt helped drive hyperinflation in the Weimar government of the 1920s, aiding the rise of Hitler. That historical trauma has remained a neuralgic pain that has defined the public and political debate around government debt in Germany for generations. Why change it now? The debt brake didn't just depress borrowing. Its critics say it also handcuffed German's ability to spur its economy, invest in its future and lead in European security affairs. German spending has lagged well behind its needs to upgrade its transportation networks, digitize its public services and make a host of other investments essential to its global competitiveness. The country's net public investment has been negative for the last 25 years, holding back economic growth, said Marcel Fratzscher, the president of the German Institute for Economic Research. The brake was also a major reason German lawmakers spent relatively little on their military for decades, under the belief that the United States would continue to protect their country as it has since the end of World War II. Now, releasing the debt brake has become urgent as the German economy continues to shrink and President Trump threatens to scale back or remove America's security role in Europe. 'It's now or never for a big spending increase,' Mr. Fratzscher said. Even officials at Germany's staid central bank, the Bundesbank, have called for changes to the debt brake to free up money for government investment to drive growth. 'Rarely in Germany's postwar history has government investment been as necessary as it is today — and rarely since reunification have the potential returns been so promising,' economists at the Deutsche Bank Research Institute wrote last week. 'Germany has successfully used the good years of the past decade to create fiscal flexibility for more challenging times. And times will likely remain challenging for the rest of the decade.' After resisting calls for debt-limit changes during the recent election campaign, Mr. Merz, of the center-right Christian Democrats, now says the brake much be changed. So do many center-left lawmakers. 'The reform of the debt brake is of central importance in view of the epochal change that the U.S.A. is no longer Germany's reliable ally,' Anton Hofreiter, a member of Parliament for the Green Party, said in a text message this week. With it, he said, 'It is now possible to finance satellites, intelligence services, cyberdefense and support for Ukraine alongside the urgently needed upgrading of the Bundeswehr' — the German military. What changes are lawmakers contemplating? The agreement Mr. Merz struck with the Greens and the center-left Social Democrats would create an exemption from the debt brake for all spending on defense above 1 percent of gross domestic product. It would define 'defense' broadly, to include domestic intelligence, aid to allies and other measures alongside weapons purchases. Effectively, Germany lawmakers could borrow whatever sums the government bond market would allow to fund those items. Mr. Merz also agreed to create a new infrastructure fund of 500 billion euros — almost $550 billion — spread over 12 years, outside of the debt brake's limits. Of that, €100 billion would be earmarked for projects to fight climate change. What are the chances they succeed? Good, but hurdles remain. Having decided to change the Constitution to allow extra borrowing, Mr. Merz has taken the unusual step of passing the measure in the final days of a lame-duck Parliament, before he can even become chancellor. On Tuesday, with the help of the Greens and Social Democrats, Mr. Merz hopes to get two-thirds of the Parliament's vote needed to change the Constitution. The margins are slim, and they will depend on some lawmakers who will leave office after this week. If the vote passes, the change will still need to be approved by the Federal Council of the States on Friday before it can go into effect. That, too, could turn out to be very close. Even then, the plan faces legal challenges, including from the far-right party Alternative for Germany. Courts have refused to stop the vote thus far. Lawmakers from the three big centrist parties supporting the package say they are confident they will prevail. 'We should not let this opportunity pass us by — it's a big opportunity for our country and also a real change in politics,' Mr. Merz said on Sunday.
