Latest news with #Thuringian
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Wagenknecht fails to unseat party official amid BSW power struggle
Firebrand populist politician Sahra Wagenknecht failed to unseat a regional official of her Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) at a key conference Saturday in the eastern German city of Gera amid a power struggle over the party's direction. The BSW's leadership in the state of Thuringia - where it forms part of the regional government - faced re-election at the meeting. Thuringia's deputy premier and finance minister, Katja Wolf, sought another term as chair of the state party, but faced a contested election and opposition from Wagenknecht. In a letter to party members ahead of the vote, Wagenknecht had called for delegates to support another candidate, state lawmaker Anke Wirsing. However Wolf prevailed and beat Wirsing. Wolf received 61 votes in the vote in Gera. Wirsing, who has hardly appeared in state politics to date and sees herself as a Wagenknecht supporter, received 35 votes. The Thuringian BSW members discussed a separation of offices in future in Gera, but no motions were voted on. Wolf is part of the fragile coalition government in Thuringia, made up of the BSW, along with the Christian Democrats and the centre-left Social Democrats. The party power struggle is also emblematic of the BSW's wider struggles since it burst onto the German political scene last year. The anti-immigration party broke off from The Left party and had success in state elections in eastern Germany in September. "We would have found a different decision smarter," BSW Secretary General Christian Leye told dpa after Wolf's selection. But he stressed that the decision in favour of Wolf was made democratically. Despite its regional success in regional elections, the BSW - which has been highly critical of German support for Ukraine following the Russian invasion - narrowly failed to reach the 5% threshold to enter the German parliament in February's national election. The poor result has led to calls for reform and restructuring within the party, which said this week it is challenging the results of the federal election.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Yahoo
Suspected murder-suicide in Germany leaves family of four dead
Four people from the same family have been found dead in a house in the German state of Thuringia, in what police suspect was a murder-suicide carried out by the father. The 49-year-old man, a policeman, apparently killed his wife and two children and then himself in the small town of Klettbach. All the bodies had bullet wounds, police and prosecutors said. Police received a call at about 6:30 am (0430 GMT) and arrived at the scene about 20 minutes later. The house where the bodies were found remains cordoned off. The bodies have been removed from the scene. While briefing reporters, visibly shocked police officer Christian Hackbart said that he knew the dead policeman personally. Investigators did not reveal the age of the woman or the children, and neither did they comment on the background to the crime. Klettbach is located some 12 kilometres south-east of the Thuringian state capital Erfurt. About 1,300 people live in the town. The mayor of Klettbach, Franziska Hildebrandt, said she was "shocked" at the news.
Local Germany
09-04-2025
- Politics
- Local Germany
German state of Thuringia to open central immigration office
Beate Meißner, of the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU), said the new office in Weimar would both streamline integration of skilled foreigners and facilitate deportations of people whose requests to stay in Germany have been denied. "We in Thuringia will be - and are even now - reliant on skilled workers from abroad," Meißner explained. "That's why we should make it as easy as possible for everyone working in this field to get to work as quickly as possible." Meißner said the new office would relieve the burden of administrative casework on municipal authorities. 'Our aim is to be able to repatriate or deport people from the state's initial reception facilities,' she said. Some tasks are set to begin at the new authority on April 15th. But the proposal was criticised by opposition politicians and refugee charities. The Refugee Council charity told the DPA news agency that cases being dealt with on a municipal level meant decisions could be taken on a case-by-case basis, allowing caseworkers to 'respond to the realities of life and needs of those seeking protection'. READ ALSO: How delays to get a residence permit impact foreigners' lives The far-right Afternative for Germany (AfD) said the new office would not go far enough in facilitating 'remigration', the mass deportations the party pledged to undertake in its 2025 election campaign. Thuringian migration minister Beate Meißner (CDU) arrives at the state parliament in Erfurt. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Martin Schutt Some states, including Berlin, have opened centralised immigration authorities in recent years. These are intended to process tasks including naturalisation more efficiently than at the municipal level, where local offices often became overwhelmed and waiting times could be years. In the case of Berlin, a centralised naturalisation office took over from the boroughs in January 2024, increasing staff numbers and introducing a digital application procedure. Since then, the number of applications being processed per year has almost tripled . Advertisement The creation of Thuringia's new immigration authority was agreed in last year's coalition agreement between the CDU, centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and leftwing conservative Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW). Like many states in eastern Germany, Thuringia has faced an enduring demographic crisis since reunification. The state's population has dropped by about a fifth since 1990. However, the number of foreigners in the eastern state has been increasing gradually in recent years. At the end of 2023, around 170,000 foreign nationals lived in Thuringia , accounting for 8.3 percent of the population.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Eastern German leaders meet to discuss future of the region
The premiers of the five states in eastern Germany are meeting in Berlin on Thursday to discuss the future of the region, which still lags economically behind the former West Germany. February's parliamentary elections also showed a huge lurch to the far-right Alternative for Germany party among eastern Germans. A paper published last month which will serve as a basis for the talks calls for investment into research, less bureaucracy, lower energy costs and a "strong voice" for the former East Germany in the new federal government in Berlin. The conference of the eastern German premiers will be chaired by the premier of Thuringia, Mario Voigt. In addition to Thuringia, the states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern are also involved, along with the current commissioner for eastern Germany, Carsten Schneider. Representatives from the business world have also been invited to the meeting at the Thuringian state representation in Berlin, including the president of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce of Eastern Thuringia in Gera, Ralf-Uwe Bauer. The five eastern states were formerly part of East Germany, which fused with West Germany in 1990 and saw an at-times rocky transition from a communist command economy to a Western market economy. Voigt said in advance that eastern Germany is already a key business location and a centre for innovation. "Our goal is to set the economic, infrastructural and social course in such a way that the east not only catches up but leads the way," Voigt explained.
Local Germany
21-02-2025
- Politics
- Local Germany
'Alice für Deutschland': Who is the German far right party's unlikely leader?
Alice Weidel – openly gay, in a relationship with a Sri Lankan-born woman and perhaps not even a German resident – could be a perfect poster child for modern German cosmopolitanism. But despite her background, the leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is no effete liberal. Weidel, all polls suggest, will make history in Sunday's federal election, leading a far-right party to second place for the first time in German postwar history. She has long railed against mass migration, expressed doubts about climate science and suggested Germany should rekindle relations with Vladimir Putin's Russia. While many of her counterparts on the European far right have become more moderate as their support has grown, Weidel has on the contrary radicalised. This election campaign, she has embraced 'remigration', a white nationalist term for mass deportations of ethnic minorities. She even called Hitler a 'communist' and 'socialist' during a discussion with Elon Musk, who has thrown his weight behind the party. Co-leader of the far-right AfD party and the party's candidate for chancellor Alice Weidel poses prior to a live discussion with Elon Musk. (Photo by Kay Nietfeld / POOL / AFP) Shift to anti-immigration agenda How did a gay woman who may not even live in Germany become the face of a new German nationalism? Weidel was born in West Germany in 1979. After graduating from university, she worked for a time as an analyst for Goldman Sachs before moving to China to work for the Bank of China. Her background as an international banker is just one of the many surprising elements to her biography. She joined the then-marginal AfD in 2013, by her own account because of economic issues when the focus of the so-called 'professors' party' was opposition to the single European currency. She quickly rose through the ranks of the party, which narrowly failed to enter parliament in the 2013 election. In 2015, she was elected to the AfD's federal executive committee; two years later she was named the party's co-leader. She entered parliament after the AfD, campaigning against then-Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to allow more than a million refugees to enter Germany, won nearly 13 percent of the vote in the 2017 election. In parliament, Weidel embraced the party's shift away from economic issues and towards anti-immigrant nationalism. In 2018, she told the Bundestag that 'burkas, headscarf girls and subsidised knifemen and other good-for-nothings will not secure our prosperity, economic growth and, above all, the welfare state'. Even so, she remained for a long time associated with the party's relatively moderate wing. In 2017, she supported an attempt by the party's executive to expel Thuringian politician Björn Höcke – widely seen as the leader of the furthest right faction of the party – in response to his calls for a '180-degree turn' on remembrance of the Nazi era. All the while, she became increasingly open about her private life. In speeches, she referred to raising children with her partner, Sri Lankan-born Swiss film producer Sarah Bossard. She also gave interviews in which she discussed her love for Switzerland, where she is widely reported to live. (The AfD says Weidel's main residence is on the German side of Lake Constance, on the German-Swiss border.) Under Weidel's leadership, the AfD has narrowed its definition of the family to mean a mother, a father and children – in stark contrast to the private life of its leader. The party also wants to incentivise Germans to have more children through tax changes. Dr. Sarah Wagner, a politics professor at Queen's University Belfast told The Local, "Alice Weidel's leadership of the radical right-wing AfD—a party that is, in parts, anti-constitutional—is nothing short of paradoxical, given that she is a gay woman married to a Sri Lankan partner... "Yet, as Elon Musk's article in Die Welt illustrates, such biographical details can be easily exploited to sanitise the party's image, masking its deeply xenophobic and anti-democratic core." This election campaign, Weidel's rhetoric has hardened further. She has said she regrets attempting to expel 'liberal-minded' Höcke, whom she now says would be suitable for a ministerial position. Having previously sought to remove references to the loaded term 'remigration' from the party's agenda, she has since embraced it. AfD supporters hold up placards in form of a hearts and banners reading "Alice for Germany" in Neu-Isenburg near Frankfrurt am Main, western Germany, on February 1, 2025. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP) At the party's congress in January, delegates shouted 'Alice für Deutschland,' a pun on the banned Nazi-era slogan 'Alles für Deutschland' – everything for Germany. She has been unafraid to lean on her identity to argue her positions. At the same congress, she declared that she was against immigration because 'these people come from a culture where homosexuals are killed'. 'That is the reason why I, as a woman who is in a relationship and raising children with another woman, am campaigning against it,' she added. Weidel's identity as a west German former banker lesbian makes her an anomaly in a party which prises much of its support from working class men in the former East Germany. But it has certainly helped her inexorable rise, or at least not hurt her. Mainstream parties have ruled out cooperation with the AfD, so the party is all but certain to be shut out of government after the election. The question is whether Weidel will continue to be deft enough to bring what she herself admits is the ultimate prize – power by 2029 – into reach. by Ido Vock
