Latest news with #westGerman
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
East German leader demands more federal aid as data shows some uptick
The state premier of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has called on the new government of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to take decisive action to kick start the sluggish economy. "No economic growth for the third year in a row – that's not acceptable," said Manuela Schwesig, of the centre-left Social Democrats, at the opening of the annual East German Economic Forum, this time in the town of Bad Saarow. But an economic report presented at the forum showed some positive signs for the east German economy. Eastern Germany has made notable gains in economic performance, research and quality of life, but still trails structurally behind the west, according to a study by the ifo Institute in Dresden for the Central German Foundation for Science and Education. The study compared the economic, social and scientific development of east and west Germany based on around 170 indicators. It also highlighted differences within eastern Germany itself, showing that the region is not a homogeneous economic area but is characterized by regional strengths. Schwesig identified lower energy prices, increased investment and reduced bureaucracy as key priorities, emphasizing that getting Europe's biggest economy back on track should the top political goal. In addition to permanently offering affordable energy for both businesses and consumers, she urged the federal government to introduce "fair grid fees that reward regions investing in renewable energy rather than penalising them." Regional economic differences The ifo report showed some regional strengths in east Germany, though Schwesig's Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a comparatively poor region, was not highlighted. For example, Saxony's export rate of 32% exceeds the west German average, while Thuringia's industrial share matches that of Bavaria. Berlin and Saxony also stand out in research spending, ranking among the top regions in Europe. Overall, eastern Germany's economic performance, measured by gross domestic product (GDP) per hour worked, stands at 86% of the west German average. Between 2019 and 2024, annual economic growth in the east outpaced the west by 0.3%, largely attributed to Berlin's economic boom. Lower immigration but higher real wages The monitor also highlights challenges: the proportion of foreign residents in the east is significantly lower at 7.2% compared to 15.6% in the west. However, real wages in the east exceed 90% of the west's level, thanks to lower living costs. The report was presented at the forum by the "Saarower Kreis," a group of east German economic stakeholders aiming to provide fact-based impulses for structural policy. "Eastern Germany is not a homogeneous weak zone but a laboratory for the future," spokesman Frank Nehring stated. He added that the region needs more confidence in its strengths and the courage to think innovatively in economic policy. At the three-day conference, business leaders are to discuss the challenges facing eastern Germany as a business location with members of Merz's new conservative-led coalition government. Companies have long complained about high energy costs, a shortage of skilled workers, heavy tax and social security burdens and excessive bureaucracy.
Straits Times
06-05-2025
- Business
- Straits Times
Conservative leader Merz set to become Germany's chancellor
FILE PHOTO: Incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz of CDU looks on, ahead of a Bundestag CDU/CSU/SPD coalition meeting, where a new chair will be elected, in Berlin, Germany, May 5, 2025. REUTERS/Liesa Johannssen/File Photo BERLIN - Conservative Friedrich Merz is set to be sworn in on Tuesday as Germany's new chancellor at a critical juncture as the economy battles its longest post-war downturn, relations with top security ally the United States fray and the far-right surges. Lawmakers are widely expected to back Merz as chancellor in a vote in the lower house of parliament after his CDU/CSU conservatives, who won February's federal election, secured a coalition deal with the centre-left Social Democrats. The pressure is on for Merz to show leadership after the implosion last November of outgoing SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz's three-way coalition left a political vacuum at the heart of Europe even as it faced a myriad of crises. "People have been asking Germany to lead for a long time, and there is no more space to not heed that call," said Sudha David-Wilp of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. "Everything that had been undergirding post-war Germany in the past eight decades is no longer the case, whether it be open markets and free trade, whether it be the U.S. security presence in Europe." A global trade war sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping import tariffs is threatening a third year of downturn in Europe's largest economy, which has already had to grapple with the end of cheap Russian gas since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and growing rivalry from China. Meanwhile Trump has threatened not to come to the aid of fellow members of the NATO defence alliance, prompting even transatlanticist Merz to question the reliability of the United States and urge Europe to improve its ability to defend itself. The German coalition deal has mapped out plans to revive growth such as reducing a corporate tax and lowering energy prices. It also vows strong support for Ukraine and higher military spending. NO GOVERNMENT EXPERIENCE While Merz is a veteran politician who started his career as a European lawmaker in the 1980s, he still has to prove his chops in power as he has never held a government office. After losing a power struggle to arch party rival Angela Merkel in 2002, he spent over a decade working in the private sector before finding his way back into top level politics. A wealthy, Catholic west German lawyer and hobby pilot who served for four years as chairman of the German arm of fund manager BlackRock, Merz is widely considered the antithesis in both style and policy to the woman who led Germany for 16 years. Where Merkel was an even-tempered pragmatist who shifted the conservatives more towards the centre, Merz is a provocative economic liberal who has pulled the bloc back to the right. Merz's supporters highlight the fact he secured a historic fiscal package to boost spending on infrastructure and defence even before taking office. Critics say it was only necessary because of his erratic decision to push an anti-migration motion through parliament with the backing of the Alternative for Germany, breaking a taboo on cooperation with the far-right. That decision boosted support for both the AfD and the far-left Left party, who together secured enough support to be able to block a loosening of Germany's fiscal rules in the next parliament. "Merz remains a black box," said Carsten Brzeski, global head of macro at ING. "The U-turn on fiscal policies, as much needed as it was, still begs the question why Merz ruled it out during the elections, and does he really have a longer-term vision on the economy?" COALITION PLANS With the AfD topping some recent polls, the new government's main challenge is clearly to restore confidence and trust in Germany's political centre, said Brzeski. "If this government fails, the AfD will get more support in the next elections and could become part of any next government," he said. Merz's designated cabinet reflects a belief in the need for expertise over political capital and a desire for renewal given the declining trust in the establishment, say analysts. Only one minister from the previous government will retain his position: Defence Minister Boris Pistorius. The rest of the cabinet are new appointees, many of them like the economy minister with private sector experience in the area they will now be governing. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Reuters
06-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Conservative leader Merz set to become Germany's chancellor
Summary BERLIN, May 6 (Reuters) - Conservative Friedrich Merz is set to be sworn in on Tuesday as Germany's new chancellor at a critical juncture as the economy battles its longest post-war downturn, relations with top security ally the United States fray and the far-right surges. Lawmakers are widely expected to back Merz as chancellor in a vote in the lower house of parliament after his CDU/CSU conservatives, who won February's federal election, secured a coalition deal with the centre-left Social Democrats. The pressure is on for Merz to show leadership after the implosion last November of outgoing SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz's three-way coalition left a political vacuum at the heart of Europe even as it faced a myriad of crises. "People have been asking Germany to lead for a long time, and there is no more space to not heed that call," said Sudha David-Wilp of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. "Everything that had been undergirding post-war Germany in the past eight decades is no longer the case, whether it be open markets and free trade, whether it be the U.S. security presence in Europe." A global trade war sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping import tariffs is threatening a third year of downturn in Europe's largest economy, which has already had to grapple with the end of cheap Russian gas since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and growing rivalry from China. Meanwhile Trump has threatened not to come to the aid of fellow members of the NATO defence alliance, prompting even transatlanticist Merz to question the reliability of the United States and urge Europe to improve its ability to defend itself. The German coalition deal has mapped out plans to revive growth such as reducing a corporate tax and lowering energy prices. It also vows strong support for Ukraine and higher military spending. NO GOVERNMENT EXPERIENCE While Merz is a veteran politician who started his career as a European lawmaker in the 1980s, he still has to prove his chops in power as he has never held a government office. After losing a power struggle to arch party rival Angela Merkel in 2002, he spent over a decade working in the private sector before finding his way back into top level politics. A wealthy, Catholic west German lawyer and hobby pilot who served for four years as chairman of the German arm of fund manager BlackRock, Merz is widely considered the antithesis in both style and policy to the woman who led Germany for 16 years. Where Merkel was an even-tempered pragmatist who shifted the conservatives more towards the centre, Merz is a provocative economic liberal who has pulled the bloc back to the right. Merz's supporters highlight the fact he secured a historic fiscal package to boost spending on infrastructure and defence even before taking office. Critics say it was only necessary because of his erratic decision to push an anti-migration motion through parliament with the backing of the Alternative for Germany, breaking a taboo on cooperation with the far-right. That decision boosted support for both the AfD and the far-left Left party, who together secured enough support to be able to block a loosening of Germany's fiscal rules in the next parliament. "Merz remains a black box," said Carsten Brzeski, global head of macro at ING. "The U-turn on fiscal policies, as much needed as it was, still begs the question why Merz ruled it out during the elections, and does he really have a longer-term vision on the economy?" COALITION PLANS With the AfD topping some recent polls, the new government's main challenge is clearly to restore confidence and trust in Germany's political centre, said Brzeski. "If this government fails, the AfD will get more support in the next elections and could become part of any next government," he said. Merz's designated cabinet reflects a belief in the need for expertise over political capital and a desire for renewal given the declining trust in the establishment, say analysts. Only one minister from the previous government will retain his position: Defence Minister Boris Pistorius. The rest of the cabinet are new appointees, many of them like the economy minister with private sector experience in the area they will now be governing.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Shifting targets, growing support: The rise of Germany's AfD
By Thomas Escritt BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's domestic security agency classified the Alternative for Germany (AfD) as "extremist" on Friday, allowing for closer monitoring of the country's largest opposition party, which condemned the move as a "blow against democracy". Here is a timeline for the AfD, Germany's most successful far-right party since World War Two. 2013 February 6 - Founded by right-wing economists, the party opposes Germany helping to bail out Greece at the height of the eurozone debt crisis, rejecting then-Chancellor Angela Merkel's assertion that there was "no alternative". Headed by Bernd Lucke and Frauke Petry, the party grows quickly, fuelled by ample donations from small businesses and attracting disillusioned conservative and neoliberal politicians and voters. September 22 - It narrowly misses the 5% threshold for winning seats in that year's parliamentary election 2014 May 25 - The party wins 7% in European Parliament elections, allowing it to send seven members to Brussels. Though nativist overtones are never far from the surface, the party denies any racist motivation for its opposition to bailing out Greece and other heavily indebted countries. August - A string of regional election victories in eastern Germany fuels the AfD's move further to the right, and Bjoern Hoecke, the party's nativist leader in the state of Thuringia, becomes one its most emblematic figures. 2015 The refugee crisis sees more than one million, mostly Muslim migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa arrive in Germany, propelling the AfD's nativist wing to the fore and giving the party a toehold in western Germany. 2016 March 13 - The AfD scores double-digit results in west German regional elections for the first time and wins nearly a quarter of the vote in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt - at the time the best result ever for a far-right party. 2017 January - Hoecke achieves notoriety for describing Berlin's Holocaust memorial as a "monument of shame". A court overrules Petry's attempts to kick him out of the party the following year. January 21 - The party's growing prominence is signalled by its presence at an international gathering of far-right politicians in Koblenz, where Petry rubs shoulders with France's Marine Le Pen and the Netherlands' Geert Wilders. September - Petry is ousted, in a defeat for the economic libertarian wing of the party, and is replaced by Alice Weidel, who leads the party to this day, and Alexander Gauland, a right-wing former Christian Democrat. September 24 - The party wins 12.6% in Germany's federal election, entering the national parliament for the first time and becoming the largest opposition party. 2019 January 15 - The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) places the AfD under examination, and labels The Wing - a nativist grouping within the party led by Hoecke - and the party's youth wings as suspected far-right cases. 2020 April 30 - The Wing is dissolved. 2021 January 20 - The AfD mounts a legal challenge against being classified as a suspect far-right case. February 25 - The BfV confirms the party is suspected far-right. September 26 - Partly as a result of growing concerns about the cluster of far-right figures at the top of the party, and partly thanks to a buoyant economy, the party falls to 10.3% in the parliamentary election. The COVID-19 pandemic and the slowing economy subsequently give the party a boost, and it also benefits from infighting in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's unwieldy three-way coalition. Leaning heavily into culture war issues with demands for enquiries into alleged mishandling of the pandemic, critiques of modern architecture or rejection of supposed "gender ideologies", the party is able to secure and expand its base. 2022 April 5 - The party's youth wing is declared officially right extremist. 2024 January - A series of scandals - a bombshell report that senior figures had discussed deporting citizens of non-German ethnicity, the discovery of an alleged Chinese spy in one politician's office, and allegations that another had taken money from pro-Russian propaganda outlets - sparks months of protests but fails to sustainably dent support. Increasingly, the party relies on a strategy of attempting to gum up government, peppering courts and ministries with filings and questions that critics regard as frivolous, in a way that seems designed to slow and discredit the state. Hoecke is the leading champion of this strategy, deploying slogans that resemble those used by Adolf Hitler's Nazis in a manner guaranteed to command attention. May 13 - A court rules that the classification as suspected far-right - one step short of Friday's confirmed far-right classification - is justified. The party had called members from ethnic minorities to testify that it was not. May 22 - Le Pen distances herself from the AfD after Maximilian Krah, one of its most popular figures, fails to condemn Hitler's paramiltary SS in a newspaper interview. 2024 September 1 - The party becomes the first far-right party to top a regional election since World War Two. 2025 January - Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla and adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, interviews AfD co-leader Alice Weidel, declaring weeks ahead of a federal election: "Only the AfD can save Germany." February 23 - The AfD comes second in the federal election, the best result for a far-right party since the German Federal Republic's founding. March 31 - The party's youth wing is dissolved to make way for a replacement under closer supervision of party headquarters.
Straits Times
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Straits Times
Shifting targets, growing support: The rise of Germany's AfD
FILE PHOTO: Supporters of the Eurosceptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) party wear morph suits and wave flags during an event to rally support for Sunday's European Parliament elections at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin May 23, 2014. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/File Photo BERLIN - Germany's domestic security agency classified the Alternative for Germany (AfD) as "extremist" on Friday, allowing for closer monitoring of the country's largest opposition party, which condemned the move as a "blow against democracy". Here is a timeline for the AfD, Germany's most successful far-right party since World War Two. 2013 February 6 - Founded by right-wing economists, the party opposes Germany helping to bail out Greece at the height of the eurozone debt crisis, rejecting then-Chancellor Angela Merkel's assertion that there was "no alternative". Headed by Bernd Lucke and Frauke Petry, the party grows quickly, fuelled by ample donations from small businesses and attracting disillusioned conservative and neoliberal politicians and voters. September 22 - It narrowly misses the 5% threshold for winning seats in that year's parliamentary election 2014 May 25 - The party wins 7% in European Parliament elections, allowing it to send seven members to Brussels. Though nativist overtones are never far from the surface, the party denies any racist motivation for its opposition to bailing out Greece and other heavily indebted countries. August - A string of regional election victories in eastern Germany fuels the AfD's move further to the right, and Bjoern Hoecke, the party's nativist leader in the state of Thuringia, becomes one its most emblematic figures. 2015 The refugee crisis sees more than one million, mostly Muslim migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa arrive in Germany, propelling the AfD's nativist wing to the fore and giving the party a toehold in western Germany. 2016 March 13 - The AfD scores double-digit results in west German regional elections for the first time and wins nearly a quarter of the vote in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt - at the time the best result ever for a far-right party. 2017 January - Hoecke achieves notoriety for describing Berlin's Holocaust memorial as a "monument of shame". A court overrules Petry's attempts to kick him out of the party the following year. January 21 - The party's growing prominence is signalled by its presence at an international gathering of far-right politicians in Koblenz, where Petry rubs shoulders with France's Marine Le Pen and the Netherlands' Geert Wilders. September - Petry is ousted, in a defeat for the economic libertarian wing of the party, and is replaced by Alice Weidel, who leads the party to this day, and Alexander Gauland, a right-wing former Christian Democrat. September 24 - The party wins 12.6% in Germany's federal election, entering the national parliament for the first time and becoming the largest opposition party. 2019 January 15 - The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) places the AfD under examination, and labels The Wing - a nativist grouping within the party led by Hoecke - and the party's youth wings as suspected far-right cases. 2020 April 30 - The Wing is dissolved. 2021 January 20 - The AfD mounts a legal challenge against being classified as a suspect far-right case. February 25 - The BfV confirms the party is suspected far-right. September 26 - Partly as a result of growing concerns about the cluster of far-right figures at the top of the party, and partly thanks to a buoyant economy, the party falls to 10.3% in the parliamentary election. The COVID-19 pandemic and the slowing economy subsequently give the party a boost, and it also benefits from infighting in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's unwieldy three-way coalition. Leaning heavily into culture war issues with demands for enquiries into alleged mishandling of the pandemic, critiques of modern architecture or rejection of supposed "gender ideologies", the party is able to secure and expand its base. 2022 April 5 - The party's youth wing is declared officially right extremist. 2024 January - A series of scandals - a bombshell report that senior figures had discussed deporting citizens of non-German ethnicity, the discovery of an alleged Chinese spy in one politician's office, and allegations that another had taken money from pro-Russian propaganda outlets - sparks months of protests but fails to sustainably dent support. Increasingly, the party relies on a strategy of attempting to gum up government, peppering courts and ministries with filings and questions that critics regard as frivolous, in a way that seems designed to slow and discredit the state. Hoecke is the leading champion of this strategy, deploying slogans that resemble those used by Adolf Hitler's Nazis in a manner guaranteed to command attention. May 13 - A court rules that the classification as suspected far-right - one step short of Friday's confirmed far-right classification - is justified. The party had called members from ethnic minorities to testify that it was not. May 22 - Le Pen distances herself from the AfD after Maximilian Krah, one of its most popular figures, fails to condemn Hitler's paramiltary SS in a newspaper interview. 2024 September 1 - The party becomes the first far-right party to top a regional election since World War Two. 2025 January - Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla and adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, interviews AfD co-leader Alice Weidel, declaring weeks ahead of a federal election: "Only the AfD can save Germany." February 23 - The AfD comes second in the federal election, the best result for a far-right party since the German Federal Republic's founding. March 31 - The party's youth wing is dissolved to make way for a replacement under closer supervision of party headquarters. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
