It might be a slight exaggeration to say that the future of progressive politics in Europe rests on the shoulders of one man. It would be no exaggeration to say that this man bears few characteristics of a potential savior.
Olaf Scholz took office as postwar Germany’s ninth chancellor in December 2021 by saying as little of note as possible. During the election campaign of that year, he stood and watched as his two rivals from the conservative Christian Democratic Union and the Greens repeatedly ran into trouble.
The man who rose without trace then faced the task of cobbling together a coalition, a regular ritual of German politics, except this time he was required to forge an alliance of not two but three parties—his own Social Democrats; the Greens; and the liberal party, the Free Democrats (FDP).… Seguir leyendo »
In 2020, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, called on Europe to forge its “own way” with China and distance itself from the “open confrontation” approach pursued by U.S. President Donald Trump. The goal of Borrell’s “Sinatra doctrine”, so named in reference to the song “My Way”, was for the EU to avoid becoming either “a Chinese colony or an American colony” amid a Cold War–like struggle between Washington and Beijing. Striking such a balance, Borrell argued, would allow Europe to retain the benefits of strong economic ties with China, which he and most other European policymakers at that time saw as far outweighing the risk of giving Beijing too much influence.… Seguir leyendo »
There is a saying in the swath of eastern Germany known as the Lausitz that captures both the beauty of the region and the curse of its geology. “God created the Lausitz”, goes the expression. “But Satan put coal underneath”.
Local people did a deal with the devil over the past 100 years: they let mining machines carve chunks from the lush green forests, destroyed centuries-old villages to dig up millions of tonnes of the dirty lignite that lies under them and polluted the planet in the process. In exchange came thousands of jobs and the pride found in powering the German economic juggernaut.… Seguir leyendo »
An ability to surprise is not, perhaps, the first thing people typically associate with Germans. But looking at the direction our country has taken since Russia launched its war of aggression against Ukraine, maybe we Germans have managed to surprise even ourselves.
Only two years ago, billions of cubic metres of gas arrived from Russia to Germany through Nord Stream 1 and other pipelines. Russian fossil fuels made up a large share of our energy consumption. Today, we’ve cut this down to zero.
Only two years ago, the idea of Germany delivering tanks, air-defence systems and howitzers to a war zone would have seemed far-fetched, to say the least.… Seguir leyendo »
It’s not often that the publication of a policy paper is cause for excitement. But when the German government set out the country’s first national security strategy in June, it set off a flurry of coverage. The document, in the end, was a bit of a disappointment. Partly that was because, for all its focus on pressing matters of foreign policy, it seemed to miss something significant: a clear change in the country’s orientation. For the first time in the postwar period, Germany is paying proper attention to the rest of the world.
This starts with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has made a point of projecting Germany beyond its usual European boundaries.… Seguir leyendo »
In January this year, the French and German governments met in Paris to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty. The meeting reaffirmed an ever closer relationship to strengthen the sovereignty of the European Union. Six months on, President Emmanuel Macron’s forthcoming state visit to Germany—the first by a French leader since 2000—has additional gravity. That is because geopolitics is driving joint support for the enlargement of the EU that lies ahead of us, and is intertwined with the EU’s internal sovereignty agenda: defence and industrial policy and economic security. All this will bring about a profound change for Europe, with repercussions for the rest of the world.… Seguir leyendo »
It’s hard to overlook the way that the tumult and horror prompted by recent charges of sexual misconduct against German band Rammstein reflects the wild scenes that play out at its live performances. For nearly 30 years, the six-man industrial group hailing from East Germany has growled dark and ribald lyrics during stage shows of extravagant pyrotechnics, violent play-acting, and ear-splitting instrumentals. In light of the accusations, the giant dildos that launch fireballs and standards of its repertoire such as “Pussy” are finally being examined in a much more exacting light.
Over the past month, several women spoke up about the band’s practiced system of coercing young women into post-show sex with frontman Till Lindemann.… Seguir leyendo »
Under the veneer of western unity in support of Ukraine, reactions to the war across Europe have been informed by different countries’ readings of their own history, of earlier conflicts on this continent, and by their conceptions of Russia’s national character. There is no automatic consensus within democratic societies about the lessons of the past, nor should there be. Remembrance is often selective, and the way ahead involves a discussion about what went wrong before.
Nowhere has this process of revisiting the past in search of the right decisions for the future been more fraught since the Russian invasion than in Germany.… Seguir leyendo »
In 2017, when Wolfgang Schäuble left his post as the German finance minister to become president of the country’s parliament, hundreds of ministry employees took a group photo to mark his departure. Standing in the ministry’s courtyard and dressed in black jackets, they formed a giant circle, a zero symbol, to honor the man seen as the face of German austerity measures. The “black zero”, or schwarze Null, is a reference to the requirement for balanced budgets enshrined in the German Constitution since 2009: Barring extraordinary circumstances, the Schuldenbremse, or “debt brake”, forbids the German government from taking on additional debts and limits Germany’s structural deficit to no more than 0.35 percent of annual GDP.… Seguir leyendo »
¿Recuerdan el concurso del enfermo de Europa? A lo largo de las décadas, el premio ha ido y venido entre el Reino Unido y Alemania, aunque Francia, en ocasiones, ha merecido una mención honorífica.
A pesar del Brexit y de la falta de una estrategia británica para afrontarlo, el trofeo está ahora en Berlín. Alemania ha caído en lo que los economistas denominan recesión técnica, tras dos trimestres consecutivos de caída del crecimiento económico. Pero esta no es la verdadera definición de recesión. La Oficina Nacional de Investigación Económica de Estados Unidos la describe como “un descenso significativo de la actividad económica que se extiende por toda la economía y dura más de unos meses”.… Seguir leyendo »
There is a long history of German military pilots helping the Chinese air force. In the 1930s, Nazi Germany dispatched military advisors to help build and train the air force of the Republic of China, which was simultaneously fighting communist insurgents under Mao Zedong and the invading Imperial Japanese Army. Chinese-German relations soured a few years later, when Berlin allied with Tokyo in the Tripartite Pact. By then, however, Chinese pilots had not only been trained by the formidable German air force—the Luftwaffe—but were also flying German-made bombers and fighter aircraft to attack the communists and Japanese.
German fighter pilots are helping train China’s air force once again.… Seguir leyendo »
Los ejecutivos de la industria automotriz de Alemania y de Estados Unidos que asistieron al Salón del Automóvil de Shanghái este año quizás esperaban dar la vuelta de la victoria luego de tres años de ausencia por culpa de la pandemia. Sin embargo, los fabricantes occidentales se encontraron con una dura realidad: decenas de nuevos vehículos eléctricos de fabricación china vienen por su participación de mercado.
En los últimos años, el ascenso de los VE ha impulsado la industria automotriz china a una prominencia global. Las exportaciones de autos de China ya superaron a las de Alemania en 2022, luego de un incremento del 54%, y se proyecta que el país supere a Japón para convertirse en el mayor exportador de autos del mundo este año.… Seguir leyendo »
Alemania cerró sus últimas tres centrales nucleares y completó el abandono paulatino de la energía nuclear. Como ministra responsable de la seguridad nuclear alemana, creo que fue una decisión excelente y, de hecho, visionaria. Hay muchas justificaciones importantes, pero cinco de ellas resultan particularmente convincentes.
En primer lugar, sin energía nuclear Alemania es más segura. No existen en el mundo centrales nucleares tan invulnerables como para que podamos descartar accidentes desastrosos, que pueden deberse a errores humanos (como en Chernóbil, en 1986) o a catástrofes naturales (como en Fukushima, Japón, en 2011); pueden ser causados por ataques terroristas, accidentes aéreos o sencillamente una debilidad que hayamos pasado por alto en nuestras estrategias de seguridad; o, en el peor de los casos, podrían deberse a un ataque militar, como los de Rusia a Ucrania.… Seguir leyendo »
Just what is Germany’s Zeitenwende, the latest coinage in a language famous for its compound nouns? The “change in times” announced by the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year rolled like a thunderclap across a country that, since unification in 1990, had flourished on the benefits of the post-cold-war peace dividend, its status as Europe’s powerhouse economy and being de facto regulator of the single currency, calling the shots in eurozone squeezes.
For obvious reasons of 20th-century experience, today’s federal republic is an entity more comfortable with its role as a proponent of restraint and cautious multilateralism than decisive action.… Seguir leyendo »
Algo que actualmente se olvida a menudo en el debate en Reino Unido sobre Europa es lo difícil que fue la relación mientras duró. A principios de la década de 1980, Margaret Thatcher hizo descarrilar consecutivas cumbres comunitarias con su demanda incesante de que le devolvieran su dinero. En mayo de 1985, los líderes europeos, agotados, acabaron tirando la toalla y accedieron a reembolsar la aportación británica al presupuesto. Fue una victoria para Reino Unido, pero tuvo un coste político que se subestimó en su momento. Thatcher se quedó sin aliados en Bruselas, y ese aislamiento influyó en su política europea a partir de entonces.… Seguir leyendo »
King Charles III will not only travel to Berlin during his state visit to Germany this week, but also Hamburg, the country’s second largest city and home to its biggest port. Hamburg is a trading hub known for its anglophilia, with close connections to Great Britain that go back centuries that were revived during the British occupation of the city after the second world war, when the former enemy quickly turned into a close partner.
When you take the long view at UK-German relations, this part of the king’s trip is at least as important and meaningful as his appointments in the German capital.… Seguir leyendo »
On average, it takes about nine hours to complete a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. At that rate, 600 million pieces take centuries. That is the task Germany is confronting as it launches a new attempt to piece together a dark chapter of its past.
A few weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the East German secret police, known as the Stasi, attempted to destroy the hoard of information it had collected on the country’s 16 million citizens. That effort created over 16,000 sacks of shredded paper. Now, more than three decades later, the German government is launching a new effort to restore the documents with the help of information technology.… Seguir leyendo »
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s working visit to Washington last Friday came almost exactly one year after a landmark speech promising a U-turn in German foreign defense policy, given just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine. The speech spoke of a Zeitenwende — a pivotal moment in time — and the word has since become shorthand for German foreign policy thinking under Scholz.
But one year into its Zeitenwende, Berlin is struggling to turn bold promises into reality. Scholz had committed to spending more than 2 percent of Germany’s gross domestic product on defense and to supporting Ukraine with heavy weapons.… Seguir leyendo »
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit to the White House on Friday could be just another routine meeting between allies. Instead, President Biden should use the event to press for something riskier but more consequential: firm dates for Germany’s oft-announced rearmament plans.
Germany is Europe’s economic powerhouse, but it is a military weakling. In the post-Cold War era, it allowed its once-powerful forces to atrophy, with its forces shrinking from more than 500,000 in 1990 to less than 200,000 in 2021. Its defense spending also plummeted from 2.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product in 1989 to around 1.5 percent in 2021.… Seguir leyendo »
Horsepower-flush automobiles and the 7,200-mile highway system that accommodates them – called the autobahn – are part and parcel of national mythology in Germany.
But driving on the autobahn, long stretches of which forswear any speed limit at all, can be a chilling experience for the timid.
I’m not a slow driver – and indeed am a native of the US, a country that too mythologizes the open road.
But it’s utterly disconcerting when, ticking along at a brisk 75 miles per hour, somebody blows by me on the left and then disappears over the horizon as if I were driving a lawnmower.… Seguir leyendo »
Utilizamos cookies para el correcto funcionamiento de la página web y analíticas para estadísticas.ACEPTARPolítica de privacidad
