GER politics thread

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Here's me thinking the issue wasn't of German concern but rather that of Greece and Turkey.

Ok here is what I was thinking.

Starting a new thread ? No
Is it about EU-well Greece is a member of EU and Turkey is a candidate
NATO both countries are member of NATO-However we do not have a NATO thread.

With this in mind I thought it would fit in our Germany thread.

It's up to Skybird-It's his thread if he decide it does not fit here-You remove these three or four comment. Remove comments after number #1633

Markus

[Skybird]

I claim no propriatory right.

[Skybird]

Crisis spelling end for "made in Germany"?



https://beta.dw.com/en/is-the-energy...del/a-62727083

As severe as the energy crisis is, the existential threat to Germany's export-based economic model comes from many factors, and not just the war in Ukraine and its knock-on effects for global energy markets. Another major cause for concern is the dependence of the German business sector on China, for example.

Saying it since many, many years. The german economy is not strong, as was always claimed, but is extremely weak, because it it is so heavily dependent from factors beyond its control. Dependency is not strength. Never was, never will be. To think so, is self-deception.


Economic strength is to not need others that much, but being able to get along by yourself, no matter the others. THAT is strength.

[Skybird]

FOCUS writes:
----------------------------------


Well, dear Greens, that's it: you will be cursed, cursed, cursed

Just a moment ago, the Greens were considered the party that would provide the next chancellor. The refusal to do anything about the energy crisis undoes what trust the party leadership has built up.

Until a week ago, the energy crisis was a crisis of the two former people's parties, the CDU/CSU and the SPD. Even then, that wasn't entirely true, because it's the green energy transition that has contributed significantly to the calamities we find ourselves in. But at the end of the day, it's who's in power that counts, and it hasn't been the Greens over the past 16 years.

Energy crisis is now a Green crisis

Since the beginning of the week before last, the crisis has been a green crisis. Everything that may come this winter will now be attributed to them: the death of companies that will follow the doubling of electricity prices; the blackouts when the grids collapse because there are no longer enough reliable power plants.

I thought the Greens were smart, at least strategically. I trusted them to be the next chancellor. For a short time, it looked as if the project of conquering the social center might work.

The refusal to do everything necessary to avert the meltdown is therefore a mistake whose impact cannot be overestimated. It is likely to destroy all the trust that the party has built up in recent months.

We are at the beginning of the storm. You can see the weather glow. There is not a day when you don't read in the newspapers about companies that have no idea how they are going to shoulder the electricity bills. The worst hit are companies that wanted to do everything right and relied on a modern gas turbine. Those who can still burn oil or coal now at least have an alternative.

Anger at Minister Habeck

It also hits industries that you don't immediately think of. I ran into a doctor at a garden party on Saturday who joined a radiology practice in Munich three years ago. His billing office wrote to him last week, telling him to be prepared for an additional payment of 1.2 million euros in electricity costs. Large radiological units are power guzzlers that cannot simply be turned off overnight. The magnets that are needed for image acquisition cannot tolerate that.

"Let's see how long we can hold out," the radiologist said. I found him surprisingly composed. I wouldn't be able to sleep again if I were promised an additional payment of 1.2 million euros. But when we got to talking about the Minister of Economics' decision to take the nuclear power plants off the grid, the equanimity was gone. You could see how incomprehension and anger gained the upper hand in the man.

It is not only my radiologist who wonders why we are not doing everything we can to minimize the damage to the country. It has now been two weeks since Robert Habeck presented his plan to transfer German nuclear power to the silent reserve.

To this day, no one knows how this is supposed to work. A nuclear power plant is like my radiologist friend's computer tomograph: Some plants don't have an on/off switch. Habeck has answered his critics by saying that all those who thought his plan wouldn't work hadn't understood him. Unfortunately, he did not say what exactly he had in mind.

Greens have found short explanations

There are some unbreakable laws in politics. A scandal that takes more than one sentence to explain is not a scandal. That's why Annalena Baerbock's cheating book was a big issue in the election campaign and not Olaf Scholz's Cum-Ex past, although the latter is much more significant than the former. In the same way, an explanation that takes me more than a minute is useless as an explanation.

No one has known this better than the Greens. They invented chlorinated chickens and genetically modified corn to protect Germany from foreign goods. When their opponents started to explain the advantages of trade agreements with faraway countries, they just laughed.


And now they are looking for salvation in merit order, i.e. the order of power plants in pricing? Good luck. I made an attempt over the weekend to explain how the price is calculated in the electricity market.

I could see the look on my interlocutor's face go nowhere. At Greenpeace, they already knew why they always put the dolphin in the display window and never the undersea giant spider, which would be just as deserving of staying alive.

Is the nuclear power plant a symbol? Of course it is. Nuclear energy now accounts for only six percent of electricity generation. But that's how it is in times of war: Sometimes it's also about symbols. That's all the more true when people are up to their necks in water.

When you hold the letter with the new installment payment in your hands, it's good to know that the government is doing everything in its power to get the situation under control. And not saying, "Sorry, it's bad that you now have to pay five times as much. We also have 300 euros for you. But as far as power generation is concerned, unfortunately we have to make allowances for the green soul."

Green energy transition makes things much worse

With the energy transition, it's like with socialism. It's never the idea that's bad, always just the execution. Of course, the goal of phasing out coal after nuclear is held fast. Stupidly, it is precisely this fixation on renewables that has led us into dependence on Russian gas.

The Greens have always warned against Putin, which advantageously distinguishes them from other parties. However, the Green energy transition then made things much worse, because after coal and nuclear power were phased out, gas was the only reliable energy source left.

The coalition agreement announced the construction of more gas-fired power plants. "Natural gas is indispensable for a transitional period," it says in a rare bow to reality. It would be interesting to know whether the coalition intends to stick to this or whether it is counting on other energy sources appearing out of nowhere.

Perhaps they will simply forgo the so-called baseload, energy sources that are independent of the vagaries of the weather. That would fit in with a world in which will and imagination count and not the disdainful laws of physics.

You think this is a joke? I remember a tweet in which the German Environment Ministry declared before the gas crisis: "Base load will no longer exist in the classical sense." Instead of baseload, they were betting on a system of renewables, storage and smart grids. In the environment ministry, people have always been further ahead than in normal politics. Now only reality has to follow.

Even among Green voters, there is a change of mood

At the beginning of the week, the opinion research institute Forsa asked Germans what they think about the lifespan of nuclear power plants. 67 percent are in favor of the three reactors still in operation being used to generate electricity until 2024.

Even among Green voters, there is a shift in sentiment. At 41 percent, the proportion of those in favor of continued operation is no longer so far behind the proportion in favor of shutdown or reserve.

If I were a Green hater, I would want the party leadership to stick to its decision to phase out for as long as possible. At the latest, when the lights go out in January during the doldrums because the sun and wind can't keep up with power consumption, their ambitions for higher things will be over for the time being.

When the Tesla owner can no longer get her car out of the spot because the charging station is on strike, then the Green Party will be back where it came from: no longer a lifestyle choice for the upper middle class, but an offer to the truly convinced, who will also let their conviction cost them something. That's still enough for the Bundestag. But it will be difficult to get into the chancellor's office.

------------------------

Two bakers in my neighbourhood have shut down last week. The one for a limited time, he hopes, the other forever.

It has begun.

[Rockstar]

Germany takes control of Russian-owned oil refineries

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/16/energ...ies/index.html

Berlin/London
CNN Business
—
The German government has seized control of three Russian-owned oil refineries to secure supplies of gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel.

Germany’s economy ministry announced on Friday that it had temporarily taken over Russian oil giant Rosneft’s subsidiaries in the country. Rosneft Deutschland and RN Refining & Marketing account for about 12% of Germany’s oil refining capacity, the ministry said in a statement.

The move was designed to “counter the threat to the security of energy supply,” it added.

[Jimbuna]

A step in the right direction if even just a small one.

[Catfish]

Far right German party members to tour Russian-held regions of Ukraine

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...e0581b20fc41d8

[Jimbuna]

Scholz condemned intentions of Russian Federation to hold pseudo-referendums in occupied territories of Ukraine.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the so-called unacceptable referendums on joining the occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation

As Censor.NET informs with reference to Interfax-Ukraine, the German publication Zeit Online reports this.

"It is quite clear that these fictitious referendums are unacceptable," Scholz told reporters in New York.

He emphasized that "referendums" are not covered by "international law and agreements reached by the international community." Source: https://censor.net/en/n3368481

So does this mean Germany will send tanks etc. now?

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

So does this mean Germany will send tanks etc. now?

Two things,

1. I think it’s bad for business if they did. Look what Poland and others are doing. They unload their obsolete albeit useful equipment on Ukraine. Then buy the ‘good stuff’ for themselves. I’d bet U.S. and German arms manufactures are competing for those contracts as we speak. And if you look nobody else is giving away their best armor either.

2. This is not tank warfare. Throughout this war we have seen tanks knocked out in droves, even the most modern tank is a sitting duck without the modern integration of C3I, air and infantry support. This is a war of artillery, infantry and will. Tanks though useful, have not proven themselves to be a “game changer”.

[Jimbuna]

Fully agree but the 'etc' part meant other weapons such as artillery, apc's and ammunition etc. (oops. there I go again).

[Skybird]

Pushing an offensive under fire needs armoured mobility. The Ukrainians need to carry their troops into battle and artillery fires in - technicals, pickups and cars.


Tanks are great for fast spearhead attacks - and the, with infantry, digging in and holding that terrain.

The Russians prove to be bad at identifying individual targets like cars and tanks so far. The lack the modern AT drone weapons that the Ukrainians have gotten.

Many of the BMPs and T-72 the Ukrainians were given, have been updated with plenty of Western hightech components to bring them closer to NATO standards. They are more ffective than their Russia n coutnerparts. So one could argue that some NATO members altready deliver modernised MBTs.

Delivering MBT imo should be a main task of the Europeans, and Germany as one of the main MBT producers. The Leopard, Chaöllenger and Leclerk all have one thign in common with Russian amde tanks: they burn Diesel. The Americna abrams is a gas junkey and runs jet fuel with its very thirsty gas turnbine. Ukrainian logistics are not designed to now service another newly opened needed suppy line for that new gas, and in significant quantity, it is a needless complication, even mroe so under war logistics conditions.

German industry could deliver Leopard-1s and Leopard-2A4s in significant quantities, as well as Marder-3s. The Bundeswehr would suffer no loss there. They have them stockpiled in their parking backyards.

Poland is so fed up with the Germans that it now refuses to buy more German armour, and instead buys South Korean MBTs. Not every Polish quarrel with Germany is justified, much of their noise is just that: nationalistic noise. But regarding the military support for Ukraine they are right.



Ukraine depletes its Sovjet-made ammo stockpiles for Sovjet made weapons and artillery. It needs to switch to Western systems to get ammo available. Russia will not deliver it any ammunition for Sovjet era weapons. The deliveries of a newly reopened Russian ammo factory somewhere in Eastern Europe or Scandinavia, I forgot where it was, seems to not be able to compensate the need in ammo supplies. Media reported already months ago that Russia has brought military production in the Ukraine to a standstill by bombing according factories.

[Skybird]

Bubble-Olaf had his meaningless and imo embarassingly weak premiere at the UN. FOCUS writes:
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Olaf Scholz spoke for the first time last night at the UN General Assembly in New York. First, the chancellor explained his views on the war in Ukraine, then he delivered generalities. This was not yet his turnaround announced months ago.

"When others get hot, I get cold. When others get cold, I get ice cold." This is how Chancellor Helmut Schmidt spoke and acted.

He did not allow himself to be blackmailed by the hijackers of the Lufthansa plane Landshut to Mogadishu. The plane was stormed by a special commando of the GSG 9 and the hostages were freed.

He was not intimidated by the hijackers of Hanns Martin Schleyer, the president of the German employers' association. The terrorists' demands for the release of legally convicted terrorists remained unfulfilled. The state showed itself strong and unyielding. Schleyer paid with his death.

Olaf Scholz does not have the cold-bloodedness of Helmut Schmidt. He is personally more supple and politically more agile than "Schmidt Schnauze," as the former chancellor was respectfully called.
Scholz plays the moderate European before the UN

Tonight, Scholz delivered his calling card to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. It was that of a moderate European who has a recognizably difficult time with war and warfare.

There appeared a man who explained in a well-tempered voice - first in English, then in German - his position on the Ukraine war. On the occasion of the Russian invasion, he directly addressed the perpetrator of violence and hardship: "Russia's war of conquest against Ukraine cannot be justified by anything. President Putin is waging it with a single goal: to seize Ukraine. Self-determination and political independence do not count for him. There is only one word for it. This is sheer imperialism!"

He drew a red line for himself and the traffic light coalition, which remains a red line even if it is not called that: "That is why we will not accept a Russian dictatorial peace. That is why Ukraine must be able to fend off Russia's incursion. We are supporting Ukraine in this with all our might: financially, economically, humanitarianly and also with weapons."
Powerlessness of German military aid

Then, however, they left him. What followed were generalities that can only be seen as correct, but just as banal: "If we want this war to end, then we can't care how it ends."

No ****!

He defends the economic sanctions, knowing they have long been directed against his own people: "Together with partners around the world, we have imposed tough economic sanctions against the Russian leadership and Russia's economy."

In terms of military aid to Ukraine, demanded by many and disputed on the home front, no specification, nowhere. Scholz did not name any weapons categories or sums of money, and of course he concealed the fact that Germany's aid of 1.2 billion euros lags far behind the British aid of over 4 billion euros and the American military aid of 25 billion euros. The powerlessness of this German military aid marks all sorts of things, but certainly not a turning point.

To bridge the gap between the good intentions and the rather modest reality of German aid, Scholz built a bridge out of large word elements: "Our message is: We stand firmly by the side of the attacked! To protect the lives and freedom of Ukrainians! And for the protection of our international order!"

He announced that he was prepared - be careful here the details matter - to imprison not Putin and his government, but the Russian soldiers for their atrocities: "The murderers we will bring to justice. We support the International Criminal Court and the independent commission of inquiry set up by the Human Rights Council in this with all our strength."

The bottom line is that Olaf Scholz wants to keep all options open with his low-threshold military aid, including that of mediating peace talks. In doing so, however, he is leaving the Americans in charge of the European theater of war. Tonight, Olaf Scholz has postponed the turning point for a self-confident Europe.
-----------------


"Who wants leadership from me, will get leadership." (original quote Scholz).


Pffft.... A weaseling windbag. Maulheld.

[Jimbuna]

If it wasn't so terrifyingly true....it would be funny.

[Jimbuna]

Every citizen of Russian Federation who openly opposes Putin’s regime can ask for asylum in Germany - head of Ministry of Internal Affairs Feser

The Federal Republic of Germany is ready to accept Russian deserters under certain circumstances.

This was stated by the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany, Nancy Feather, Censor.NET informs with reference to the Oldenburger Onlinezeitung.

"As a rule, deserters who are threatened with severe repression receive international protection in Germany. Anyone who courageously opposes the Putin regime and therefore exposes himself to the greatest danger can apply for asylum in Germany due to political persecution," said the official.

The decision-making practice of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees has already been adjusted accordingly. However, granting asylum is a case-by-case decision that also includes security checks.

For months, Germany hosted critics of the Russian regime who were persecuted and threatened, the minister added. Russia's increasingly brutal aggression against Ukraine is accompanied by increased internal repression, in particular against the press, human rights defenders and representatives of the opposition. In particular, the government gives Russian journalists the opportunity to report freely and independently from Germany. "In this fast and non-bureaucratic procedure, we have already made possible the admission of 438 people together with the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs," Feser said.

After Russian President Vladimir Putin announced partial mobilization, there were signs of conscripts fleeing the country, and flights abroad that were still available were quickly booked. Then the coalition partners VDP and "Greens" asked the government to accept Russian deserters.

It will be recalled that on September 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on partial mobilization. According to Putin, only citizens who are in the reserve will be subject to conscription, they will undergo additional training taking into account the war in Ukraine. According to the decree, mobilization begins on September 21.

At the same time, the Russian invaders in the temporarily occupied Luhansk region are taking all the men they can find.

Protests swept through Russia. Detained men are served with summonses.

It is known that men are trying to leave the Russian Federation en masse. In particular, to Finland and Georgia. EU countries - for example, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - declare that they will not provide shelter to Russian citizens fleeing mobilization. Source: https://censor.net/en/n3368993

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Far right German party members to tour Russian-held regions of Ukraine

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...e0581b20fc41d8

Far left is far right, far right is far left, bipolar or Schizophrenic or WTH?

Former German MP and current Left Party (Die Linke) member Dieter Dehm suggests the Russian mass killings in Bucha were “probably faked”.