GER politics thread

[Gorpet]

Originally Posted by mapuc

Coincident !?

Some weeks ago German Railway had been sabotaged

Last Saturday it was Danish Railways who had suffered a severe hacker attack



https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/1...-cybersecurity

I say every trails points towards Russia or Russian supporters being behind this.

Markus

Hell ya, everything must be Russian, It must be Russians, It couldn't be your own politicians.Sucking and receiving dollars from America and Your own backyard.The EU and all their Bull****. How does the EU. Work without the American dollar. It doesn't.

[Skybird]

FOCUS writes:
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The blocked republic: In the Ahr valley I understood that we are lost


[Skybird: Just a reminder, if you donot recall it anymore: what the Ahrtal Flooding was about, last year:

]



Psychologists call regression to the mean the tendency to fall back into old patterns after a shock. This applies not only to individuals, as it turns out, but also to parties and entire nations.

I was with the winegrowers in the Ahr Valley. The winegrowers' association had invited me to its annual meeting. I was to say a few words of encouragement about the political situation. My specialty: to find something cheerful even in the face of horror.

I can only recommend a visit to the Ahr to anyone who despairs of Germany. It is impressive what love of one's homeland, solidarity and perseverance can accomplish. You can still see the traces of devastation everywhere. But the reconstruction work is amazingly far advanced.

I don't know if I would have found the strength to start all over again after the disaster. The water was eight meters high. At lunch, my seat neighbor told me that a car was suddenly stuck in the window at her house on the second floor. Others had the neighbor's oil tank in their backyard. What was upstream had made its way through the water.

The stench was the worst, the winegrowers recounted. When the water finally receded, an oily broth remained, contaminating everything it caught hold of. To this day, the first floor in many houses is uninhabitable because the oil soaked into the walls.

The grotesque bill of a Mainz bureaucrat

One would think that the authorities would do their best to make life easier for the long-suffering people. Just what you think when you have the announcements of the summer of 2021 in your head. But if it were, we wouldn't be in Germany.

The region is famous for its wine. The vines reach right up to the road. It's been that way for hundreds of years. Now the word is out: the lower ten hectares must give way to create a protected zone. Someone in Mainz has calculated that the vines cause backwater during floods.


When I asked the chairman of the winegrowers' association by how many meters the vines had contributed to the flood, he said: 1.5 centimeters, mathematically. I thought he was joking. But he wasn't in the mood for jokes, as I quickly realized.

If I were a winegrower, I would storm into the state capital with a flail

That's German thoroughness: We save 1.5 centimeters on the next eight-meter flood. In exchange, we sacrifice the livelihood of people who have survived by the skin of their teeth. If I were a winegrower, I would take a flail and storm into the state capital. Fortunately, I'm just a journalist.

We are perishing because of our bureaucracy. It is inevitable. I don't see any way out of it. Our regulatory frenzy is a noose that keeps tightening. No one can do anything about it, not even the politicians who promise to remedy the situation.

Bureaucrats are not malicious people

I don't blame the bureaucrats. It is possible that they themselves find what they instruct absurd. After all, they are not stupid people who work at the office. Nor are they malicious or take pleasure in tormenting their fellow human beings. They simply want to do their job conscientiously. And if the task is to ensure water protection or flood prevention, then they throw themselves into it.

There was a report in "Die Zeit" about nursing staff from the Philippines. We desperately need people to help in the care sector. Currently, 20,000 positions are unfilled. By 2030, the need is estimated at 500,000 such professionals. In the Philippines, they have specialized in nursing. There are universities where you can get a relevant bachelor's degree. The applicants even speak German because they have completed language courses at the same time.

If it weren't for the regulatory authorities

A perfect match, one would think: We have the jobs, in the Southeast Asian country they have the personnel. It could be so simple if it weren't for the supervisory authorities. In the responsible district governments, they have recalculated that the Filipinos spent only 1776 hours in practical training during their studies - and not the required 2500 hours.

"The basis of comparison for training acquired abroad is the respective training and examination regulation of the corresponding regulated reference profession in Germany," they say. In German: better no nurses, than with the number of hours cutbacks made. In Canada, Australia or Great Britain the Philippine conclusion is recognized without problems. There they also urgently need nurses, which is why many of the nurses who wanted to come to Germany are now moving to Canada or Australia.

It goes on and on like that. An acquaintance was thinking about becoming a teacher. She would enjoy it. She works in the human resources department of a large German corporation, but she would like to do something different. She would also be willing to give up salary for that.
Excellent law exam worthless for teacher trainees in Germany

Then she asked what you have to do to become a teacher. She heard that lateral entrants were wanted. She graduated with honors in business administration and law. But that doesn't count. Nothing works without a state examination plus a traineeship. Where would we end up if we unleashed people on our children who have a practical background and enjoy teaching?

Would you like another example? Germany is looking for 100,000 educators. In many places, daycare centers are closed because of this, or parents have to pick up their children earlier than work actually allows. There is a legal right to a daycare place, but that's not the case. We are great at writing laws. Unfortunately, we are not quite so great when it comes to filling the beautiful plans with life.

My children attend a private daycare center, so we can be less strict about the rules. One caregiver is from Wales, another from Thailand. I didn't ask about degrees, but I would be surprised if the educators who are not from Germany all have certificates. What they may lack in state certified qualifications, they make up for in love and attention.

I have never heard any complaints from my children. But perhaps I am too carefree. The next time I hear the word "turn of the times," I have to laugh hysterically. I am a skeptic by profession. When someone says that everything is going to be very, very different, I think: let's see. But the fact that we make no effort whatsoever to adjust to the changed reality baffles me.

Preventing learning success ourselves: Parties also suffer from the tendency to "regress to the mean

Psychologists call regression to the mean the tendency of people to return to their old ways after the initial shock. This applies not only to individuals, as can be seen, but also to large organizations such as parties.

The Greens are pushing through their energy turnaround, regardless of the fact that the loss of Russian gas has fundamentally changed the basis of their business. The SPD continues to rely undaunted on the concept of trade through change. As a morning gift on the chancellor's trip to Beijing, Olaf Scholz has in his luggage the sale of 24.9 percent of a terminal in the Port of Hamburg to the Chinese state-owned company Cosco.

At the beginning of the week, it became known that the Chancellor's Office, against all odds, also supports the Chinese entry into the chip company Elmos. The technology is outdated, the Chinese can't do anything with it, it is now said for reassurance. But if nothing can be done with it, why do the Chinese want to buy into Elmos? I have a number of prejudices against the Chinese. That they are morons is not one of them.

The explanation for the Chancellor's trip to China is that it is a matter of presenting the German arguments to the Chinese in order to make them think. I can see it in my mind's eye how the chancellor meets the Chinese president, who says after a long, trusting conversation: "I have listened to the arguments of our German friends. They have convinced me. We will stop our support for the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine today and make human rights and climate protection a priority in the ten-year plan."

That's what will happen, I'm quite sure.
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[Skybird]

RWE is silently preparing its leave out of Germany, I wrote weeks ago.

VW and BASF reduce their production in Germany, and invest 2-digit billions of dollars in China instead, I wrote.

The rate at wich companies leave Germany or shut down, has accelerated by several factors over the past 10 years and again in the past 9 months, I wrote.

But foreign investors in Germany also decide increasingly against going to Germany. Today I read the latest such example. Swedish battery producer Northvolt, a heavyweight in this market, wanted to build one of Europe's biggest battery factories for e-cars and rechargable batteries for private and commercial/industrial customers in Northern Germany. Since October, that plan was under reconsideration. It now got reported that the Swedish have decided to correct their decision at the last moment, and now have shifted the whole project to - the US. They quote the negative results of their assessment study of German energy security in the coming decade (!) and think that their production in Germany over the long run would be at too huge risk, and due to energy shortages: unsustainable.

They are not alone.

The German political scene still seems to either be unaware for this trend (thats what it is now: a trend), or not to care, or it wants it - I say since long time that a signfiocant part espcially of the Greens actually do want the destruction of the industrial basis of Germany, for economical and eben more relevant: for social-ideological reasons, to create their new utopic super-left society. No reaction is to be seen from the government, nor is any expected (by me at least). Reports ion the past days say that Germany is fialing in its self-declared climate goals, and that the gap bewteen plan and relaity becomes wider and wider. Polticla reactions opnly say this: that we must try even harder to make the impossible poissible and then, this always gets implied, when Germany has shown that the laws of nature, physics and market can be altered at will, the world will be eager to follow the Ger,man exmaple. Its so hilarious, how often the Germans not only ignore reality, but even imply that after they made miracels and wonders true the world would just jump out of the staraing block and follow the Germans' way. LOL

[Jimbuna]

Backlash for Germany’s Baerbock over crucifix removal at G7 meeting

Christian Democrats criticize the move as insensitive to tradition and history.

BY WILHELMINE PREUSSEN

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock came under fire Friday over the removal of a 482-year-old crucifix from the venue for a G7 meeting in the German city of Münster.

The Federal Foreign Office had the historic wooden crucifix removed from the conference venue in Münster as part of a larger redesign of the city’s town hall, a ministry spokesman said on Friday in Berlin. Baerbock, from the Greens, was not involved with the issue, he said.

“It was not a conscious decision, certainly not a political decision, but obviously an organizational decision,” Baerbock commented Friday after meeting with her G7 colleagues. “I would have liked it if we hadn’t put it away.”

Nevertheless conservative Christian Democrats criticized the move as insensitive to tradition and history. Markus Söder, Bavarian state premier with the Christian Social Union (CSU), who controversially ordered crucifixes to be hung up in public buildings in Bavaria in the past, complained in a tweet that this would not happen in any other country and asked: “Is this the new foreign policy?”

Thorsten Frei, a senior member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said that “only those who stand by their own tradition and social character can also approach others openly, confidently and self-assuredly,” Welt reported. Frei argued that the “Christian image of man is precisely the common basis of the liberal and constitutional democracies of the G7 countries,” according to the newspaper.

Baerbock hosted the foreign ministers of France, Italy, Japan, Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. as Germany currently holds the G7 presidency. The leaders discussed, among other issues, the consequences for Europe of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, transatlantic cooperation and relations with China.

The Münster town hall is considered to have great symbolic value for Christianity in Europe as it was the site for negotiations of the historic Peace of Westphalia. The agreement ended the devastating Thirty Years’ War fought over religion across the Continent.
https://www.politico.eu/article/back...or-g7-meeting/

[Skybird]

FOCUS writes:
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Ahead of climate summit, Baerbock's climate chief exposes German dilemma

Jennifer Morgan is a special negotiator at the United Nations climate summit. The former Greenpeace chief admits: Germany cannot save the climate on its own. An almost revolutionary insight.

Jennifer Morgan's old employer has a lot to criticize about the German government, especially recently. The 49-euro ticket - "a missed opportunity," says Greenpeace. The chancellor's word of power to keep three nuclear power plants running longer? Wrong, says Greenpeace. The same goes for his policy of opening up new gas fields in Africa. The Europeans' decision to phase out fossil-fuel cars - seven years too late for the 1.5-degree climate target, says Greenpeace. Jennifer Morgan was head of the climate activists for six years.

Since leaving Greenpeace, Jennifer Morgan has enjoyed a rapid career boost. After her naturalization in a flash, the American-born Morgan first became secretary of state in the German foreign ministry led by the Green Party's Annalena Baerbock. Now she is chief negotiator at the United Nations climate summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. But that hasn't made her life any easier.

There are reasons for that: The United Nations itself has now abandoned the goal of raising the earth's temperature by no more than 1.5 degrees by the end of the century. There is "no plausible way" to achieve this goal, according to the UN development organization Unep.

Climate activists are rather resigned about the prospects of moving climate issues forward in Egypt at the mega-meeting in Sharm El-Sheikh. "There will be no breakthroughs," says climate researcher Mojib Latif. Papers with little substance are "celebrated as great progress," judges the Hamburg-based president of the Academy of Sciences.

Jennifer Morgan's boss says, just in time for the summit kick-off, what Greens like to say: "Humanity is heading for the abyss." Annalena Baerbock conjures up the end of the world.

However, it can be said in general terms that the apocalypse has so far failed to materialize. Neither the plague in the Middle Ages nor the forest dieback in modern times has driven mankind to its doom. Even the "atomic death" prophesied in Germany in the 1950s remained only a prediction that did not come true. The resilience of Homo Sapiens is obviously great, as great as his inventiveness. Even if this has not yet reached climate glues.

Rarely, we must enviously acknowledge, has an interview unmasked someone as much as the conversation that "Der Spiegel" now had with Jennifer Morgan about the climate summit. Not only because she simply did not know any concrete answer to the questions, what the government of the traffic light, and especially its foreign ministry, has actually brought forward so far in the topic of climate foreign policy.

Other answers were also telling. Two samples: "We must not allow the climate negotiations to fall victim to geopolitical polarization," says Morgan. "So you will also talk to the Russian representatives?" asks Der Spiegel logically. "No, no such talk is planned." But how are you supposed to move climate protection forward if you don't even talk to one of the biggest climate offenders? And wouldn't that be precisely the job of a negotiator on behalf of the United Nations, on whose Security Council the Russians sit?

Jennifer Morgan talks about the developing countries, which are now called the "global south" in politically correct terms. It is about the climate damage there, caused in the past by the climate sinners of the developed countries. Morgan slogans: "We take our responsibility very seriously and are ready for more solidarity." Then, one specific sentence further, "But reparations are out of the question."

Now, one may be of the opinion - of Americans, for example - that reparations payments for the damage done in the past could turn into a bottomless pit, and would also be tactically unwise because they would discourage developing countries from making their own efforts to protect the climate. But: Wouldn't it be the job of a UN negotiator from Germany to at least address the issue? Germany's policy is likely to leave the developing countries with this impression: Wash my fur, but don't get me wet.


Germany's climate credibility is not very good right now, which is a devastating finding. After all, Germany's credibility is the only justification for subjecting the Federal Republic to such a far-reaching, expensive and risky energy turnaround. A great deal hangs on the German government's self-assertion that Germany is a "climate role model." Jennifer Morgan knows exactly why. After all, she was there at the first climate conference; a certain Angela Merkel was Federal Environment Minister in Helmut Kohl's government at the time.

"Going it alone, Germany can't do anything about the climate crisis." This is a very great sentence by Jennifer Morgan. Not only because it is quite simply true, because Germany is only responsible for two percent of climate poisoning. But also because the Greens in particular have been giving the impression for decades that Germany would be able to achieve the 1.5 degrees quasi single-handedly.

In the meantime, it has become clear that saving the world from Germany has been cancelled for the time being. This can be seen in the example of South Africa. 15 years ago, German companies built one of the largest coal-fired power plants in South Africa. Just over a year ago, the German government - it was still the grand coalition - decided to help South Africa phase out coal for the sake of the world's climate, which is likely to be a project of the century anyway for a country that is almost 90 percent dependent on energy from coal. And in the meantime, Germany is once again importing coal from South Africa.

The fact that Germany has long since ceased to be a climate role model is due to these facts:

- The German government is building LNG terminals at full speed, i.e. relying on liquefied natural gas, a fossil fuel. The terminals can run until 2045; if they do, climate neutrality cannot be achieved.
- The German government is relying on American fracked gas. But fracking in Germany - a proven technology for decades - Morgan indignantly rejects in the Spiegel interview. "It's out of the question. Fracking has a number of negative environmental consequences, and the production is also particularly harmful to the climate compared to other gas." So if fracking is climate madness, we're participating in it right now.
- The German government is phasing out nuclear power, which other countries care about because it makes their energy bills more expensive. In the meantime - Poland has just announced an ambitious nuclear power program - it almost looks like the kind of German go-it-alone that Olaf Scholz usually tries to avoid.

This is the current state of affairs: The German government's climate expert council has calculated that the traffic light will miss the targets it has set itself. The German president is officially dampening expectations for the UN climate conference.

And Annalena Baerbock's top climate diplomat Jennifer Morgan exposes Germany's dilemma: Germany is too small to be a moral world champion and climate role model. And secondly, too much of a climate sinner. And thirdly, too stingy. If one had to comment on this process, the comment headline could read:

Big mouth, nothing behind it.

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[Skybird]

These scientists and doctors are now free game, the witch-hunt is opened. NZZ writes:
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"Tendency- and ideology-based reports": Scientists and doctors call on ARD and ZDF to return to facts when it comes to human biology

A group of scientists and physicians has issued an appeal against what it sees as ideology-based reporting on public broadcasters. Especially in youth programs, contributions on sexual identity, for example, would violate journalistic standards.

Transgender ideology in the "Sendung mit der Maus," videos about drug sex and vampire fetishes: a group of scientists and doctors has launched an appeal and demanded a return to fact-based reporting of biological issues in public broadcasting (ÖRR) in an article in the "Welt."

"We call on the ÖRR to present biological facts and scientific findings more truthfully," reads the appeal, which the authors say has already been joined by 120 scientists, physicians, psychologists, educators and representatives of other professions from across Germany. "We as scientists resolutely oppose the idea that women and men are merely social constructs or perceived identities," it continues.

They criticize the fact that, especially when it comes to the trendy topic of "trans," neither biological facts nor scientific findings are presented truthfully. In a 50-page dossier, the initiators list numerous examples of reporting in the ÖRR, which they describe as "tendentious" and "ideology-based". In particular, they criticize the term "multisexuality," which is used numerous times, as it constitutes a false statement.

The dossier lists numerous reports, especially from the youth programs of ARD and ZDF such as "Funk," "Reporter," "Die da oben" and "Y-Kollektiv," which the authors believe are unreflective and also fail to meet journalistic standards. As examples, they cite reports on cannibalism (over 2.5 million views), vampire fetishes (over one million views) and "What's it like to be raped?" (over three million views).

Also freely available, for example, was a contribution by "Y-Kollektiv," a YouTube channel of "Funk," about so-called chemsex. There were well over half a million views for this reportage, in which a teenage reporter films gay men having group sex with other homosexuals and introducing the drug crystal meth anally, as the initiators of the appeal write.

The initiators object to the fact that gender reassignment surgeries are portrayed as a "child's play" in articles for children and young people. The psychological and physically irreversible consequences of using puberty blockers, administering opposite-sex hormones and surgically removing the penis, breast and uterus are mentioned at best in passing, they write.

"We are therefore expressly not concerned with the abolition of the ÖRR, but with its return to its broadcasting mandate. After all, the fee-financed formats are particularly committed not only to the principles of the press code, respect for the truth and careful research," the appeal says.
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[Skybird]

The German government swings around, economy minister Habeck now all of a sudden wants to prohibit the sale of chip manufacturer Elmos to the Chinese. Just days ago he was still insisting on that Elmo's chips are so outdated that they would give th echinese no advanatge and they could therefore have Elmos.


Another of his many verbal volleys intercepted and debunked. If the chips by Elmos are so unmodern and outdated - why did the Chinese then tried so hard to buy Elmos...?


Bubble-Olaf seems to be not satisafied what he got from his China kow-tow, an so now tightens the thumbscrews!

[Skybird]

Die Welt writes:
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Germany loses almost 110 billion due to high energy prices



According to calculations by the Ifo Institute, the rapid rise in energy prices is costing Germany a total of almost 110 billion euros in lost real income. According to the Munich economists, there will be correspondingly less to distribute to employees in wage and salary negotiations. "The current decline in real income is likely to persist in the coming years," Ifo economic researcher Timo Wollmershäuser said on Tuesday.

"On the one hand, energy prices will probably remain permanently high with Russia no longer being a supplier. For another, Germany's dependence on imported energy will not change anytime soon." The institute published the study against the backdrop of the current round of collective bargaining in the metal and electrical industry.

Real incomes are incomes adjusted for inflation. According to the study, the billions lost are the sum that flows out of Germany to pay for energy imports abroad, which have become much more expensive - 35 billion euros last year, 64 billion this year and another nine billion in 2023. In total, according to Ifo, this would be the highest loss of real income since the second oil crisis at the end of the 1970s, at 3.0 percent - when it was 4.0 percent.

The overall economic loss of purchasing power from 1979 to 1981 would not have been recovered until 1986. At that time, a sharp drop in oil prices set in, while at the same time the deutschmark appreciated noticeably against the dollar. This made energy imports, which were mostly invoiced in U.S. currency, cheaper.

Wollmershäuser and his colleague Wolfgang Nierhaus assume that German companies will initially be able to raise their export prices much less sharply than import prices will rise. "A good part of the higher prices for imported energy is therefore likely to be borne by domestic end consumers," the researchers write.

Quantifying real income losses is important in any distribution discussions, Wollmershäuser stressed. The high prices for goods and services produced in Germany are not the result of a boom, but primarily reflect the high costs of imported energy and intermediate products. The income to be distributed between employees and entrepreneurs "must therefore be corrected for the real income losses.
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The number will be corrected upwards, it bases on the assumption that for next year they already "know" the additional costs will be limitedcapped to 9 bn. I predict they will become several times as high.Next winter most likely will become much more problematic regardign gas supplies, than this year.

BTW, the economy ministry had to admit that they do not know how much of the German gas reserves actually are available for Germany, since it is gas stored and owned by companies, not by the state, and these companies sell it on international markets, inner-European markets, and additionally Germany is bound into obligations to deliver gas to European countries. Germany, if things go bad, could indeed maybe benefit only of a fraction of those gas reserves stored in Germany, who knows - the government says it does not know the specific numbers... And if Germany has treaty obligations, but does not fulfill them and keeps the gas for itself, no matter whether the others do the same with their reserves and their obligations to share or not - it will again mean big troubles in little Europe and make Germany the big bogey man once again.

[Skybird]

Die Achse des Guten writes:
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Something is brewing between Germany and France

Travel is educational, and sometimes it is necessary to gather information on the spot that the court reporters of the leading media or the public broadcasters withhold from the German public. This includes the unabashed statements of Parisian essayists and self-proclaimed economists who have recently been trying to impress upon the French, especially the Parisian, public that Germany poses a threat to Europe and has basically remained an enemy of France.

Jacques Attali, the most colorful figure on this stage, a longtime advisor to President Mitterand, has even suggested that war between Germany and France is possible again. Earlier, Eric Zemmour, writing in the right-wing nationalist magazine Valeurs Actuelles, had suggested that in order to survive in Europe, France would have to crush Germany.

Such statements are not only shocking and meet with a reserved response from broad sections of the French population, but they are systematically circulated in the predominantly state-controlled broadcasting system in Paris without ever reaching Germany. These circles, and with them the entire Parisian elite, take exception to the fact that Germany, solely because of its economic importance, is no longer France's political annex, as it was in the 1960s and 1970s, and in certain constellations formulates its own economic interests.

Now, however, the less than forward-looking foreign energy policy toward Russia, criticized by France, has fallen on the feet of Germany and its provincial politicians. Instead of smiling pityingly at the Germans for their lack of awareness of sovereignty, French politicians think they are authorized to subject the 200 billion euros in debt that the German government wants to take on in order to mitigate the rise in energy prices to a French reservation of permission.


Talk of distorting competition

Macron is the spokesman for all the countries that - for the first time, by the way - are talking about state aid and distortions of competition in this context. The background to this probably unique demarche, which distracts from France's deep intervention in price regulation on the energy market, is the unease with a Germany that wants to be more than a rich province, which, as with the EU-New-Generation debt fund, limits itself to financing the EU subsidy economy with high financial contributions and risk assumption. The fact that, because of the current situation, the German government wants to set up an air defense umbrella together with Israel is castigated by Macron, the increasingly autocratic president, as "un-European." Previously, France had done everything to put Airbus, the company involved in this technology, under French curatorship in such a way that Germany is slowly but surely losing all industrial interest.

The situation is similar with the FCAS aerospace armaments project. Here, France with its Dassault company is demanding not only technological leadership, but the reduction of German industry - which is already decimated in this field - to the status of supplier. If it were not for the protest of German industry, the German government would probably have capitulated here as well. The same applies to the project for an MGCS, i.e. a new tank system, for which Germany is to be given the lead. This project is as superfluous as a goiter, especially since German industry has produced the best-selling main battle tank in the world and has no need whatsoever for technological cooperation with the French tank builder, a state-owned company called Nexter.

Nevertheless, Macron unabashedly and almost touchingly claims that Germany wants to isolate itself in order to conceal that he is doing everything in the European Council to isolate Germany. Probably, these attacks are only understandable against the background of the future demand for another EU debt fund, of course in the name of European solidarity. Having promised the Germans on high that the 800 billion euro EU Next Generation Fund would remain a one-off project, German party politicians will have a hard time convincing the Germans once again to follow France and take on new risks in the name of Europe. Perhaps we need these inflationary expressions of Parisian nationalism in European guise to finally understand:

With Macron's France, it will be difficult to build a Europe of equal peoples



Markus C. Kerber is Dr. jur. Professor of Public Finance and Economic Policy at the Technical University of Berlin, Visiting Professor at the SGH in Warsaw and at the University Paris 1 Sorbonne, author of the book "Europe without France? German Notes on the French Question. "Suhrkamp 2006/ Edition Europolis Berlin 2015.
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I always said it and I still stick to it: France sees the EU only has a vehicle to boost French dominance in Europe for which it expects Germany to pay. It always was like this, and it will remain to be so.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Skybird

[achgutblah]
I always said it and I still stick to it: France sees the EU only has a vehicle to boost French dominance in Europe for which it expects Germany to pay. It always was like this, and it will remain to be so.

Strange, i always thought that foreign countries (foreign to Germany, that is) are seeing Germany as being "the dominance" in Europe, with France trying to steal this role. I do not think either one is so well suited, not do i think Germany ever was so dominant.
Especially with those at the helm in Germany right now.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Strange, i always thought that foreign countries (foreign to Germany, that is) are seeing Germany as being "the dominance" in Europe, with France trying to steal this role. I do not think either one is so well suited, not do i think Germany ever was so dominant.
Especially with those at the helm in Germany right now.

The name of the game is "Germany, you be my ducat-shi++ing golden a$$, or I'll call you an evil Nazi and remind you of the guilt of your forefathers again".

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Strange, i always thought that foreign countries (foreign to Germany, that is) are seeing Germany as being "the dominance" in Europe, with France trying to steal this role. I do not think either one is so well suited, not do i think Germany ever was so dominant.
Especially with those at the helm in Germany right now.

That is my understanding also

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

That is my understanding also

This claim of Germany being too powerful and dominant is always raised when Germany showed unwillingness to pay for the others. As long as the others could hand us their bills and we saw for straightening them, we were true Europeans and solidaric.

Just look at the Target-2 balance sheet. Roughly around 2 trillion of credits Germany has accepted for other nations' central banks' benefit - and that the ECB would now need to pay back to Germany, owes it to Germany - AND NEVER WILL PAY OUT FOR SURE. Everbyody nows it.

TWO TRILLION.

Außer Spesen nix gewesen. Just a clap on the shoulder and a lukewarm handshake. France and the Club Med nation wnat to lead this dsysbalance to new extremes and have the other net payers being abused to new extremes. Thats what is behidn their demand that all EU nation'S debts should be collectiovised. France will not pay for that. It will get payments. Mostly from Germany. Thats why I show this proposal my middle finger.

BTW, Poland and Greece need money, and so they demand WW2 reparations once again, issues that by valid treaties, signed agreements and international laws are set and settled already. Poland wants 1.3 trillion Euros. Greece wants 300 billion Euros. Due to forum regulations I cant say what I would tell them both. You can safely assume it is nothing friendly.

[Skybird]

This morning, in stuttgart. Germany tries to slay the big bad evil dragon again. The AdG writes:
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This morning, the public hearing took place on the Stuttgart Declaration of the 20 professors who use scientific arguments to advocate the continued operation of the three remaining nuclear power plants and the restart of the three nuclear power plants that were shut down last year.

Their petition reached more than 58,000 signatures, forcing the Petitions Committee to address the issue in a public hearing. It was an object lesson in how fact-resistant the traffic light government is acting and that, with exceptions, parliamentarians have forgotten what their job is - to keep a critical eye on the government.

After the opening statement by Professor André Thess, initiator of the "Stuttgart Declaration", the Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of the Environment, Christian Kühn, took the floor and, in addition to the usual phrases from the 1970s and the reference to Fukushima, which after all was not a "normal" nuclear accident but one caused by the millennium tsunami, which has not claimed more than one life to date, offered the claim that there is still no final repository for nuclear waste. Thus he revealed his ignorance.

Because, first, there already is, and second, he could read in the final report of the "Final Repository Working Group," which was set up by his party colleague, ex-environmental minister Jürgen Trittin, and, unlike later "expert groups," was still staffed with real experts, that there is still no final repository in Germany because it is not politically wanted, not because there are no suitable salt domes. Now, according to Kühn, the search is on again for a final repository, but the political will to find one is still lacking, because that would remove a cornerstone of the anti-nuclear policy.

The Parliamentary State Secretary from the Ministry of Economics, Stefan Wenzel, had already looked at least once into an IPPC report and was able to lecture from it. Overall, however, little more than phrases could be heard from the government. Parliamentary state secretaries are not in this post because they are experts, but because parliamentarians need posts. So the government did not send an expert to this hearing.

Strict rules applied at the hearing. Precisely limited speaking times for the questioners and the answerers. However, only Prof. Thess and Anna Veronika Wendland, whom he had brought to his side, adhered to these rules. The SPD directed at least one question to Prof. Thess, but the others to the government. This is a popular way of not letting the petitioners have their say. The Greens took it to the extreme, asking only the secretaries of state, and in such a way that they could comfortably reel off their ideological positions on "risk technology," the "national consensus on nuclear phase-out after Fukushima," and the correctness of the nuclear phase-out. The opposition's critical questions about the suppression of the opinions of supporters of continued operation in the ministries and formulations dictated by the top were not answered. Instead, Kühn stooped to the assertion that dissenting opinions are welcome in the Ministry of the Environment. If that is the case, one does not feel anything about it.

It was interesting for me to observe how the Green and SPD delegates reacted to Thess' and Wendland's statements: increasingly hysterical. I sat directly above them and heard their indignant whispering. They are obviously no longer used to hearing other opinions. One SPD delegate was so annoyed that he accused Thess of always arguing with scientific facts. Where would we end up if decisions had to be made according to facts!

Finally, Anna Veronika Wendland managed to give a good answer to the government phrases about risk technology: "If Isar 2 had been in Chernobyl, we wouldn't know the name today, if Isar 2 had been in Fukushima, the reactor accident wouldn't have happened."

Germany has the safest nuclear power plants in the world. They should be shut down not because of their actual risks, but because in the midst of the worst energy crisis in the Federal Republic, the Greens don't want to give up a foot of their ideology.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Skybird

This claim of Germany being too powerful and dominant is always raised when Germany showed unwillingness to pay for the others. As long as the others could hand us their bills and we saw for straightening them, we were true Europeans and solidaric.

Just look at the Target-2 balance sheet. Roughly around 2 trillion of credits Germany has accepted for other nations' central banks' benefit - and that the ECB would now need to pay back to Germany, owes it to Germany - AND NEVER WILL PAY OUT FOR SURE. Everbyody nows it.

TWO TRILLION.

Außer Spesen nix gewesen. Just a clap on the shoulder and a lukewarm handshake. France and the Club Med nation wnat to lead this dsysbalance to new extremes and have the other net payers being abused to new extremes. Thats what is behidn their demand that all EU nation'S debts should be collectiovised. France will not pay for that. It will get payments. Mostly from Germany. Thats why I show this proposal my middle finger.

BTW, Poland and Greece need money, and so they demand WW2 reparations once again, issues that by valid treaties, signed agreements and international laws are set and settled already. Poland wants 1.3 trillion Euros. Greece wants 300 billion Euros. Due to forum regulations I cant say what I would tell them both. You can safely assume it is nothing friendly.

Reason enough for Germany to consider leaving the EU perhaps?