Merkels Strategie im Asylstreit

Date: 19-06-2018
Source: SPIEGEL

Erst mal Tempo raus

CDU-Chefin Angela Merkel will sich von der CSU und Innenminister Seehofer nicht unter Druck setzen lassen. Statt sich auf ein Hauruckverfahren einzulassen, setzt sie im Migrationsstreit auf Europa. Doch reicht das?

Kanzlerin Angela Merkel lässt sich nicht so leicht aus der Ruhe bringen. Wer sie stürzen will, das wird in diesen Tagen in Berlin klar, der muss viel aufbieten. Am Montag verschaffte sich die CDU-Vorsitzende im Asylstreit erst einmal eine Pause. In vierzehn Tagen, nach dem EU-Ratsgipfel Ende Juni zur Migration, werden die Gremien der CDU wieder zusammenkommen.

Tempo rausnehmen, das ist Merkels Strategie. Einmal mehr. Geht sie auch diesmal auf?

In der CDU-Parteizentrale, nach den Sitzungen von Präsidium und Vorstand, lässt Merkel am Montag am Ende der Pressekonferenz eine Bemerkung fallen, die wie ein kleiner Pfeil Richtung Süden fliegt, nach München, zur CSU. Sie habe sich die Aufgabe für die Gespräche mit europäischen Partnern und „diesen Zeitrahmen selbst gesetzt“, es sei daher „insoweit erfreulich“, dass Horst Seehofer und die CSU darauf eingingen.

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Germany’s Merkel Reaches Out to EU Members Over Immigration Dispute

Date: 18-06-2018
Source: The Wall Street Journal

The German chancellor sounds out other countries’ willingness to readmit migrants

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been reaching out to her European neighbors this weekend ahead of a Monday deadline to defuse an immigration dispute.

BERLIN—German Chancellor Angela Merkel turned to her European neighbors this weekend for help with a fierce domestic dispute over immigration that is threatening to topple her three-party coalition.

Aides to the chancellor reached out to the governments of several European Union members on the front line of the Continent’s immigration crisis to sound out their willingness to readmit migrants that try to cross from their territory into Germany, European officials said on Sunday.

Among those approached were the governments of Austria, Greece, Italy and Bulgaria, the officials said. Berlin also liaised with the European Commission, the EU’s executive body.

Ms. Merkel’s move came after her own interior minister, Horst Seehofer, handed the chancellor an ultimatum last week, warning that he could close the country’s borders to certain categories of illegal migrants as early as Monday.

Trumps Wutausbruch nach G7-Gipfel. Das historische Debakel von La Malbaie

Zwischen den USA und den anderen G7-Staaten herrscht nach dem Ende des Gipfels offener Dissens. Trump bedroht die Partner mit dem Ende des freien Handels.

Von Ines Zöttl, Washington, Spiegel.online

Sonntag, 10.06.2018 07:40 Uhr

Sein Verhältnis zur deutschen Bundeskanzlerin beschrieb Donald Trump mit dem Vokabular des Preisrichters bei einem Schönheitswettbewerb: Auf einer Punkteskala von 1 bis 10 gebe er der Beziehung zu „Angela und Emmanuel und Justin“ die Bestnote, sagte der US-Präsident am Samstag vor seiner Abreise vom G7-Gipfel in La Malbaie mit Blick auf Merkel und ihre französischen und kanadischen Amtskollegen Macron und Trudeau.

Die Kanzlerin machte wenig später klar, was sie von Trumps Urteil hält: nichts. Ihr Sprecher postete ein Foto von dem Treffen, auf dem sie den vor ihr sitzenden US-Präsidenten mit Blicken tötet. In den sozialen Medien avancierte das Foto binnen Minuten zum Renner.

Der G7-Gipfel in Kanada hat einen vorläufigen Schlusspunkt unter die sich seit Trumps Amtsantritt verschlechternden Beziehungen Amerikas zu seinen westlichen Partnern gesetzt. Man weiß nun, woran man miteinander ist. Mühsam hatten sich die „G6“ – Kanada, Japan, Deutschland, Frankreich, Großbritannien und Italien – mit den USA in den zweitätigen Beratungen auf eine gemeinsame Abschlusserklärung verständigt. Heraus kam ein Minimalkonsens, bei dem Trump beim Kampf gegen den Plastikmüll in den Ozeanen genauso ausscherte wie beim Dauerthema Klimaerwärmung.

Wutausbruch per Twitter

Doch kaum war der US-Präsident abgereist, trat er auch noch die verbliebene Gemeinsamkeit in die Tonne und zog seine Zustimmung zu dem Papier zurück. „Ich habe unsere US-Repräsentanten angewiesen, das Kommuniqué nicht zu unterstützen“, twitterte Trump und setzte gleich noch einen drauf: „Wir werden uns Zölle auf Autos anschauen, die den US-Markt fluten.“

Trapped in the Past: Increasing Headwinds for Angela Merkel

Date: 09-06-2018
Source: DER SPIEGEL

Just a few months ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was being described as the new leader of the free world. But recently she has been having trouble getting her way even in Berlin and Europe. Her days of dominance appear to be over.

The meeting was so urgent the ministers even skipped the Social Democrats‘ traditional asparagus feast at Berlin’s Wannsee lake. Shortly before 8 p.m., Finance Minister Olaf Scholz and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, both from the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), arrived at the Chancellery. Chancellor Angela Merkel had called the secret meeting to speak with leaders of her coalition government about the state of the world.

For more than four hours, Merkel conferred with Scholz, Maas, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer and Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen. To begin the session, participants reported on their most recent trips abroad: Maas described his journey to Ukraine and Moscow, Scholz spoke of the G-7 finance minister meeting in Canada and Merkel reported on her meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.

Angela Merkel gives a distinctly limited response to Emmanuel Macron’s plans for euro-zone reform

Date: 07-06-2018
Source: The Economist: Charlemagne

And that is (probably) as far as she will go

WHEN it came, it was everything and nothing at the same time. For over half a year Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, waited for a German response to the grand ideas for Europe’s future he had laid out at the Sorbonne last September. Governments rose and fell while Mr Macron drummed his fingers; the transatlantic bond stretched, and came close to snapping. When Angela Merkel finally gave her answer, on June 3rd, it came not in a big speech or a government statement, but in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS), a conservative broadsheet. How very like the German chancellor.

The responses to Mrs Merkel’s interview were like descriptions of the same object viewed through opposite ends of a telescope. For those sympathetic to French ambitions, the chancellor’s offers were weak, offering only baby steps towards the strengthened euro zone Mr Macron urges, constrained by the same old German red lines about rules and risk. Others were excited by what appeared to be the start of a genuine conversation, after months of waffle and delay. Some noted that Mrs Merkel went into considerably more detail than Mr Macron on matters like reform of the euro zone’s bail-out fund. So was this the start of something beautiful, or a great big German nothingburger?

Merkel’s Dark View of the World We Live In

Date: 05-06-2018
Source: DER SPIEGEL

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is watching with deep concern as the pillars of the postwar international order collapse. But what is she doing about it?

When Angela Merkel visited her party’s parliamentary group in mid-April, she didn’t talk about how she wants to change the pension system. Tolls on German highways were also not on her list, nor were all the problems with diesel emissions in the country. She didn’t even complain about the Christian Social Union (CSU), the outspoken Bavarian sister party to her Christian Democrats. Instead, she wanted to talk about the Peace of Augsburg, signed in 1555.

The chancellor has made frequent excursions into history lately. Indeed, the Peace of Augsburg also came up four weeks ago during her visit to the residence of the German ambassador in Washington. The treaty initiated a 60-year phase of peace between Protestants and Catholics after the bloody turmoil of the Reformation and it initially seemed as though people had finally come to their senses. But that image turned out to be a deceptive one. In 1618, a war began unlike any the Continent had ever seen before. By the time the inferno ended 30 years later, large parts of Germany had been depopulated and many cities left in ruins.

To Merkel, the Peace of Augsburg is much more than some distant historical date. Rather, it is a warning of just how thin the varnish covering civilization really is. Just as people in the late 16th century were erroneous in their belief that the Peace of Augsburg would be enduring, we could be just as mistaken today in the belief that the postwar order, with all its treaties and alliances, serves as a guarantee that the scourge of war will not return.

Merkel Responds to Macron’s Plan to Overhaul EU With One of Her Own

Date: 04-06-2018
Source: The Wall Street Journal

German chancellor’s suggestions, including combining defense capabilities and building a common eurozone investment fund, draw praise from France

German Chancellor Angela Merkel outlined proposals for overhauling and strengthening the architecture of the European Union in an interview published on Sunday, including combining nations’ defense capabilities and building a common investment fund for the eurozone.

While the suggestions broadly matched known German positions about the bloc’s future, they marked Ms. Merkel’s most direct and detailed reaction to proposals for overhauling the EU that French President Emmanuel Macron laid out in September.

The proposals, including beefing up an existing backstop for cash-strapped members of the eurozone and creating a joint budget for the currency union, came after capital markets briefly sank after the formation of a populist Italian government last week, evoking memories of the 2010 eurozone crisis.

Why Merkel Must Act on Paris‘ Eurozone Reform Proposals

Date: 28-04-2018
Source: DER SPIEGEL

Germany has been sitting on eurozone-reform proposals from French President Emmanuel Macron for months. If Berlin doesn’t act soon, a historical opportunity may go to waste. And that could spell doom for the common currency.

Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron

It wasn’t that long ago that Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel looked like the new dream couple of European politics. The French president gushed of a „very close relationship.“ And the German chancellor said she was pleased about prospects for „extremely promising cooperation.“ Last summer, it looked like the two most important Europeans might breathe new life into the Continent.

Eight months later, however, what Merkel described as the „magic of the new beginning,“ is no longer particularly palpable. Their joint appearances come across as forced and tense and the German government has provided no response to Macron’s proposals for reforming the eurozone. Instead of countering with her own ideas, Merkel is buying time and, by doing so, creating the risk that a historic opportunity will be missed — that of a joint relaunch of the currency union together with the French president. One that matches solidarity with solidity, the very principles that are necessary for the common currency to exist in the first place.

The problems start with the fact that German politicians haven’t yet even deigned to take a close look at Macron’s ideas. On the one hand, it is undisputed that the currency union is in urgent need of repair. The budget and debt rules have become so watered down and obfuscated that no one understands them or adheres to them any longer. The eurozone lacks the instruments necessary for responding to economic crises early on. And when the European Union wants to create new investment programs, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is forced to go door-to-door, tediously begging national governments for the necessary funds.

The case for immigration: Open Future

Date: 26-04-2018
Source: The Economist

Can rich countries accept migrants without jeopardising their democracies?

IN HIS novel “Exit West”, Mohsin Hamid describes a world very like our own, but which is suddenly changed by the appearance of mysterious doors. A dark-skinned man falls out of an Australian woman’s wardrobe in Sydney. Filipino women emerge from the back door of a bar into the alleyways of Tokyo. As the incidents multiply and scores of people from poor countries walk through the doors into richer ones, rich-world inhabitants respond with violent resistance. Governments crack down hard on the new arrivals. But it is not long before they are overwhelmed by their sheer number and abandon efforts to repel them. The world settles into an uneasy new equilibrium. Shantytowns emerge on the slopes of San Francisco Bay. Conflicts in war-torn places burn out for want of civilians to kill and exploit.

Mr Hamid’s story comes close to what many advocates of open borders believe the world would look like if people were free to move wherever they wanted: fairer, freer, with more opportunities for a larger number of people. But it also nods to the fears many people have about unfettered migration: uncertainty, disorder, violence. Would such a world be a dream or a nightmare? The answer depends on whom you ask.

Macron’s Real Limits

Hans-Helmut Kotz, a former member of the executive board of Deutsche Bundesbank, is Program Director of the SAFE Policy Center at the Goethe University in Frankfurt and a resident fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University.

Apr 24, 2018 Hans-Helmut Kotz, Project Syndicate

French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel demonstrated the limits of his method. Seemingly compelling oratory does not necessarily translate into feasible policies.

FRANKFURT – When Emmanuel Macron was recently interviewed by two very aggressive journalists, the result was not exactly the “ideal speech situation” cherished by Jürgen Habermas, the towering German philosopher and great supporter of the French president. But, despite being repeatedly interrupted, Macron fared very well. Always concrete and willing, if necessary, to delve into the minutiae of an issue, Macron was clearly on top of his game. He needed no speaking notes, as he also admirably demonstrated in his speech condemning nationalism and populism at the European Parliament a few days later.