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Javier E

Did Merkel Pave the Way for the War in Ukraine? - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...or-the-war-in-ukraine-4abef297

merkel germany foreign policy war ukraine legacy evaluation

shared by Javier E on 26 May 23 - No Cached
  • The ceremony belatedly jolted Germany into reappraising Merkel’s role in the years leading up to today’s European crises—and the verdict has not been positive.
  • Merkel’s critics argue that the close ties she forged with Russia are partly responsible for today’s economic and political upheaval. Germany’s security policies over the past year have been, in many ways, a repudiation of her legacy. Earlier this month, Berlin announced a new $3 billion military aid package to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia, and an approaching NATO summit is expected to discuss how to include Ukraine in Europe’s security architecture—an extension of the alliance that Merkel consistently resisted.
  • Merkel was a key architect of the agreements that made the economies of Germany and its neighbors dependent on Russian energy imports. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has destroyed that strategic partnership, forcing Germany to find its oil and natural gas elsewhere at huge costs to business, government and households.
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  • Merkel’s successive governments also squeezed defense budgets while boosting welfare spending. Lt. Gen. Alfons Mais, commander of the army, posted an emotional article on his LinkedIn profile on the day of the invasion, lamenting that Germany’s once-mighty military had been hollowed out to such an extent that it would be all but unable to protect the country in the event of a Russian attack.
  • her refusal to stop buying energy from Putin after he seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014—she instead worked to double gas imports from Russia—emboldened him to finish the job eight years later.
  • Joachim Gauck, who was president of Germany when Putin first invaded Ukraine in 2014, said Merkel’s decision to boost energy imports from Russia in the wake of Putin’s aggression was clearly a mistake. “Some people recognize their mistakes earlier, and some later,” he said.
  • Since leaving office, Merkel has defended the pipeline project as a purely commercial decision. She had to choose, she said, between importing cheap Russian gas or liquefied natural gas, which she said was a third more expensive.
  • After Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, then NATO secretary general, warned her against making Germany more dependent on a rogue Putin, who had just occupied and annexed part of a European nation. For Putin, he said, the pipeline “had nothing to do with business or the economy—it was a geopolitical weapon.”
  • Officials who served under Merkel, including Schäuble and Frank-Walter Steinmeier (her former foreign minister and now Germany’s federal president), have apologized or expressed regret for their roles in these decisions. They believe that Merkel’s policies empowered Putin without setting boundaries to his imperial ambitions.
  • At an event last year, Merkel recalled that after annexing Crimea, Putin had told her that he wanted to destroy the European Union. But she still forged ahead with plans to build the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, linking Germany directly to Siberia’s natural gas fields, in the face of protests from the U.S. Merkel’s government also approved the sale of Germany’s largest gas storage facilities to Russia’s state-controlled gas giant Gazprom.
  • That mistake had its roots in another decision by Merkel: Her move to greatly accelerate Germany’s planned phasing out of nuclear energy in 2011, in response to the Fukushima disaster in Japan. The gap in energy supply created by this dramatic shift meant that Germany had to import more energy, and it had to do so as cheaply as possible.
  • Merkel’s role in shaping NATO policy toward Ukraine goes back to 2008, when she vetoed a push by the Bush administration to admit Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance, said Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council official and presidential adviser on Russia.
  • Merkel instead helped to broker NATO’s open but noncommittal invitation to Ukraine and Georgia, an outcome that Hill said was the “worst of all worlds” because it enraged Putin without giving the two countries any protection. Putin invaded Georgia in 2008 before marching into Ukraine.
  • After Putin first attacked Ukraine, Merkel led the effort to negotiate a quick settlement that disappointed Kyiv and imposed no substantial punishment on Russia for occupying its neighbor, Hill added. “No red lines were drawn for Putin,” she said. “Merkel took a calculated risk. It was a gambit, but ultimately it failed.”
  • Merkel still has supporters, and as Germany begins to grapple with her complicated legacy, many still hold a more nuanced view of her role in laying the groundwork for today’s crises
  • Kaeser, who now chairs the supervisory board of Siemens Energy, a listed subsidiary, agrees that Germany’s dependence on Russian natural gas grew under Merkel, but he says that there was—and is—no alternative for powering Europe’s industrial engine at a viable price.
  • “We didn’t expect that there would be war in Europe with the methods of the 20th century. This never featured in our thinking,” said Kaeser, who himself met Putin several times. He believes that Merkel’s Russia policy was justified. Even Germany’s new government has not found a sustainable and affordable replacement for Russian energy exports, he said, which could lead to deindustrialization.
  • Many defenders of Merkel say that she merely articulated a consensus. Making her country dependent on Washington for security, on Moscow for energy and on Beijing for trade (China became Germany’s biggest trade partner under her chancellorship) was what all of Germany’s political parties wanted at the time, said Constanze Stelzenmüller of the Brookings Institution.
  • “Without backing from the U.S.A., which was very restrained at the time, any tougher German reaction to the annexation of Crimea could hardly have been possible,” said Jürgen Osterhammer, a historian whose work on globalization and China has been cited by Merkel as an influence on her thinking.
  • In retirement, Merkel told the German news magazine Der Spiegel, she has watched “Munich,” a Netflix movie about Prime Minister Neville’s Chamberlain’s infamous negotiations with Hitler in the run-up to World War II. Though Chamberlain’s name has become synonymous with the delusions of appeasement, the film offers a more nuanced picture of the British leader as a realist statesman working to postpone the inevitable conflict. That reinterpretation appealed to Merkel, the magazine reported.
  • In April, Merkel was again asked on stage at a book fair whether she would not reconsider her refusal to admit having made some mistakes. “Frankly,” she responded, “I don’t know whether there would be satisfaction if I were to say something that I simply don’t think merely for the sake of admitting error.”
Javier E

'Already an Exception': Merkel's Legacy Is Shaped by Migration and Austerity - The New ... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...merkel-legacy-germany.html

Germany merkel history liberalism conservative conservatism

shared by Javier E on 06 Dec 18 - No Cached
  • Those contradictions rest at the core of the Merkel legacy
  • As German chancellor, Ms. Merkel oversaw a golden decade for Europe’s largest economy, which expanded by more than a fifth, pushing unemployment to the lowest levels since the early 1980s.
  • As the United States was distracted by multiple wars, Britain gambled its future on a referendum to leave the European Union and France failed to reform itself, Ms. Merkel’s Germany was mostly a haven of stability.
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  • But her decision to embrace more than a million asylum seekers unsettled that cozy status quo. Outside Germany, the austerity she and her longtime finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble imposed on debtor countries like Italy, Spain, Portugal and, especially, Greece sowed misery and resentment that fester to this day.
  • Some, like the former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, compare Ms. Merkel’s austerity politics to the Treaty of Versailles, which imposed punitive economic measures on Germany after World War I, humiliated the country and fanned the flames of populism.“This is now what is feeding the political beasts,”
  • Her modest and moderate governance style, absent ideology and vanity, is the polar opposite of that of the strongmen now strutting the world stage. Her Germany — that “vulnerable hegemon,” as the intellectual Herfried Münkler calls it — became a beacon of liberalism.
  • Merkel knows a different form of social and societal equality,” Mr. Gysi said, adding of her former center-left rivals: “That made her so much more open to adopting ideas from the Social Democrats.”
  • “Angela Merkel personifies the best Germany we’ve ever known,” said Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of European Studies at Oxford University. “She managed Germany’s rise to once again become Europe’s leading power. But she failed to prepare Germans sufficiently for what that means.”
  • Ms. Merkel has never been one for rousing speeches. (“We had those kinds of speeches 70 years ago,” Ms. Roll said. “Her lack of talent and interest in this department was a good thing.”)
  • She never boasted that Germany got what it wanted after summit meetings (though it mostly did). But as exports and domestic demand boomed, Germany prospered and so did Ms. Merkel’s popularity ratings.
  • But like her friend and ally President Barack Obama — America’s first black president, who was succeeded by President Trump — Ms. Merkel will be judged by what comes next
  • Gregor Gysi, a fellow Easterner and political opponent from the Left party, said that spending half her life under Communism gave her a visceral thirst for freedom — but also made her more socially conscious than other Western conservatives.
  • now in the third so-called grand coalition with the Social Democrats, Ms. Merkel’s habit of taking inspiration from (and credit for) their ideas has left the party a shadow of itself.
  • It has also opened her own party to challenges on its right flank, leaving room for the emergence of the nationalist Alternative for Germany, which capitalized on her decision on asylum seekers.
  • Even before the migration crisis arrived, the debt crisis provided a pivotal test for a chancellor at the helm of a newly dominant Germany.And it led to criticism that Ms. Merkel, while leading humbly, was no less the hegemon — prioritizing German interests; manipulating European Union institutions to Germany’s abiding benefit; turning southern countries into captive export markets; tightening the hold of German banks
  • “It won Germany incredible respect — this image of a friendly humanitarian Germany, a Germany that protects,” Ms. Roth said. “She marked that image.”
  • “German populism is perhaps not her child,” said Henrik Enderlein, the dean of the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. “But it is a child of the Merkel era.”
  • “An Adenauer or a Kohl would have done it,” Mr. Fischer said. But Merkel, who had grown up behind the Iron Curtain and without the Western pro-European mind-set, “wasn’t there yet,” he said. “Her European conscience was not fully formed yet.
  • Was hers a European Germany, one that saw Europe’s interests as its own? Or a Germany that ultimately wanted a German Europe?
  • The real missed opportunity, observers say, was to use the crisis to propel a more far-reaching build-out of European Union institutions, which remain unprepared for the next financial meltdown.
  • If there was ever a time to make a bold push to complete the institutions of the eurozone, this was it, said Joschka Fischer, a former German foreign minister.
  • The French president François Mitterrand and his British counterpart Margaret Thatcher had both worried about a resurgence of “bad Germans.” Ms. Merkel’s greatest achievement, Ms. Roll said, was that “she came to represent the good Germans.”
  • “But she always made clear: ‘I don’t build deadly walls,’ ” he recalled her saying. “She grew up behind one.”
  • In Germany, too, politics has become noisier and nastier. Open sexism has entered the chamber with Alternative for Germany, said Ms. Roth, the vice president of the parliament.“Merkel has been the target of countless attacks, gendered attacks, sexualized dirt,” Ms. Roth said.
  • Some have begun to referring to Merkelism, a modest but steadfast liberalism built on consensus rather than confrontation, as a recipe for democratic governance in the 21st century. Others fear that Merkelism will disappear with her.
  • “She is so unvain that she does not overly care about leaving behind a blueprint for the West 4.0,” said Mr. Kornelius, her biographer. “She primarily wants to preserve what she can.”
  • She has prevented crises rather than carried out visions, Mr. Kornelius said, and has been reactive rather than proactive. “But that is incredibly valuable at a time when we are dealing with questions of our liberal order in an unraveling world — and with leaders like Donald Trump.”
  • Today, Ms. Merkel’s Germany can feel like a liberal island in a growing sea of illiberal forces. She has not changed — the world around her has.“She is already an exception today,” Mr. Knaus said. “I hope she is not a relic of an era that is coming to an end.”
  • “She was a catastrophe,” said Mr. Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, “and she will be missed, because who comes next will certainly be worse.”
katyshannon

TIME Person of the Year 2015: Angela Merkel - 0 views

time.com/of-the-year-2015-angela-merkel

time person merkel angela politics culture

shared by katyshannon on 10 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Fairy tales are where you find them, but any number seem to begin in the dark German woods where Angela Merkel spent her childhood.
  • The girl who would grow up to be called the most powerful woman in the world came of age in a glade dappled by the northern sun and shadowed by tall pines.
  • But to a child of 3, Angela’s age when her family arrived, it was a world unto itself, and would remain so until she went to school in the adjoining town of Templin. There, she came to realize that, like the 17 million other residents of East Germany, she actually was living within the walls of a fortress.
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  • Merkel remained a captive for the first 35 years of her life, biding her time. As an adult, she lived in East Berlin, riding an elevated train beside the barricade whose 1961 construction she recalled as the first political memory of her life. When it fell in 1989, she gathered the qualities cultivated as a necessity in the East—patience, blandness, intellectual rigor and an inconspicuous but ferocious drive—and changed not only her life but the course of history.
  • The year 2015 marked the start of Merkel’s 10th year as Chancellor of a united Germany and the de facto leader of the European Union, the most prosperous joint venture on the planet. By year’s end, she had steered the enterprise through not one but two existential crises, either of which could have meant the end of the union that has kept peace on the continent for seven decades.
  • The first was thrust upon her—the slow-rolling crisis over the euro, the currency shared by 19 nations, all of which were endangered by the default of a single member, Greece. Its resolution came at the signature plodding pace that so tries the patience of Germans that they have made it a verb: Merkeling.
  • The second was a thunderclap. In late summer, Merkel’s government threw open Germany’s doors to a pressing throng of refugees and migrants; a total of 1 million asylum seekers are expected in the country by the end of December. It was an audacious act that, in a single motion, threatened both to redeem Europe and endanger it, testing the resilience of an alliance formed to avoid repeating the kind of violence tearing asunder the Middle East by working together. That arrangement had worked well enough that it raised an existential question of its own, now being asked by the richest country in Europe: What does it mean to live well?
  • Merkel had her answer: “In many regions war and terror prevail. States disintegrate. For many years we have read about this. We have heard about it. We have seen it on TV. But we had not yet sufficiently understood that what happens in Aleppo and Mosul can affect Essen or Stuttgart. We have to face that now.” For her, the refugee decision was a galvanizing moment in a career that was until then defined by caution and avoidance of anything resembling drama. Analysts called it a jarring departure from form. But it may also have been inevitable, given how Angela Merkel feels about walls.
oliviaodon

"Germany Is Becoming More Normal" - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...546323

germany change

shared by oliviaodon on 15 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • Angela Merkel is traditionally known as Germany’s “safe pair of hands,” but when government-coalition talks unexpectedly collapsed late Sunday night after just four weeks, her future as the country’s chancellor was suddenly in question.
  • A second option would involve a return of the Social Democrats (SPD), Merkel’s former “grand coalition” partner, to the government. While such a coalition would easily command a parliamentary majority, it’s one the center-left SPD ruled out in September after its poor showing in the country’s general election—which delivered its worst-ever result more than half a century—and one it rejected again Monday, reaffirming that it would rather have new elections altogether.
  • With Jamaica no longer an option, Germany is faced with three choices: The first is a minority government, formed by Merkel’s CDU/CSU party in coalition with either the FDP (which would leave the government 29 seats short of a majority) or the Greens (short 42 seats). Though that’s not impossible, Marcel Dirsus, a political scientist at the University of Kiel, told me this option would be alien to both Merkel’s leadership style and the country as a whole. “For historical reasons, Germans are very skeptical of minority governments because it reminds people of the Weimar period,” he said, referring to the post-World War I period between 1918 and 1933 known for its political instability. “For somebody like Angela Merkel, it’s not in her style of governing to run a minority government because she’s not exactly a big gambler.” And a minority government would certainly be a gamble for Merkel—effectively denying her the authority she needs to push through reforms both at home and within the eurozone. “She’s somebody who doesn’t just embody stability, but I think she also likes stability herself.”
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  • pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) party announced that it would no longer take part in coalition talks to form Germany’s next government. Though Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party and its Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) sister party won the largest share of votes during the country’s general election in September, they failed to win enough seats to govern on their own.
  • This brings us to the last, and perhaps most drastic, option: new elections. But calling for new elections is hardly easy, nor would it be Merkel’s decision to make (though she said Monday that she would be open to the possibility if a coalition was not possible). Instead, the country’s Basic Law requires that German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier first nominate Merkel as chancellor, after which she would be required to earn a majority of votes in the German parliament, or Bundestag, before she could be reinstated. Only if she were to lose three attempts at such a vote would Steinmeier be able to
  • dissolve the Bundestag; then new elections would have to be held within 60 days. Though a recent poll found that 68 percent of Germans would favor of new elections if Jamaica coalition talks fail, it’s an option Steinmeier appears keen on avoiding, noting in a statement Monday that the parties’ responsibility to form a government “cannot be simply given back to the voters.”
  • “Germany is just becoming more normal. It would be a mistake to over-interpret what is happening. This is not Trump, this is not Brexit. Merkel is weakened, but she’s still in power. … Germany … [is] still very far removed from some of the things that we see around us.”
Javier E

Young and to the left? Not in Germany, where the Merkel generation prefers an old hand.... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...7-b2a7-bc70b6f98089_story.html

germany merkel youth history politics

shared by Javier E on 22 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • Fifty-seven percent of first-time voters, for instance, favor the chancellor, compared with 21 percent who prefer her Social Democratic rival, Martin Schulz, according to polling conducted by the Forsa Institute.
  • It also marks a change within Germany, where young voters typically have chosen the Social Democrats, and increasingly the Greens, in the postwar era. The first time Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union captured the largest share of the youth vote without the help of its Bavarian counterpart, the Christian Social Union, was in 2013. 
  • This generation came to political consciousness in the anxious aftermath of the 9/11 attacks but then watched their own country weather the financial crisis later that decade with relative ease. The European Union is suddenly no longer a given, and the United States, which steered Germany to political normalization, is looking inward under a president who promises “America first.”
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  • much of her audience sees Merkel only for her role on the world stage — her ability to keep Russia in line, her willingness to counter President Trump and, most recently, her appeal for talks with North Korea.
  • “I’m afraid about the future,” said Philipp Thiel, 27, who is training to become a teacher at the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg. “I don’t expect a third world war but maybe something like that, with North Korea, Turkey, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, Trump,” he said.
  • Merkel, he said, is a contrast to bellicose world leaders. “She’s someone who will say, ‘Okay guys, calm down.’ ”
  • Students in Magdeburg took comfort in Germany’s stability but voiced pessimism about the safety of the world — somewhat the inverse of the perspective with which earlier generations came of age. 
  • “A feeling that I sometimes sense among our viewers is, ‘Could somebody please stop the world for a moment, just so I could try to understand one crisis at a time?’ ” said Schulz, who is 27 and described 9/11 as the moment “politics started” for her. Her parents, she said, did not worry about terrorism, and they believed they had moved past the brand of politics it breeds — nationalism.
  • in traveling across the country to prepare for the show, Schulz said, she heard one view repeatedly: “We are doing fine as a generation.” Germany boasts the lowest youth unemployment rate, 6.5 percent, of any E.U. country. Quibbles, Schulz said, are dismissed as “Luxusprobleme,” best translated as “First World problems.”
  • But this idea — almost a sense of gratitude — may be dissuading young people from getting more involved in politics, Schulz warned. Just six lawmakers in the Bundestag, the 630-member lower house of Parliament, were born after 1985. 
  • Wolfgang Gründinger, author of the book “Old Geezers’ Politics,” said Germany’s older generations “are robbing the youth of their future,” pointing to the lack of attention to education and child poverty in this month’s electoral debate.
  • Although Gründinger is an active member of the Social Democrats, he does not spare the party blame. “Fewer than 3 percent of SPD members are younger than 25, which means that the lives of younger people play virtually no role in the everyday debate,” said Gründinger, referring to the party.
sarahbalick

Russia 'stoking refugee unrest in Germany to topple Angela Merkel' | World news | The G... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...erkel-migration-vladimir-putin

russia refugee unrest germany

shared by sarahbalick on 06 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Russia ‘stoking refugee unrest in Germany to topple Angela Merkel’
  • Russia is trying to topple Angela Merkel by waging an information war designed to stir up anger in Germany over refugees, Nato’s most senior expert on strategic communications has claimed.
  • Jānis Sārts, director of Nato’s Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, based in Riga, Latvia, told the Observer that Russia had a track record of funding extremist forces in Europe, and that he believed there was now evidence of Russia agitating in Germany against Merkel.
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  • “[Russia] is establishing a network that can be controlled. You can use it as they have tried to do in Germany, combined with the legitimate issue of refugees, to undercut political processes in a very serious way. Angela Merkel has been a very adamant supporter of continued sanctions against Russia If it was just punishment, that would be OK – but it is testing whether they can build on pre-existing problems and create a momentum where there is political change in Germany.
  • “We saw it in Germany. The best misinformation tool is when your opponent doesn’t notice. That is when it is most effective. I would submit that there are a number of countries who have not yet noticed, or have chosen not to notice.”
Javier E

Opinion | Germany's unlikely success story is an inspiration in tough times - The Washi... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...z-germany-success-story-europe

germany success story inspiration history politics culture

shared by Javier E on 03 Sep 22 - No Cached
  • One of the most striking positive trends in the world these days can be found in the democratic strength, character and leadership of Germany.
  • This came to mind as I was reading German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s speech this week in Prague, in which he promised that his country would support Ukraine “reliably and for as long as it takes.” He explained that Germany had “undergone a fundamental change” on providing military aid to Ukraine. He affirmed Germany’s support for a stronger, more integrated Europe — one that would welcome new members that aspire to Europe’s democratic values and ideals.
  • This is all part of what he calls a Zeitenwende in German foreign policy, a “turning of the times.”
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  • it is also the continuation of a remarkably consistent German attitude toward Europe and the world since 1945. Think about how different the world would look if we did not have, at the center of Europe, its most powerful nation — the country that is the largest net contributor to the E.U. — totally committed to democratic and liberal values and willing to make sacrifices for them. Germany today is the rock on which a new Europe is being built.
  • the sacrifices are real and deep. Natural gas prices are up tenfold in Europe compared to last year. The price of electricity for 2023 is more than 15 times higher than it has been in recent years, by one estimate. Vladimir Putin is ramping up the pressure by slowing and even stopping gas exports to Germany
  • But Germany has not given in. Confronted with these massive challenges, it has patiently sought to diversify away from a dependence on Russia, investing even more in green technology, buying liquefied natural gas, reopening coal-fired plants and even debating whether to keep its last three nuclear power plants running longer than planned.
  • The European Union has suggested a 15 percent reduction in the consumption of natural gas this winter. Germany is trying to achieve a 20 percent cut just to be safe. German industry is being resourceful about energy efficiency, and companies are even thinking about sharing resources with competitors, all to get through the crisis.
  • Merkel herself was seen in similar ways when she came to power. Over time she developed the skills and stature to gain respect from all quarters. She might have erred in trying to develop too conciliatory a relationship with Moscow
  • but when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, she was at the forefront in condemning it and persuading Europe to impose an ambitious program of sanctions. She also led the world in responding to the Syrian refugee crisis, reassuring her country by declaring, “We can do this.” As of mid-2021, Germany hosts more than 1.2 million refugees, half of whom are from Syria. In fact, Germany has managed this stunning act of integration with minimal problems.
  • We always underestimate modern-day Germany and its leadership. The federal republic has had a remarkable run of leaders in the post-World War II era, from its first chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, to Willy Brandt to Helmut Schmidt to Merkel — and now, let’s hope, to Scholz. Can any other country compare over the past seven decades?
  • In 1945, no one would have predicted that Germany would develop as it has. It came out of the war utterly destroyed, its cities flattened, its population starving. Around 12 million ethnic Germans who had been expelled from other countries poured into Germany. Above all, postwar Germany was scarred by the gruesome legacy of Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust. But the country found a way to overcome its past, to become, in Henry Kissinger’s words, “a normal country … with an abnormal memory.” And that much larger Zeitenwende is one of the great good news stories of our times.
Emilio Ergueta

Angela Merkel: the eurozone's one constant | News | theguardian.com - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...kel-the-eurozones-one-constant

angela merkel history politics

shared by Emilio Ergueta on 27 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • Five years ago today, Greece’s then Prime Minister, George Papandreou, disclosed to the world that his country was in severe fiscal difficulties. Recessions dipped and then double dipped, while debt soared. Unemployment rates, especially among young people, hit record highs in many parts of eurozone. Growth plummeted, and in many parts of the continent has yet to recover.
  • One constant throughout the eurozone crisis has been Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel. Since Merkel took office in 2005, there have been 54 different leaders atop eurozone member countries - an average of more than three per country.
  • None of the eurozone’s current leaders has held office as long as Germany’s chancellor.
Javier E

Opinion | It Doesn't Matter Who Replaces Merkel. Germany Is Broken. - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...rmany-christian-democrats.html

merkel germany politics economics crisis

shared by Javier E on 07 Dec 18 - No Cached
  • The stability (and even monotony) associated with German politics under Ms. Merkel appears to be coming to an end. Her looming retirement marks a deepening crisis of the German political system that threatens not just the future of the country, but of the European Union.
  • Thirty years later, this society has vanished. Average real incomes declined for nearly 20 years beginning in 1993. Germany not only grew more unequal, but the standard of living for the lower strata stagnated or even fell. The lowest 40 percent of households have faced annual net income losses for around 25 years now, while the kinds of jobs that promised long-term stability dwindled.
  • on the surface Germany appears to be an economic success story. Its G.D.P. has grown consistently for nearly a decade; unemployment is at its lowest since reunification in 1989. In amassing trade surpluses, Germany has enjoyed several advantages: an advanced manufacturing sector; the ability to get primary products and services from other members of the European Union; and being in the eurozone, which effectively gives the country a devalued currency, making its exports more attractive.
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  • But the system has come at a cost. To maintain their competitive advantage in the global market, companies held down wages. Though for skilled workers in the export-oriented manufacturing sector pay remained stable, or even rose, less-skilled and low-wage workers suffered. This was made possible by decentralizing collective bargaining in the 1990s, which greatly weakened the power of unions
  • the erosion of the German social model in recent decades. Though never as socially inclusive as the Scandinavian countries, postwar Germany had a comprehensive welfare state and robust labor unions, ensuring that citizens from the lower strata could achieve a decent living standard and a bit of wealth through full-time employment.
  • full-time employment served as the foundation of social integration. The classic metaphor to describe this arrangement was coined by the sociologist Ulrich Beck in the 1980s: the “elevator effect.” It implied that though social inequality still existed, everyone was rising in the same social “elevator,” meaning that the gap between rich and poor wouldn’t widen.
  • Ms. Merkel, for all her power and influence, is just one politician. Germany’s new political crisis runs much deeper. It stems from an economic system that has resulted in stagnant wages and insecure jobs. The erosion of Germany’s postwar settlement — a strong welfare state, full-time employment, the opportunity to move up in the world — has created a populace open to messages and movements previously banished to the fringes.
  • The number of precarious jobs like temp positions has exploded. At the height of postwar prosperity, almost 90 percent of jobs offered permanent employment with protections. By 2014, the figure had fallen to 68.3 percent.
  • nearly one-third of all workers have insecure or short-term jobs. Moreover, a low-wage sector emerged employing millions of workers who can barely afford basic necessities and often need two jobs to get by.
  • Though the upper-middle class still enjoys a high level of security, the lower middle contends with a very real risk of downward mobility. The relatively new phenomenon of a contracting — and internally divided — middle class has set off widespread anxiety.
  • Germany today now resembles a bank of escalators in a department store: one escalator has already taken some well-to-do customers to the upper floor, while for those below them, the direction of travel begins to reverse. The daily experience of many is characterized by constant running up a downward escalator. Even when people work hard and stick to the rules, they often make little progress.
  • a majority of Germans welcomed the new immigrants, just over two million in number, who arrived in 2015. But significant sections of the lower middle and the working class disapproved. When ascent no longer seems possible and collective social protest is almost nonexistent or ineffective, people tend to grow resentful. This has led to accumulated dissatisfaction with the old major parties, the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats.
runlai_jiang

Merkel Gets Backing for Fourth Term After Months of Suspense - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...-months-of-suspense-1520153473

German politics party

shared by runlai_jiang on 04 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • BERLIN—Germany’s Social Democrats agreed to prolong their unpopular ruling coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, ending a period of political uncertainty unprecedented in the country’s recent history.
  • The vote lifted the last hurdle for Ms. Merkel to start her fourth, and likely last, term as leader of Europe’s largest economy nearly half a year after an inconclusive general election left the country without a clear ruling majority.
  • Party officials said a new government would now be formed by March 14, replacing the caretaker administration that has govern the country since last September.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • including engaging in a debate on reforming the European Union launched by French President Emmanuel Macron who wants to overhaul Europe’s common currency, the euro.
  • The protracted coalition-building was the longest since the Weimar Republic in the 1930s. Ms. Merkel’s early efforts to forge an alliance with the pro-business Free Democrats and the environmentalist Greens collapsed last November.
  • The deal also included a pledge to increase Germany’s contribution to the EU budget to make up for the shortfall that will result from Britain leaving the bloc.
  • “Building coalitions will be increasingly difficult, and governments will find it hard to forge a coherent policy platform,” Mr. Benner said.
  • Ms. Merkel gradually squeezed out the SPD from the policy arena by appropriating traditional center-left ground. She abolished conscription, accelerated a planned nuclear energy phaseout, raised welfare entitlements, adopted a minimum wage and lowered the retirement age—all issues originally championed by the SPD.
  • Hilde Mattheis, a senior SPD lawmaker who campaigned against the coalition, said the party would have to differentiate itself from the conservatives and tilt to the left to win back voters.
malonema1

SPD leaders try to rally support for Merkel coalition plan - POLITICO - 0 views

www.politico.eu/...d-leaders-try-to-rally-support

Germany SPD

shared by malonema1 on 15 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • BERLIN — Leaders of Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) tried to rally support among party members for a blueprint outlining the terms of another coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives. Following a week of talks, Merkel’s Christian Democrats and their Bavarian sister party agreed with the SPD Friday on a 28-page position paper, laying out their policy priorities for the coming years. The parties will proceed to formal coalition talks if an SPD conference next weekend backs the move.
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  • However, many SPD officials remain skeptical of a renewed alliance with the conservatives, including Kevin Kühnert, head of the SPD’s youth wing, known as the Jusos.
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  • Currently, those who criticize the results receive much attention,” he told Funke Group newspapers in an interview published Saturday. “But the deeper you look into the agreement, the more you see its quality.”
ecfruchtman

Brexit deadlock broken as Merkel smooths May's path - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by ecfruchtman on 20 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • German Chancellor Angela Merkel hinted in the early hours of Friday morning that progress had been made
  • "We have made progress, and it is perhaps the nature of the thing that we look at it step by step," Merkel said.
  • It was originally hoped that that an agreement on outstanding issues such as the Irish border, EU citizens' rights and the divorce bill would have been reached by now.
    • ecfruchtman
      ecfruchtman on 24 Oct 17
       
      The desired progress has not been achieved.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • What was geared up to be a tense standoff between the British Prime Minister and the EU leaders has ended on an optimistic and cordial note -- with Merkel leading the change in tone.
carolinehayter

France and Germany 'seeking full clarity' from US and Denmark on spying report - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

politics policy us history

shared by carolinehayter on 01 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • France and Germany are "seeking full clarity" on a report claiming that one of Denmark's intelligence agencies helped the United States spy on several senior European officials, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday.
  • "If the information is true," Macron said during a statement to the press following a virtual Franco-German summit , these practices are "unacceptable between allies, and even less acceptable between European allies and partners."
  • Revelations that the US National Security Agency (NSA) tapped Merkel's cellphone emerged in 2013 after former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden shared documents with The Guardian showing that a US official had handed the agency 200 phone numbers, including those of world leaders, for the agency to monitor.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The report did not name any of the 35 world leaders that were allegedly on in the list. However, few months after the initial reports, the German government publicly said it had information that suggested the US might have monitored Merkel's cell phone.
  • Denmark's independent public service broadcaster, DR, published a report on Sunday saying that the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (FE) had launched an internal investigation in 2014 over whether the NSA used its partnership with FE, and Danish internet cables in and out of Denmark, to spy on senior European officials, according to Reuters.
  • Merkel on Monday said she agreed with French President Emmanuel Macron's assertion that wiretapping between allies was unacceptable. "Nothing has changed in our stance to the clarification given by the predecessor at the time," Merkel said, referencing the initial claims raised in 2013.
  • The DR report also found that the NSA spied on Germany's then-foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is now the country's president, and the former German opposition leader Peer Steinbrück, Reuters reported.
  • DR reported that the intelligence was gathered through an analysis of software known as Xkeyscore, developed by the NSA. Reuters reported that the agency "intercepted both calls, texts and chat messages to and from telephones of officials in the neighbouring countries," citing the DR report.
carolinehayter

Angela Merkel's message to Joe Biden - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...le-in-america-november-10-intl

merkel biden trump US politics Policy

shared by carolinehayter on 20 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Angela Merkel's faith in America was deeply shaken when Donald Trump won the US presidency in 2016.
  • The German Chancellor who grew up behind the Iron Curtain was quicker than most to perceive his threat to the kind of US global leadership that has traditionally underwritten European security. Had Hillary Clinton won in 2016, Merkel may well have opted not to run for a fourth term. But she would not retire with Trump in the White House, seeing him as a peril to the West, its common values and security architecture like NATO.
  • A sense of relief four years later pulsed through her congratulatory message
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • "We Germans and Europeans understand that we must take on more responsibilities in this partnership in the 21st century. America remains our most important ally, but it rightfully expects more effort from us to guarantee our own security and to defend our values around the world," Merkel said.
  • "Joe Biden brings with him decades of experience in domestic and foreign policy. He knows Germany and Europe well,"
  • Her greeting envisages America returning as an assertive global leader to tackle the "major challenges of our time" like climate change, the pandemic, terrorism, trade and the economy, "side by side" with Europe.
  • The "Chancellor of the Free World" does not plan to run for reelection again. That could leave Biden as one of the last active politicians whose worldviews were shaped by the Cold War.
  • Not enough strategic thinking has been done so far on either side of the Atlantic on how to evolve the world's most effective alliance for the 21st century, especially with the US increasingly looking to China as its most important foreign policy issue.
  • The end of Trump's "America First" nationalism buys the West a little time to accelerate that thinking.
Javier E

Vladimir Putin's 20-Year March to War in Ukraine-and How the West Mishandled It - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...west-mishandled-it-11648826461

putin war ukraine west politics history crisis policy analysis

shared by Javier E on 01 Apr 22 - No Cached
  • For nearly two decades, the U.S. and the European Union vacillated over how to deal with the Russian leader as he resorted to increasingly aggressive steps to reassert Moscow’s dominion over Ukraine and other former Soviet republics.
  • A look back at the history of the Russian-Western tensions, based on interviews with more than 30 past and present policy makers in the U.S., EU, Ukraine and Russia, shows how Western security policies angered Moscow without deterring it.
  • t also shows how Mr. Putin consistently viewed Ukraine as existential for his project of restoring Russian greatness.
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  • The biggest question thrown up by this history is why the West failed to see the danger earlier.
  • The North Atlantic Treaty Organization made a statement in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia would one day join, and over nearly 14 years never followed through on membership. The EU drew up a trade deal with Ukraine without factoring in Russia’s strong-arm response. Western policies didn’t change decisively in reaction to limited Russian invasions of Georgia and Ukraine, encouraging Mr. Putin to believe that a full-blown campaign to conquer Ukraine wouldn’t meet with determined resistance—either internationally or in Ukraine, a country whose independence he said repeatedly was a regrettable accident of history.
  • The roots of the war lie in Russia’s deep ambivalence about its place in the world after the end of the Soviet Union
  • Viewed from elsewhere in Europe, NATO’s eastward enlargement didn’t threaten Russia’s security. NATO membership is at core a promise to collectively defend a member that comes under attack. The alliance agreed in 1997 not to permanently station substantial combat forces in its new eastern members that were capable of threatening Russian territory. Russia retained a massive nuclear arsenal and the biggest conventional forces in Europe.
  • Mr. Putin thought of Russian security interests more broadly, linking the preservation of Moscow’s influence in adjacent countries with his goals of reviving Russia’s global power and cementing his authoritarian rule at home.
  • U.S. intelligence learned in 2005 that Mr. Putin’s government had carried out a broad review of Russian policy in the “near abroad,” as the Kremlin termed former Soviet republics. From now on, Russia would take a more assertive approach and vigorously contest perceived U.S. influence.
  • Mr. Bush asked Mr. Putin why he thought the end of the Soviet Union had been the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. Surely the deaths of more than 20 million Soviet citizens in World War II was worse, Mr. Bush said. Mr. Putin replied that the USSR’s demise was worse because it had left 25 million Russians outside the Russian Federation, according to Ms. Rice, who was present.
  • Perceptions changed in January 2007, when Mr. Putin vented his growing frustrations about the West at the annual Munich Security Conference. In a long and icy speech, he denounced the U.S. for trying to rule a unipolar world by force, accused NATO of breaking promises by expanding into Europe’s east, and called the West hypocritical for lecturing Russia about democracy. A chill descended on the audience of Western diplomats and politicians at the luxury Hotel Bayerischer Hof, participants recalled.
  • “We didn’t take the speech as seriously as we should have,” said Mr. Ischinger. “It takes two to tango, and Mr. Putin didn’t want to tango any more.
  • “I need a MAP. We need to give the Ukrainian people a strategic focus on the way ahead. We really need this,” Mr. Yushchenko said, Ms. Rice recalled. Ms. Rice, who was initially uncertain about having Ukraine in NATO, gave a noncommittal answer. When the request was debated in the National Security Council, Mr. Bush said NATO should be open to all countries that qualify and want to join.
  • Try as it might, the White House couldn’t overcome German and French resistance to offering a MAP to Ukraine and Georgia.
  • Berlin and Paris pointed to unsolved territorial conflicts in Georgia, low public support for NATO in Ukraine, and the weakness of democracy and the rule of law in both.
  • Ms. Merkel, remembering Mr. Putin’s speech in Munich, believed he would see NATO invitations as a direct and deliberate threat to him, according to Christoph Heusgen, her chief diplomatic adviser at the time. She was also convinced Ukraine and Georgia would bring NATO no benefits as members, Mr. Heusgen said.
  • Ms. Rice, a Soviet and Russia expert, said Mr. Putin wanted to use Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia to rebuild Russia’s global power, and that extending the shield of NATO membership could be the last chance to stop him. German and French officials were skeptical, believing Russia’s economy was too weak and dependent on Western technology to become a serious threat again.
  • In the final session, Ms. Merkel debated in a corner of the room with leaders from Poland and other eastern members of NATO, who advocated strenuously on behalf of Ukraine and Georgia. Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus strongly criticized Ms. Merkel’s stance, warning that a failure to stop Russia’s resurgence would eventually threaten the eastern flank of the alliance.
  • “We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO,” it read. But it didn’t say when. And there was no MAP.
  • Many of Ukraine’s supporters were heartened. But some officials in Bucharest feared it was the worst of both worlds. NATO had just painted a target on the backs of Ukraine and Georgia without giving them any protection.
  • Mr. Putin joined the summit the next day. He spoke behind closed doors and made clear his disdain for NATO’s move, describing Ukraine as a “made-up” country.
  • “He then became a fervent nationalist,” said Mr. Heusgen. “His great anxiety was that Ukraine could become economically and politically successful and that the Russians would eventually ask themselves ‘Why are our brothers doing so well, while our situation remains dire?’ ”
  • Mr. Putin’s show of military force backfired politically. He had won control of Crimea and part of Donbas, but he was losing Ukraine.
  • divisions manifested themselves during Ukraine’s bitterly fought elections and during the Orange and Maidan revolutions. But they receded after 2014. Many Russophone Ukrainians fled from repression and economic collapse in separatist-run Donbas. Even eastern Ukraine came to fear Russian influence. Mr. Putin was doing what Ukrainian politicians had struggled with: uniting a nation.
  • Mr. Putin never tried to implement the Minsk accords, said Mr. Heusgen, the German chancellery aide, because their full implementation would have resolved the conflict and allowed Ukraine to move on.
  • At a conversation at the Hilton Hotel in Brisbane, Australia, during a G-20 summit in late 2014, Ms. Merkel realized that Mr. Putin had entered a state of mind that would never allow for reconciliation with the West, according to a former aide.
  • The conversation was about Ukraine, but Mr. Putin launched into a tirade against the decadence of democracies, whose decay of values, he said, was exemplified by the spread of “gay culture.”
  • The Russian warned Ms. Merkel earnestly that gay culture was corrupting Germany’s youth. Russia’s values were superior and diametrically opposed to Western decadence, he said
  • He expressed disdain for politicians beholden to public opinion. Western politicians were unable to be strong leaders because they were hobbled by electoral pressures and aggressive media, he told Ms. Merkel.
  • Ms. Merkel’s policy reflected a consensus in Berlin that mutually beneficial trade with the EU would tame Russian geopolitical ambitions.
  • The U.S. and some NATO allies, meanwhile, began a multiyear program to train and equip Ukraine’s armed forces, which had proved no match for Russia’s in Donbas.
  • The level of military support was limited because the Obama administration figured that Russia would retain a considerable military advantage over Ukraine and it didn’t want to provoke Moscow.
  • President Trump expanded the aid to include Javelin antitank missiles, but delayed it in 2019 while he pressed Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to look for information the White House hoped to use against Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden and Mr. Biden’s son, an act for which he was impeached.
  • in telephone conversations from 2020 onward, Mr. Macron noticed changes in Mr. Putin. The Russian leader was rigorously isolating himself during the Covid-19 pandemic, requiring even close aides to quarantine themselves before they could meet him.
  • The man on the phone with Mr. Macron was different from the one he had hosted in Paris and the Riviera. “He tended to talk in circles, rewriting history,” recalled an aide to Mr. Macron.
  • The U.S. no longer saw Europe as a primary focus. Mr. Biden wanted neither a “reset” of relations with Mr. Putin, like President Obama had declared in 2009, nor to roll back Russia’s power. The NSC cast the aim as a “stable, predictable relationship.” It was a modest goal that would soon be tested by Mr. Putin’s bid to rewrite the ending of the Cold War.
  • In early 2021, Mr. Biden became the latest U.S. president who wanted to focus his foreign policy on the strategic competition with China, only to become entangled in events elsewhere.
  • When Mr. Zelensky met with Mr. Biden in Washington in September, the U.S. finally announced the $60 million in military support, which included Javelins, small arms and ammunition. The aid was in line with the modest assistance the Obama and Trump administrations had supplied over the years, which provided Ukraine with lethal weaponry but didn’t include air defense, antiship missiles, tanks, fighter aircraft or drones that could carry out attacks.
  • U.S. national security officials discussed the highly classified intelligence at a meeting in the White House on Oct. 27. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines warned that Russian forces could be ready to attack by the end of January 2022.
  • On Nov. 17, Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, urged the U.S. to send air defense systems and additional antitank weapons and ammunition during a meeting at the Pentagon, although he thought the initial Russian attacks might be limited.
  • Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Mr. Reznikov that Ukraine could be facing a massive invasion.
  • Work began that month on a new $200 million package in military assistance from U.S. stocks. The White House, however, initially held off authorizing it, angering some lawmakers. Administration officials calculated arms shipments wouldn’t be enough to deter Mr. Putin from invading if his mind was made up, and might even provoke him to attack.
  • The cautious White House approach was consistent with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s thinking. He favored a low-profile, gradual approach to assisting Ukraine’s forces and fortifying NATO’s defenses that would grow stronger in line with U.S. intelligence indications about Russia’s intent to attack.
  • A paramount goal was to avoid a direct clash between U.S. and Russian forces—what Mr. Austin called his “North Star.”
  • On Dec. 27, Mr. Biden gave the go-ahead to begin sending more military assistance for Ukraine, including Javelin antitank missiles, mortars, grenade launchers, small arms and ammunition.
  • Three days later, Mr. Biden spoke on the phone with Mr. Putin and said the U.S. had no plan to station offensive missiles in Ukraine and urged Russia to de-escalate. The two leaders were on different wavelengths. Mr. Biden was talking about confidence-building measures. Mr. Putin was talking about effectively rolling back the West.
  • Gen. Mingus had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, been wounded and earned a Purple Heart, and he spoke frankly about the challenges Russian forces would face. Invading a territory was one thing, but holding it was another, and the intervention could turn into a yearslong quagmire, he said. The Russians showed no reaction.
  • Mr. Macron found Mr. Putin even more difficult to talk to than previously, according to French officials. The six-hour conversation went round in circles as Mr. Putin gave long lectures about the historical unity of Russia and Ukraine and the West’s record of hypocrisy, while the French president tried to bring the conversation back to the present day and how to avoid a war.
  • Mr. Scholz argued that the international order rested on the recognition of existing borders, no matter how and when they had been created. The West would never accept unraveling established borders in Europe, he warned. Sanctions would be swift and harsh, and the close economic cooperation between Germany and Russia would end. Public pressure on European leaders to sever all links to Russia would be immense, he said.
  • Mr. Putin then repeated his disdain for weak Western leaders who were susceptible to public pressure.
  • Mr. Zelensky said Mr. Putin couldn’t be trusted to uphold such an agreement and that most Ukrainians wanted to join NATO. His answer left German officials worried that the chances of peace were fading. Aides to Mr. Scholz believed Mr. Putin would maintain his military pressure on Ukraine’s borders to strangle its economy and then eventually move to occupy the country.
  • Mr. Putin said he had decided to recognize the independence of separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine. He said fascists had seized power in Kyiv, while NATO hadn’t responded to his security concerns and was planning to deploy nuclear missiles in Ukraine.
  • “We are not going to see each other for a while, but I really appreciate the frankness of our discussions,” Mr. Putin told Mr. Macron. “I hope we can talk again one day.”
ethanmoser

Germany: Merkel ally regrets manner of critic's departure | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...s-manner-critic-departure.html

germany merkel bailouts migrants

shared by ethanmoser on 16 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Germany: Merkel ally regrets manner of critic's departure
  • A top official in Chancellor Angela Merkel's party says he's not surprised by the departure of a hard-line conservative lawmaker who had increasingly been at odds with the German leader, but regrets the manner of it.
  • She argued that Merkel's government has exceeded its mandate by allowing large numbers of migrants in and eurozone bailouts to Greece and by accelerating Germany's exit from nuclear power.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • "I find it regrettable that Mrs. Steinbach is going about it this way. Spreading excessive and unjustified accusations via the media and not in a direct conversation is not conservative."
fischerry

Angela Merkel replaces Hillary Clinton as prime target of fake news, analysis finds - C... - 0 views

www.cbsnews.com/...clinton-as-target-of-fake-news

shared by fischerry on 17 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Angela Merkel replaces Hillary Clinton as prime target of fake news, analysis finds
  • German Chancellor Angela Merkel has become a target of websites spreading fake news, misleading stories and conspiracy theories ahead of her country’s election, according to an analysis compiled by BuzzFeed News.
Megan Flanagan

German Vote on Armenian Genocide Riles Tempers, and Turkey - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...n-genocide-germany-turkey.html

genocide vote turkey History

shared by Megan Flanagan on 02 Jun 16 - No Cached
  • it is that people should learn from their history
  • which is expected to overwhelmingly approve a resolution that officially declares the century-old Armenian massacres to be genocide
  • warned Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in a telephone call that there could be consequences if the resolution passes
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • The Turkish government has long rejected the term genocide, saying that thousands of people, many of them Turks, died in the civil war that destroyed the Ottoman Empire.
  • resolution comes at a delicate time for Ms. Merkel.
  • stem the flow of migrants from the Middle East to Europe, a policy that has earned her criticism for allying with the increasingly authoritarian Mr. Erdogan.
  • “If Germany is to be deceived by this, then bilateral, diplomatic, economic, trade, political and military ties — we are both NATO countries — will be damaged,”
  • has been a driving force behind the resolution,
  • a step intended to foster reconciliation between Turks and Armenians by encouraging them to examine their history.
  • “The intent is not, and never was, to incriminate someone,”
  • “It must be possible to work through a historical event that took place 100 years ago,” h
  • “They will use the resolution as proof of a further attack by the West on Turkey,”
  • had pushed last spring to postpone the vote on it. That was before the migrant crisis, when ties between Germany and Turkey were less complicated.
  • The two sides seem to have taken care to leave themselves room to move forward on issues such as visa-free travel for Turks to Europe, which for Ankara is a crucial point of the broad accord on migrants, and advancing Turkey’s bid to join the bloc.
  • We will never give up working for amity and peace, and against those who try to politicize history through bitter rhetoric of hate and enmity, and to alienate the two neighboring nations, who are bound by their common history and their similar traditions,”
  • “I do not think that the German Parliament will destroy this relationship
grayton downing

BBC News - Spying row: Merkel urges US to restore trust at EU summit - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-europe-24647602

spying us crisis

shared by grayton downing on 24 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has said it is "really not on" for friends to spy on each other, referring to alleged US snooping on her phone calls.
  • The spying row threatens to overshadow EU talks on economic growth and migration to the EU. Mrs Merkel has demanded a "complete explanation" of the claims, which came out in the German media.
  • In a separate development, Italy's weekly L'Espresso reported that the US and UK had been spying on Italian internet and phone traffic.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The revelations were sourced to US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
  • Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the alleged spying on Mrs Merkel's mobile phone calls was "serious" and added: "I will support her (Merkel) completely in her complaint and say that this is not acceptable - I think we need all the facts on the table first."
  • The veteran French EU Commissioner Michel Barnier told the BBC that "enough is enough", and confidence in the US had been shaken.
  • One of the key initiatives of the European Commission is its Digital Agenda for Europe, which it says "aims to reboot Europe's economy and help Europe's citizens and businesses to get the most out of digital technologies".
Maria Delzi

Allegation of U.S. Spying on Merkel Puts Obama at Crossroads - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-puts-obama-at-crossroads.html

shared by Maria Delzi on 25 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • The angry allegation by the German government that the National Security Agency monitored the cellphone of Chancellor Angela Merkel may force President Obama into making a choice he has avoided for years between continuing the age-old game of spying on America’s friends and undercutting cooperation with important partners in tracking terrorists, managing the global economy and slowing Iran’s nuclear program.
  • The pressure to make such a choice builds each day, as some of the United States’ closest allies have demanded explanations from Washington after similar disclosures about the breadth and sophistication of American electronic spying.
  • The tension with Germany built last week after German officials were given evidence of the cellphone monitoring by Der Spiegel, the German weekly newsmagazine. The first protests to Washington came in an angry phone call to Susan E. Rice, the president’s national security adviser, from her German counterpart, Christoph Heusgen.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • During the call, according to German officials, Ms. Rice insisted that Mr. Obama did not know about the monitoring of Ms. Merkel’s phone, and said it was not currently happening, and would not in the future. But according to American officials familiar with the call, Ms. Rice would not acknowledge that the monitoring took place, even though she did not dispute the evidence the Germans had provided to her, which stretched back into the administration of President George W. Bush.
  • In the past, Germany has pushed for an agreement similar to the understanding that the United States has with Britain and three other English-speaking allies that prohibits spying on one another.
  • Administration officials say the National Security Agency, in its push to build a global data-gathering network that can reach into any country, has rarely weighed the long-term political costs of some of its operations. Whether to make those kinds of reciprocal agreements with allies is among the questions two different administration reviews of N.S.A. spying practices hope to address.
  • The advisers are looking at a range of issues, from the collection of “metadata” about the calls and Web searches conducted by Americans to the surveillance of allies and their leaders.
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