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TODAY IN GERMANY

Today in Germany: A roundup of the latest news on Friday

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz prepares for China trip, S-Bahn disruption expected in Munich, Holocaust survivors in Israel get German payout and other news from around Germany on Friday.

Published: 12 April 2024 09:02 CEST
satirical protest of Scholz in China
Demonstrators wear masks of Chancellor Scholz and China's President Xi during a protest against the human rights situation in China. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Jörg Carstensen

Germany’s Scholz between tough talk and trade on China trip

Chancellor Olaf Scholz travels to China this weekend, walking a fine line in shoring up economic ties with Germany’s biggest trading partner at a time when the West is sharpening its tone towards Beijing.

With the economies of both China and Germany currently underperforming on the world stage, Scholz will travel with a bumper delegation of ministers and business executives.

The chancellor will have to balance encouraging words on economic cooperation with the European Union’s strident message accusing China of unfair subsidies.

The German leader could also deliver a stern warning to China over its refusal to turn its back on President Vladimir Putin despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

China’s President Xi Jinping and Scholz will hold talks in the Chinese capital on Tuesday at the conclusion of the trip, which will first take the chancellor to Chongqing and Shanghai.

The three-day tour is Scholz’s second since taking office, the first coming in November 2022 with China still applying strict coronavirus rules.

Disruption as Munich Stammstreckentunnel closes this weekend

If you’re taking the S-Bahn in Munich at the weekend, you may have to look for alternatives because a main route is being closed off. The Stammstreckentunnel will be shut from Friday night (10:40pm) to Monday morning (4:40am.) No S-Bahn trains will be able to pass through.

This closure will happen again on the last weekend in April. It means that some routes will start or end early, and many trains will not stop at all stations. Passengers have to use regional trains, the U-Bahn and tram 19, which runs parallel to the main route. A rail replacement bus service has been set up between Ostbahnhof and Riem.

The reason for the closure is the track renewal at the Isartor and work on the new electronic signal box at Ostbahnhof.

Deutsche Bahn logo

The Deutsche Bahn S-Bahn logo is displayed on the Hackerbrücke in Munich. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Sven Hoppe

European Parliament cancels immunity of an AfD MEP

The European Parliament has waived the immunity of AfD MEP Gunnar Beck at the request of the Düsseldorf public prosecutor’s office. A report by the Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee had previously revealed that the 58-year-old was under investigation for theft of low-value items, intentional bodily harm and resisting law enforcement officers.

Now that his immunity has been withdrawn, nothing formally stands in the way of further investigations against Beck. In Beck’s opinion, the accusations of the public prosecutor’s office are unfounded.

A majority of MPs voted in favour of the motion to waive his immunity in parliament on Thursday.

Specifically, according to the report by the Legal Affairs Committee, Beck allegedly attempted to steal product samples from a department store in Neuss in North Rhine-Westphalia on October 29th 2022. A criminal complaint was subsequently filed for shoplifting.

Beck also allegedly tried to leave the shop and was detained by shop detectives. Law enforcement officers then intervened. Beck did not comply with instructions not to resist, the report states, citing investigators in Germany. 

Israel Holocaust survivors get German payout amid Gaza war

Germany said Thursday it is providing €25 million for Holocaust survivors in Israel to help them cope with the impact of the attack by Hamas and Gaza war.

Each of the 113,000 Jewish survivors in Israel will receive a one-off payment of €220, according to the Claims Conference, an organisation that seeks damages for Holocaust survivors and which worked with the German government on the scheme.

“Many Holocaust survivors were hit particularly hard by the Hamas attacks,” a German finance ministry spokeswoman said, pointing to the loss of homes or support systems in the form of care.

The additional funds were aimed at helping them “in this frightening war situation,” she said.

This comes just a few days after Germany defended itself at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against charges brought by Nicaragua that its support for Israel enables genocide and breaches of international humanitarian law in Gaza.

Germany charges suspected leader of Syrian rebel group

German prosecutors said Thursday they had filed war crime charges against the alleged leader of a rebel group which fought in Syria alongside Islamic State jihadists.

Syrian Amer A., the suspected chief of the group Liwa Jund al-Rahman, is accused of war crimes in “the form of forced displacement, looting in two cases and destruction”.

Prosecutors also charged another Syrian named as Basel O. for membership in the group and arrested a third suspect over similar crimes.

Amer A. is alleged to have founded the Liwa Jund al-Rahman in 2013 in the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor and acted as its leader.

The rebel group aimed to “violently bring down the Syrian regime”, aligning itself with the Free Syrian Army but following an “Islamist agenda”, prosecutors said.

German minister decries EU’s ‘lost years’ under von der Leyen

Germany’s finance minister on Thursday criticised the German European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen for overseeing “lost years” for Europe’s economy.

“The past few years under the responsibility of a commission led by Ursula von der Leyen have been lost years for competitiveness,” Christian Lindner said on arrival for a Luxembourg meeting of Eurozone finance and economy ministers.

The broadside against von der Leyen exposed tensions in German politics, as well as campaign jockeying ahead of EU elections in June that von der Leyen hopes will lead to her getting a second term.

Lindner is from the economically liberal Free Democratic Party that is part of Germany’s governing coalition, alongside the centre-left Social Democrats of Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the Greens.

Von der Leyen’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which is tied with the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), is in opposition.

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TODAY IN GERMANY

Today in Germany: A roundup of the latest news on Thursday

30 injured in May Day parade in southern Germany, unions call for better working conditions in rallies, Germans want a shorter working week, and other news from around Germany.

Published: 2 May 2024 08:06 CEST
Today in Germany: A roundup of the latest news on Thursday

30 injured, 10 seriously in German May Day parade accident

Around 30 people were injured, 10 of them seriously, after a float being pulled by a tractor overturned at a May Day parade in southwest Germany, police said.

It toppled as the tractor pulling it made a turn, they said in a statement.

Some of the injured were flown out for treatment, with some helicopters flying in from nearby Switzerland to help.

The accident happened around 1:05 pm on a road near the town of Kandern, which lies near the French border between the German city of Freibourg im Breisgau and Basel in Switzerland.

The scene of the accident near Kandern, which lies near the French border between the German city of Freibourg im Breisgau and Basel in Switzerland.

The scene of the accident near Kandern, which lies near the French border between the German city of Freibourg im Breisgau and Basel in Switzerland.. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/Oberbadisches Verlagshaus | Gudrun Gehr

Unions demand ‘tariff turnaround’ and better working conditions in Labour Day rallies

Unions called for better working conditions and more collective bargaining at Labour Day rallies and events across Germany on Wednesday.

“More wages, more free time, more security,” said the chairwoman of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB), Yasmin Fahimi, at a rally in Hanover.

In Münster, her deputy Elke Hannack spoke out in favour of more investments and more staff in the public sector.

The state should “fulfil its tasks at all levels and meet the needs of our citizens,” said Hannack, warning against austerity in education policy.

“It is important to have more educators, more teachers and more social work in schools and daycare centres, which need to be better equipped.”

Fahimi, meanwhile, called for a “tariff turnaround”.

Only half of all employees in Germany are now under the direct protection of a collective agreement, said the DGB chairwoman.

“Tariff flight” by employers causes economic damage of 130 billion euros every year, while collective agreements make employees free in the world of work, said Fahimi.

Such agreements ensured higher wages, fair pay and regular working hours.

There should be “not a cent of tax money for tariff evasion and wage dumping,” said Fahimi, adding that the government should take measures that go beyond the Federal Tariff Compliance Act so that 80 percent of jobs are once again bound by collective agreements.

SPD leader Klingbeil expects Ukraine to need support for years to come

SPD leader Lars Klingbeil expects Germany will need to provide financial and military support to Ukraine for years to come.

“We may have to mobilise money and weapons for another ten years to help Ukraine,” Klingbeil told the t-online portal, according to a statement on Wednesday. “We need the people’s mandate to do this,” he said, added that Germany’s security was also being defended in Ukraine.

Klingbeil also called for the public debate to focus on more than just arms deliveries. “Peace initiatives are being talked about all over the world, the peace conference in Switzerland is coming up, and we as Germany support that,” he said.

“We cannot allow the concept of peace to be occupied only by the Wagenknechts [left-wing party Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance] and the right-wing radicals from the AfD,” he added. Both parties understood peace to be a “surrender” to Russian head of state Vladimir Putin “and that is wrong,” he said.

At the same time, the SPD leader pointed out that Putin currently does not want to negotiate and that nothing will change in Germany’s Ukraine policy.

“The strategy remains to make Ukraine so strong that it can negotiate from a position of strength at the right time,” he said.

Left-wing protest in Stuttgart broken up after attacks on police

A demonstration by left-wing activists on Labour Day in Stuttgart was broken up after police officers were attacked.

Police said they cleared the area using pepper spray and batons, stating earlier that there had been “attacks on our colleagues”.

The police said they had asked participants in the demonstration to leave the meeting point in the city centre individually or in small groups.

Police in other German cities, including Berlin and Hamburg, were also preparing for large-scale operations at left-wing demonstrations on May 1st. 

Germans want shorter working week

Germans want to work less, according to an unpublished study by the Institute of the German Economy (IW) seen in advance by the Rheinische Post newspaper. 

Employees up to 25 wanted to work 35 hours per week in 2021, three hours less than in 2007.

26-40-year-olds wanted to work 34 hours per week, or two hours less than at the time of the previous survey, while over 40s wanted to work 32 hours per week, almost three hours less than before.

The IW study is based on regular surveys of tens of thousands of employees on a Socio-Economic Panel. The panel were asked how many hours they would like to work, with the knowledge that if working hours were reduced, they would also earn less money.

The desired weekly working hours of low-income workers up to the age of 25 saw some of the sharpest falls since 2007 – 6.3 hours per week, but even those on higher incomes wanted to work three hours less.

READ ALSO: How Germany is trialling the four day working week 

For younger workers up to the age of 25 with low incomes, the desired working hours have fallen particularly sharply since 2007 – by 6.3 hours per week. But younger people with higher incomes also want to work three hours less. “The thesis that younger people are reducing their job offer because they are saturated and have lower consumer desires cannot be confirmed with the available data,” said the IW.

Among schoolchildren and students, the desire to work full-time fell from 62 to 48 percent between 2007 and 2021.

“The development of young people’s working time preferences indicates that their preference for leisure time has increased – in this respect, the hypothesis of leisure-oriented Generation Z could be seen as confirmed,” the IW study said.

But “the leisure time preference of older age groups did not increase to a lesser extent, so this is not something that is unique to the younger generation.”

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