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News of the day: EU dispute in Poland, energy prices, short

2021-10-27T16:21:20.351Z


Poland is supposed to pay a fine of one million euros a day. Who is hit particularly hard by the rising prices for oil and gas. And train journeys could replace a third of all short flights in Europe. That is the situation on Wednesday evening.


1.

The European Court of Justice has imposed a fine of one million euros a day on Poland - because the country does not implement the court's decisions

For many people, the dispute between the politicians of the

Polish government

and the

European Union

seems like an endless drama based on the model of the classic movie "Groundhog Day", including to me.

Because the country refuses to high court decisions of the

European Court of Justice

to implement (ECJ) on the controversial judicial reforms in Poland, the judges have the rulers in Warsaw now a

penalty

aufgebrummt.

Poland is supposed to pay one million euros every day.

Enlarge image

European Court of Justice in Luxembourg

Photo: DPA

Specifically, the dispute revolves mainly around the order

to stop

the work of the controversial

Polish Disciplinary Chamber

to punish judges. According to ECJ rulings, the activity is not compatible with EU rules on the independence and impartiality of the judiciary. The financial sanctions against Poland were requested on September 9th by the EU commission responsible for monitoring the rule of law in the EU. They are now due until Poland complies with the ECJ's orders.

“The judicial systems in the entire European Union must be independent and fair,”

Commission head Ursula von der Leyen

criticized at the time.

This was

Poland's Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro

not see, and spoke of an "aggression against Poland" and of a "legal hybrid war".

Most likely, the ECJ ruling will not end the dispute either.

  • Read more here: Poland is supposed to pay one million euros in fines every day

2.

It is not the poorest of the German population who suffer from the expensive energy, because they receive state support, but the low-income earners - around four million households are affected

Heating oil

is currently more than twice as expensive as it was a year ago, and

gas is

almost a third more expensive.

For high earners and large parts of the middle class, this is annoying, but manageable.

Who are the price rises hitting the hardest?

My colleagues Florian Diekmann and Alexander Preker did some research - and found out that it is usually the poorest of the poor who have the worst problems because they are recipients of Hartz IV, social assistance and basic security in old age and the authorities often cover their heating costs will.

Enlarge image

Rental apartments in Cologne

Photo: Christoph Hardt / Geisler-Fotopress / picture alliance

In the roughly four million households that suffer most from the expensive energy, live those people who earn little, but still just enough not to be entitled to basic security, so write the colleagues - especially if these

low-income earners

for depend on the car for their way to work. How could these people be helped in the most meaningful way? Florian and Alexander talked to experts about a so-called

climate bonus

consider it the best way to socially cushion rising energy prices.

The income from the CO₂ price would be reimbursed to the households - with a uniform amount per capita in order to relieve recipients of low incomes.

"In the short term, however, a climate bonus model will certainly not be able to help, if only because of the current political situation: the old black and red federal government is only in office, and a new possible traffic light coalition will not be available until December at the earliest," the two found Colleagues.

"Apart from that, it is far from certain that the new government will opt for a climate bonus."

  • Read the full story here: These four million households suffer most from the expensive energy

3.

According to a new analysis, a third of Europe's flight routes could easily be covered by train - but many Germans do not like to sit on the train for more than four hours

The

UN climate summit

begins in Glasgow on Sunday,

and

one of the questions to be discussed there could be: What would be the point if the 250 most popular

short-haul flights

in Europe were to

be banned by law and passengers

took the train

instead

?

An analysis published today by the environmental protection organization Greenpeace comes to the conclusion that this measure could save around 23.4 million tons of carbon dioxide per year.

According to Greenpeace, this corresponds to Croatia's annual CO2 emissions.

Enlarge image

ICE high-speed trains and the French TGV

Photo: JACQUES DEMARTHON / AFP

In the German federal election campaign, the

Green candidate Annalena Baerbock

at least briefly brought up a possible ban on short-haul flights.

The study carried out on behalf of the environmentalists has now examined, among other things, the rail route alternatives to the 150 most heavily frequented European short-haul flights and compared the travel times.

The result: for around a third of the flights there are practicable train alternatives that are far less harmful to the environment.

Short-haul flights are around twelve times more damaging to the climate than comparable train journeys.

According to the study, a dozen times more

carbon dioxide

is emitted on some particularly problematic flight routes

emissions than when traveling by train, for example on routes such as Madrid-Barcelona, ​​Frankfurt-Berlin or Brussels-Amsterdam.

The distances could even be covered in two to four hours by train.

Measured against the behavior of German travelers, however, the study set the

reasonable rail travel time

at six hours rather high.

The Federal Association of the German Aviation Industry refers to data according to which the majority of passengers prefer to fly when distances of more than 400 kilometers have to be covered that would take longer than three to four hours by train.

  • Read more here: A third of Europe's flight routes could be covered by rail

(Would you like to receive the »Situation in the evening« conveniently by email in your inbox? Here you can order the daily briefing as a newsletter.)

What else is important today

  • "Donald Trump incites people across the country":

    Unusually sharp words from US President Joe Biden about his predecessor Donald Trump: This spread hatred - and vilified the late Colin Powell.

    Biden also addressed the Republicans directly.

  • Nobel laureate in

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    In a guest contribution for “Die Zeit” the economists Joseph Stiglitz and Adam Tooze accuse the FDP leader of an “antediluvian budgetary agenda”.

    You advocate that the Greens provide the finance minister.

  • "November 25th will not be Freedom Day": the

    SPD, the Greens and the FDP want to let the "epidemic situation of national importance" expire.

    However, there should still be corona measures - they should be possible through changes in the Infection Protection Act.

  • "This behavior is unprecedented in the history of our group":

    Scandal at Volkswagen: Instead of facing the workforce at a works meeting, CEO Herbert Diess flies to investors in the USA.

    The new head of the works council, Daniela Cavallo, is outraged.

  • Colleague of the killed camerawoman raises serious allegations:

    Serge Svetnoy was holding Halyna Hutchins when she died on the film set from a bullet.

    According to the lighting technician, negligence and unprofessionalism are responsible for the death of the 42-year-old.

What we recommend today at SPIEGEL +

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    Here he talks about the Europe-wide comeback of the social democrats.

    And explains his goal of only having new electric cars registered by 2025.

  • Everything used to be cheaper - wasn't it?

    Life seems more expensive to many, but is purchasing power really shrinking?

    Which products Germans have to work longer for today than they did decades ago.

    And for which shorter.

  • Who are you, then?

    More than a third of the 736 MPs are in the Bundestag for the first time.

    What are you up to, what is your driving force?

    We briefly introduce six, including a judge, a sewage master and the youngest leftist in her group.

  • "We were peasants in a political chess game":

    A great war was imminent in Berlin when battle tanks from the USA and the Soviet Union stood ready to fire on Friedrichstrasse in 1961.

    Military policeman Vern Pike got a tricky assignment.

  • When the child is there, the birth is not over:

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    Here the midwife Agnes Maier explains why she is so fascinated by this "temporary organ".

Which is less important today

Photo: Jordan Strauss / AP

  • Proud but stressed mother.

    Gwyneth Paltrow, 49,

    the Oscar-winning actress and mother of two children, Apple (born 2004) and Moses (born 2006), shared information about the effort involved in giving birth. Both of her children were born by caesarean sections, she said on a podcast. The consequences are not necessarily nice to look at. “You have a big scar across your body and you think: 'Oh, wow, that wasn't there before,'” says Paltrow: “It's not that it's bad or you want to evaluate it, but you just think : 'Oh, my God.' "She experienced something really dramatic at the birth of her daughter Apple, according to the actress:" My daughter was an emergency. It was crazy - we almost died. It didn't look good. "

Typo of the day

, now corrected: "People want to see women and men who they know: They are now responsible for our future, and not the host Seehofer."

Cartoon of the Day:

Find the Differences!

And tonight?

If you have a subscription, you could

watch

the four-part episode

"The Ibiza Affair"

on the pay TV channel Sky

.

My colleague Oliver Kaever calls it the "series of the hour" and a "mixture of political satire, impostor comedy and crime novel".

Of course there are events and machinations from the

Austrian political industry,

which should have happened in a similar way.

The series is based on the non-fiction book that the two investigative journalists Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier of the Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote about the Ibiza affair.

The creators narrate freely, wildly, associatively: cancel the temporal continuity of the story, scatter archive recordings, explain the mechanism of the covert party donation with puppet figures.

"This condensed design creates a totality of events that is carried away, entertaining," says Oliver, "and also disturbed."


A lovely evening.

Sincerely


yours,

Wolfgang Höbel

Here you can order the "Lage am Abend" by email.

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-10-27

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