Today the question is how much jubilation a proper European football championship needs, how many extremists a country can take and how much rent an average city household can still afford.
How crowded the stadium gets
Tonight at 9 p.m. the
German national soccer team
- I added the "national" here especially for my regular reader Beatrix von Storch - has to
pass
their
first European Championship preliminary round match against France
. From a sporting point of view, unfortunately, that's all I can write about this encounter, as my enthusiasm for football reached its peak with the 1990 World Cup and immediately afterwards it was likely to wane for all time.
Back then, at Italia 1990, in my childish exuberance, I had no idea of those Uefa or Fifa suit wearers who turned football into a sick billion dollar business, in which every few years under the guise of a happy sporting event is collected.
At that time I knew all the names of the German squad by heart.
And I still remember the name of the masseur of the German team back then.
Well, who of the football cracks here still knows the name?
Don't worry: my knowledgeable colleagues from the sports department will publish a preliminary report on the game this morning, which deals with the question of what makes the
French team, our first opponent
, so strong.
From a political point of view, it should perhaps be noted that the game
in Munich
will take place
in front of 14,000 fans
in the Allianz Arena, with a sophisticated test and protection concept. At least that is what Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder promises, and he supposedly plays in the “Team Caution”.
I ask myself a couple of questions: How can the atmosphere be created in a stadium with a capacity for 75,000 people when there are only 14,000 people sitting there?
Why is a soccer game in front of 14,000 people now possible again, but not open-air concerts of this size?
Why was it always warned that football fans could clog the subway on their way to the stadium, but now that doesn't seem to be a problem anymore?
And wouldn't it have been a good signal internationally if Söders Team Sicherheit had set a good example and hosted games with empty ranks?
You can have fun watching football without an audience.
Or not?
Well, for real fans this is probably a statement like our parents used to say: "You can have fun without alcohol."
Germany's first opponent at the EM: What makes these French so strong?
How extreme the country is
When Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) and head of the agency Thomas Haldenwang present the
Constitutional Protection Report for 2020
today
, they are likely to notice two trends: The number of right-wing extremists has continued to rise, the authority estimates the scene at 33,000, and 13,300 of them are considered violent .
And the left-wing extremist scene has also grown to 41,000 people, of whom 9,600 are now considered to be violent.
The message is that Germany’s borders continue to grow.
No, this annual press conference is really not a pleasant appointment.
For 20 years, not so many
anti-Semitic crimes have been
counted as today, which is why the Baden-Württemberg Interior Minister Thomas Strobl in SPIEGEL demanded a better record of these crimes and their perpetrators (yes, even when it comes to ugly issues, the women should not be concealed) .
But Seehofer and Haldenwang will have to remain silent about one question: the
possible monitoring of the entire AfD as a suspected case
.
The office had declared the party to be an object of observation internally in March.
The matter quickly became public, which did not suit the Cologne Administrative Court, where the AfD has filed a lawsuit against the move.
It decided: the domestic secret service may not observe the party until further notice.
It remains to be seen whether the court will complete the proceedings before the general election.
If the Office for the Protection of the Constitution should not only be allowed to declare the völkisch "wing" and the youth association YES to be the object of observation, but the whole AfD, the number of right-wing extremists in the next annual report would suddenly skyrocket: to well over 50,000.
By the way, until 2018, a man presented the report for the protection of the constitution, who recently likes to go on excursions into the new right world of thought: Hans-Georg Maaßen, ex-President of the Constitutional Protection and now CDU candidate for the Bundestag.
Controversial CDU candidate: The treacherous comments by Hans-Georg Maaßen
How expensive apartments are
A rule of thumb is that
you should
spend
a maximum of a third of your income on
rent
, otherwise too little will be left for the remaining expenses that a life brings with it.
But fewer and fewer people, especially in large cities, can keep the rule, a team from Berlin's Humboldt University has found.
My colleague Jens Radü reports on the results today.
The scientists, funded by the union's own Hans Böckler Foundation, examined 77 large cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants and came to the conclusion that
in almost every second household, more than 30 percent of income goes into rent
.
The situation in popular metropolises such as Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne is particularly dramatic.
But affordable living space is already lacking in medium-sized cities such as Moers, Ulm or Fürth.
Most parties are likely to include housing in their programs for the federal election.
For the Union’s candidate for chancellor, Armin Laschet, who has not yet presented a program, it may be worth taking a look at my colleague’s report.
There are also a few suggested solutions.
New real estate study: where rents are still affordable - and where not anymore
Loser of the day ...
... are
the sexual minorities in Hungary
.
The parliament in Budapest is likely to pass a law tomorrow that will severely restrict the rights of gay, lesbian and transgender people and create a homophobic atmosphere in Hungary.
In future, this law would prohibit homosexuality or transsexuality from being portrayed as normal or positive in books or the media if the content could reach people under the age of 18.
Advertisements in which such people are shown positively or normally would also be forbidden.
Programs in schools that educate children about sexual minorities and how to treat one another respectfully are also to be abolished.
As early as 2020, Hungary abolished the right to adopt homosexuals and prohibited the registration of gender changes.
The loser of such autocratic "reforms" is also the majority society, which is driven by President Viktor Orbán into a defensive stance against minorities.
Not to mention the values of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, which are thereby violated.
Thousands of people demonstrated yesterday against the law, for which Orbán's Fidesz party has the necessary majority.
The latest news from the night
Biden wants to show Putin "red lines":
China and Russia were the focus of the NATO meeting: the US President sent clear words to Moscow, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron urged caution when dealing with Beijing.
The central quotes
UN sees evidence of organ harvesting from Chinese prisoners:
Hearts, kidneys, livers and corneas are apparently particularly sought after: UN experts report on "credible information" that organs are removed from Chinese prisoners against their will
Committee investigates spying on US reporters and MPs:
The Justice Department under Donald Trump is said to have spied on leading Democrats and journalists.
Now the House of Representatives is investigating.
The new Justice Minister promised consequences
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I wish you a good start to the day.
Your Melanie Amann
