Today, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will speak about Europe's role in climate protection.
It is also about Emmanuel Macron, who opens the French election campaign - and Pope Francis.
Why German climate policy is made in Brussels
It is once a year that the EU is looking for a stage:
The State of the Union speech
, given today in Strasbourg by
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen
, is intended to show the citizens of Europe that the
EU is not an abstract bureaucracy, it is concretely shapes politics
. As is well known, the world or Europe has hardly been featured in the German election campaign - and key future issues are not determined in Berlin, but primarily in Brussels.
Von der Leyen will certainly address in her speech how the EU launched
a 750 billion euro reconstruction
fund in the corona pandemic
to support the economy - and the
fight for the rule of law in Europe
should also be an issue, in view of the increasingly autocratic governments in Poland and Hungary.
But the biggest issue that the EU has to deal with politically is climate protection.
Contrary to what the German election campaign suggests, this is also being negotiated primarily in Brussels. On the one hand, the corona billions are to be partially invested in green projects: with the “European Green Deal”,
the EU is to become climate-neutral by 2050
. In this context, an EU program called “Fit-for-55” has also been on the table since July: it is intended to reduce CO₂ emissions in the EU by 55 percent by 2030. It is a classic attempt at compromise, because while these proposals are rejected as too radical in Poland, for example, they do not go far enough for other Europeans - the decision has to be made, the member states are divided.
The question of when combustion engines may still be allowed is important for German car manufacturers.
Germany will play an important role in this decision - and depending on who wins the federal election, Berlin will probably behave differently.
In any case, von der Leyen will certainly be promoting her climate policy today.
And try to remind the people in Germany that many big questions are not decided in Germany alone - even if it sounds like that in the election campaign.
Climate protection package from the EU Commission: The green rift
Macron starts the election campaign in 2022
In France,
Emmanuel Macron has
now finally started the election campaign for
the presidential elections in April 2022
.
The weekend already had the socialist
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo
and right-wing populist Marine Le Pen
officially announced their candidacy.
Yesterday evening, President Macron announced a significant increase in funds for the police: an additional 1.5 billion euros are earmarked for the budget of the Interior Ministry in 2022 - a large part of this is to be invested in equipment, video surveillance and new uniforms. In addition, Macron wants to introduce a parliamentary control body for the police in order to strengthen the population's trust in the police after the Black Lives Matter protests. Macron has not officially announced whether he will run again, but everyone is assuming it will. And the president continues to occupy the contested field of internal security in this election campaign.
The conservative
Xavier Bertrand
, who according to surveys could
pose
a threat to Macron, has declared security policy to be one of the most important issues in his campaign, similar to his party rival
Valérie Pecresse
. The official presidential candidate - or the candidate - of the conservative camp has not yet been determined, the party will soon vote whether it should be decided in primary elections. Macron's announcement makes it clear once again that he does not see his most dangerous competitors in the center-left camp, from which he originally came, but rather the center-right.
Although it is still likely that Macron will face right-wing populist Le Pen again in a second ballot, competition is emerging from even further to the right: The
Islamophobic Eric Zemmour
could run and take away the votes she would need to vote on one of the two front seats to land.
One thing is certain: whoever will govern France in the future will be of great, possibly even existential, importance for Europe.
French opponents of vaccination and their fight against Macron: The hatred of the "tyrant in the Élysée"
The President's Murder: The Mystery of Haiti
Do you remember the bizarre story of the
assassination of the Haitian President?
Jovenel Moise
had been deliberately killed by a killer squad in his residence. In the country where organized crime is arguably the greatest power, there are, on the one hand, many possible perpetrators - and, on the other hand, so many suspects that the perpetrator remains a mystery to this day.
Now the matter has taken another turn: the
incumbent Prime Minister Ariel Henry
is to be charged by the investigating prosecutor because he had contacts with one of the suspects.
So is the prime minister behind the ex-president's assassination?
Or is that another intrigue?
In a detailed research, my colleagues Marian Blasberg, Alexander Sarovic and our colleague Antonia Schäfer reported the state of affairs a few weeks ago - I recommend the text again if you are interested in the crime thriller.
Our team also visited the now suspected prime minister.
Killed Haitian President: Who commissioned the murder - a preacher, a drug dealer, corrupt politicians?
Story of the day: SPIEGEL visits the German embassy in Kabul
I strongly recommend a text from our reporter
Christoph Reuter
, who has been in Kabul since last week - and who was now asking himself:
How is the German embassy doing?
Has it been looted like other diplomatic missions?
He was surprised: not only because he encountered extremely polite and formalistic Taliban guarding the representation.
But also because he
found
the Afghan security and cleaning team
inside the embassy
, which continues to ensure that no unauthorized persons enter the building.
And who take care of
the abandoned German explosive
dogs, Cocker Spaniel Elfi and Munsterländer Sam.
When the Taliban wanted to go to the embassy, they were turned away, says one of the porters: “We were afraid, but told them they couldn't just get in here.
That is Germany behind the steel gate. "
Visit to the diplomatic quarter of Kabul: Ziyad, the explosive dogs and whoever else is waiting in the German embassy
Podcast: Do we need climate education in the ZDF weather report?
The huge floods of the past few months have shown that our weather is changing;
extreme events such as heat waves or heavy rain
are becoming more common.
And yet only very few meteorologists address climate change in their weather forecasts.
Anders
Özden Terli, the ZDF weather presenter
: He addresses global warming and its impact on our weather.
He thinks: We have to be confronted with what is in store for us.
Does the climate crisis have to be dealt with in the weather report?
And which phenomena can we read about global warming of the future today?
This is what this episode "Climate Report" is about - the SPIEGEL podcast on the state of the planet.
The link to the current podcast
Winner of the day ...
... is
Pope Francis
, 84, who did not spare himself on his 34th trip abroad - he has only just recovered from a serious bowel operation: he put four days, five cities, twelve speeches and sermons behind him, today is the last Day. After Francis gave the Hungarian autocrat
Viktor Orbán
the cold shoulder during a seven-hour visit to Budapest, he was celebrated for three days in little Slovakia.
SPIEGEL correspondent Frank Hornig, who accompanied the Pope on his trip, says: “My impression is that the older he gets, the less heedes he takes on his conservative curia, which often enough tries to slow him down.
In Bratislava he passionately persuaded Europeans to promote integration - and warned that the continent should not be sealed off from those seeking help. "
The latest news from the night
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defends her choice of clothes at the Met Gala:
»Hypocrite« or »Heroine«?
The left-wing US MP Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez caused a sensation with her appearance at the exclusive Met Gala - and for criticism.
Now she justifies herself
Alanis Morissette distances herself from documentary films about her life:
"Not the story that I agreed to tell": Alanis Morissette feels that she is misrepresented in a documentary.
The musician directs serious allegations to the film team
In a nosedive:
FC Barcelona was once the greatest that football had to offer - it stood for game culture, spectacle, success.
Today, without Lionel Messi, he meets FC Bayern free of any ambition
The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today
Friedrich Knapp and his fashion company New Yorker: The billionaire from the Hitler villa
Mazar-i-Sharif: Why 1000 refugees have to hide in the city, even though private charters are waiting for them at the local airport
Morocco: The royal family is trying harder and harder to put European partners under pressure - and scientists
Reviving an Extinct Species: Would it be a Good Idea to Bring the Mammoth Back to the Arctic?
I wish you a good start to the day.
Sincerely,
Mathieu von Rohr