Greens vote on coalition, SPD appoints ministers
On today's St. Nicholas Day, the third of the traffic light parties will decide whether to agree to the coalition agreement. At the weekend the SPD (with almost 99 percent) and the FDP (with more than 92 percent) had already said yes to the alliance. Will the result for the Greens be that overwhelming? Because not only did the ministerial occupation tear open old dividing lines in the party. The fact that the Ministry of Transport went to the FDP has caused dissatisfaction among many Greens. Anything but clear approval of the coalition agreement would still be a surprise. The will to govern is great in all three parties.
Today, the SPD wants to be the last party to nominate its ministers by name - it will then answer the repeatedly asked question whether its corona and health expert Karl Lauterbach will be health minister. Should Olaf Scholz decide against him, he would certainly need some explanation. Should Lauterbach get the post, he would hardly be able to continue his previous role as a permanent weather expert in all talk shows. Other vacant departments are the defense and interior ministries, the new building department, the development aid ministry and the minister of the chancellery.
On Wednesday, if everything goes according to plan, the new government, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, will be elected and sworn in.
Today and tomorrow are probably the last days of the old government.
Today, government spokesman Steffen Seibert will appear for the last time at the federal press conference.
His successor could be Steffen Hebestreit, Scholz's previous spokesman in the Ministry of Finance.
Lauterbach and the Ministry of Health: He will, he will not ...
Does Olaf Scholz think that he needs "image"?
A strange Berlin chapter was written at the weekend:
Bald-Chancellor Olaf Scholz
and future green
ministers annalena baerbock and Robert Habeck
made the
"image" newspaper
to pay their respects at the charity gala "Ein Herz für Kinder". Although collecting donations is of course a good thing for children, the intimate staging irritated many. Not least because the "Bild" newspaper targeted three leading scientists by name on the same day: It described them in big bold letters as "The Lockdown Makers".
The headline was factually untrue: The three corona researchers had neither requested a general lockdown, nor do they have the power to implement a lockdown. It is also clear: Anyone who is depicted in this way must expect threats and worse. The night before, a torch-carrying mob had ravaged the house of Saxony's Minister of Social Affairs, Petra Köpping. This shows that there is a worrying increase in anger and willingness to use violence in the country.
The "Bild" newspaper has played its part in the heated mood: Since the beginning of the pandemic, it has been rushing against corona measures and scientists in constant outrage. She repeatedly positioned herself against masks, complained about "vaccination bullying" and recently asked accusingly on the front page "What did vaccination actually do?" In July, »Bild« criticized an RKI forecast as a »panic paper«, which then came pretty exactly: the RKI experts had foreseen the current fourth wave.
This aggressive propaganda should not be confused with the necessary journalistic criticism of politicians, authorities and experts in the pandemic: In many media there is currently controversial debate as to whether a general vaccination requirement is right or wrong, and whether it could not have been prevented by better government action . And why the vaccination campaign is so chaotic in the first place - there are many things that can be accused of the government in the federal and state governments.
In the present case, however, it is about something else, namely personalized attacks against scientists.
In the USA, where the media culture war is much more advanced than in this country, Fox News journalist Lara Logan contacted the Corona chief advisor to the White House, Dr.
Anthony Fauci, with the Auschwitz doctor Dr.
Mengele compared.
The hatred in the United States is now so deep that it endangers democracy.
It cannot go that far in Germany.
"Bild" boss Johannes Boie now demanded in a comment that criticism must be appropriately exercised and that "respect for one another" is needed.
If that is actually meant to be serious self-criticism, it would be welcomed.
For Olaf Scholz and his future ministers the question still arises: Why do they think they have to play along?
Corona crisis: is Scholz breaking the fourth wave - or is the wave breaking him?
Austria after Kurz
The previous Minister of the Interior,
Karl Nehammer
, is elected as the new Austrian Federal Chancellor today.
After Sebastian Kurz's surprising complete withdrawal from politics, the entire government had to be rebuilt: The previous Chancellor
Alexander Schallenberg
(who can now go back to his favorite job as Foreign Minister) was obviously only a transitional figure.
Whether Kurz will actually never return to politics remains open, after all, he is only 35 years old.
However, there is much to suggest that - contrary to what Kurz portrays - it was not primarily the birth of his child that led to his withdrawal.
The former king of the polls is currently one of the most unpopular politicians in the country. Many citizens were morally outraged by the chats in which Kurz talked with his troops about post-trade and sabotaged their own government in order to become chancellor himself. And finally, there are serious criminally relevant allegations by the corruption investigators against Kurz and his entourage. The Chancellor's party, the ÖVP, is shedding its skin: The new Chancellor belongs again to the old, "black" ÖVP, which Kurz once dyed turquoise.
We are guaranteed to hear from the new ÖVP Interior Minister
Gerhard Karner
, who runs a museum for the Austrofascist Engelbert Dollfuss in his Texingtal community - and accused political opponents in Lower Austria of using an anti-Semitic code of working "with gentlemen from America and Israel against the country" .
Political earthquake in Vienna: How things continue without a short in Austria
France's right-wing extremist presidential candidate Zemmour
The French presidential campaign got off to a real start this weekend - and one thing is already clear: it will be ugly. The right-wing extremist
Éric Zemmour
is primarily
responsible for this, lamenting the alleged decline of France and blaming Islam for it - that is his great obsession, one could also speak of hatred. At his first election campaign event in a suburb of Paris, anti-racism activists protested in the hall - and were immediately brutally beaten.
Zemmmour has founded a new party called "reconquête" for the election campaign, Reconquest.
And that is certainly not a coincidence based on the Reconquista, the Catholic reconquest of southern Spain from the Arabs.
Zemmour is currently 13 to 15 percent in surveys, our Paris correspondent Britta Sandberg explains the Zemmour phenomenon here.
Far-right presidential candidate Zemmour: Why is an Islam hater, sexist and apocalyptic so popular in France?
On Saturday, the French conservatives, the "Républicains", chose their presidential candidate:
Valérie Pécresse
, a rather moderate candidate, prevailed against right-winger Éric Ciotti, who showed sympathy for Zemmour.
Pécresse, who was once a minister under Nicolas Sarkozy, is arguably the most dangerous candidate for Macron because she could be attractive to a section of the electorate that the president depends on if he wants to win re-election - against Pécresse, Zemmour, Marine Le Pen and the socialist Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, his main opponents.
You can find out more about Valérie Pécresse in the portrait of our author Leo Klimm:
Conservative presidential candidate Pécresse: The woman Macron will be dangerous
Winner of the day ...
... is
Mohammed bin Salman
, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, who is held responsible for the brutal murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018 - by the CIA, but also by the UN. The Crown Prince, who trades under the abbreviation »MbS«, had previously been a darling of the West as the de facto ruler of the country and reformer, and Donald Trump in particular courted him. Since the Khashoggi assassination, he has been considered a persona non grata. US President Joe Biden always spoke to King Salman, not his son.
That is now over: French President Macron visited the Crown Prince on Saturday as one of the first Western heads of state in three years, shook his hands warmly and held his arm.
Macron wants to find a solution to the deadlocked situation in Lebanon, for which he needs Saudi Arabia.
The fact that someone who is held responsible for such a bestial murder is then rehabilitated after all is perhaps understandable from real and geopolitical considerations.
With what kind of flaunted cordiality Macron did, it was unsavory.
For the first time since the murder of Jamal Khashoggi: Macron visits the Saudi Crown Prince
The latest news from the night
Girls and women in Afghanistan are increasingly vulnerable to violence:
women's shelters are closed, male perpetrators are released from prisons: according to human rights activists, the situation for female victims of violence in Afghanistan has deteriorated rapidly.
The Taliban are declining
Arms companies:
the pandemic hits the global economy hard.
According to the peace researchers from the Swedish Sipri Institute, the billion-dollar business in arms continues: The big arms companies even increased their revenues
Election victory for Gambia's president:
The small West African country Gambia has voted - and incumbent Adama Barrow has been confirmed as president.
The vote was seen as a test for Gambia's young democracy
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I wish you a nice St. Nicholas Day!
Sincerely,
Mathieu von Rohr