The situation in the morning: The green 1500 euro problem

unfaithful stupid

Annalena Baerbock

and

have important appointments today.

As Foreign Minister, Baerbock meets her counterparts from the USA, France and Great Britain in Berlin.

It's about Russia, Ukraine, the question of how to prevent a military escalation in Eastern Europe.

Habeck is on the road in Bavaria, the Economics Minister wants to convince Prime Minister Markus Söder that the construction of wind turbines in the Free State should be approved a little more generously.

War and climate:

issues that deserve and demand the full attention of green officials.

All the more annoying for the two still party leaders are the noise caused by an issue that seemed to be over for a long time.

It's about the

that the Greens board approved not only for the employees of the office, but also for itself for the pandemic deprivation in 2020.

1,500 euros, not the world, but unseemly enough that they briefly caused a stir during the election campaign, also because the party was not transparent about the matter.

Internal auditors criticized the self-service, the management paid back - done.

thought.

After a few reports

.

DER SPIEGEL revealed that, and the question is: Why didn't the Greens reveal it themselves?

Official investigations have been going on for two weeks, and the President of the Bundestag was informed about the request of the prosecutors in December because five of the six board members sit in parliament and enjoy immunity.

There would have been time enough to publicize the process, which would become public anyway.

Although the accused are far from being guilty, it now looks as if the Greens wanted to hide something.

As my colleague Jonas Schaible puts it so beautifully:

The consequences?

Baerbock and Habeck will certainly continue to take care of Russia and climate protection.

But the party congress is in ten days, and the base will need to speak.

After all, the previous dual leadership is retiring from the party office, so there is no need to fear being punished.

That doesn't apply to others like

, who wants to jump from the deputy post to the top.

• Suspicion of infidelity against Baerbock and Habeck: The most oppressed

What did Pope Benedict XVI know?

Will the Catholic Church finally keep its promise to

?

Will those responsible for covering up or even covering up crimes finally be clearly named - regardless of famous names?

There are answers today when the

of a law firm is presented in Munich, which is supposed to work up cases of

between 1945 and 2019.

The report is said to be more than 1,500 pages, hundreds of which are said to deal with the

alone .

This is particularly explosive because it deals with the

regards.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was Archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982. At that time, Peter H. was transferred from Essen to Bavaria after sexually assaulting minors, where he continued to sexually assault boys. Did Ratzinger protect the priest, as he is accused of? Or did he really not know anything about the man's history?

The current Archbishop of Munich and Freising,

, wants to give an initial statement on the report in the afternoon, but will not comment in detail until a week later - after all, he too should only see the document when it is published.

Marx wanted to resign last summer in order to take responsibility for the abuse scandal, including for possible misconduct by his predecessors.

Pope Francis refused.

It cannot be ruled out that the cardinal will now renew his resignation.

• Witnesses to Abuse in the Catholic Church: The Devil Behind the Church Door

disappointed expectations

Joe Biden has been President of the United States since January 20, 2021.

I asked our SPIEGEL correspondents in the US to sum up the first Biden year from their perspective in two or three sentences:

• "So far, Joe Biden has not lived up to the expectations of many Americans," says my colleague

  Roland Nelles

  in Washington.

  »Instead of the promised stability, the country is still in Corona crisis mode.

  The President is looking extremely weak at the moment and is reminiscent of the unfortunate Jimmy Carter, who ended up serving only one term.«

• René Pfister

  in Washington takes a similar view and also draws the Carter parallel: »Joe Biden promised too much and kept too little.

  He acted like he could become the new Franklin D. Roosevelt.

  Now he has to be careful not to become the next Jimmy Carter.”

• Marc Pitzke

  , for SPIEGEL in New York, sums up: "US democracy is faltering, we're still writing about Trump, we're still working from home, and the supermarket shelves are empty.

  The only thing that seems to be better is that we no longer wake up every morning with a new Twitter shock.«

Not good grades for the man in the White House who took office to reunite America after four years with Donald Trump. There is a lot of

in the country, Biden admitted in his personal assessment of the first anniversary. In fact, the polls show how dissatisfied people are with their president. But he insists that his first year was “a year of tremendous progress”.

In fact, the President can point to successes:

economic growth, falling unemployment, rising wages, a trillion injection for the renovation of the ailing infrastructure.

inflation is rising and rising, electoral reform is being blocked by Democratic senators, as is the heart of his presidency, the big investment package for climate and social affairs (which Biden now wants to split up).

And to make matters worse, Trump is not letting up either, continues to rush and undermine Biden's promise of reconciliation to the best of his ability.

The midterm elections in Congress are in November.

If the Republicans gain control of the House and Senate, there is a risk of a total blockade of all the President's plans.

The window of opportunity to turn the mood in the country in his favor is closing fairly quickly for Biden.

• Appearing before the press: Joe Biden's botched restart

Loser of the day...

… is Boris Johnson.

Britain's prime minister is braving the increasing pressure from the lockdown parties at his official residence.

Yesterday Boris Johnson tried a cheap diversionary maneuver: Despite the still enormous number of infections, he declared the pandemic (for the second time) to be over – almost all corona rules will soon be lifted.

Not (primarily) because then you can celebrate legally again at 10 Downing Street.

The step is part of "Operation Red Meat," the "raw meat" that the prime minister wants to throw down at critics in his own ranks to appease them.

But the rebellion won't be that easy to put down: Apparently frustrated Tory MPs are collecting votes for a vote of no confidence in Johnson.

Because the constituency of one of the leaders is famous for its pork pies, the British media are talking about the "pork pie coup".

Allegedly, the chances are not bad that the pork pie putschists will get together the necessary threshold for an attempt to vote out.

The latest news from the night

• Seven-day incidence rises to more than 630 for the first time:

  The Robert Koch Institute registered 234 new deaths related to the corona virus within 24 hours.

  There were also 133,536 new infections.

  The seven-day incidence stands at 638.8

• Donald Trump concedes defeat in Supreme Court:

  the former US President

  refuses to release documentation on the storming of the Capitol to the committee of inquiry.

  Now he failed with a corresponding lawsuit before the Supreme Court

• Antibiotic resistance is responsible for more than 1.2 million deaths:

  Many infections have lost their terror through antibiotics.

  But bacteria can become insensitive to the drugs.

  A research team has now estimated how big the problem is for 2019

The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today

• Fighting Omicron: China's no-Covid policy threatens global economy

• Cryptocurrency Inside Report: Who Will Win The Race – Bitcoin Or Ethereum?

• Wannsee Conference 1942: »Remember the 6 million!!!«

• Austria's ski tourism in crisis: Fear is rampant on the Alm

Have a good day.

Heartfelt,

Yours Philip Wittrock