EU candidate status for Ukraine: decision in Brussels
The Chancellor's trip to Kiev yesterday will
have an impact
today in Brussels and
next week's EU summit
.
With this journey and all the details of the staging,
Olaf Scholz
has proven that he
is misjudged as the eternal quiet footsteps
.
The term »historic« is overused at the moment – so let's say it was a very important trip.
You can already see the title of the film: night train to Kyiv.
The pivotal scenes in this film would take place in the saloon of the French wagon.
Furnishings: Velvet chairs, ruched curtains and dark wall paneling.
There in the salon, Scholz met his fellow travelers, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, for nightly negotiations.
It was the star cast of the EU.
Romania's President Klaus Johannis traveled from Bucharest in the morning
on
,
as an important representative of the eastern EU.
With this constellation, it was clear what the gift to Ukraine would be:
the guests support Ukraine's EU accession candidate status
.
Today the EU
Commission
intends to make
its
recommendation
as
to whether the
Ukraine
should receive the hoped-for status.
All 27 EU countries have to decide whether they want to follow the recommendation.
They will probably negotiate this at the EU summit next week.
It is expected that candidate status will be approved subject to conditions, but this has not yet been decided, and
some heads of state and government have concerns
.
My colleague Özlem Topçu writes in the SPIEGEL editorial that Ukraine's accession candidate status is »
the least that the Europeans can concede to Ukraine
.
This status is not a gift to the country, but is in Europe's geopolitical interests and is the right political reaction to the help that the Ukrainian people are currently providing for Europe.«
Also read about the Chancellor's trip to Kyiv: And then even Olaf Scholz becomes pathetic for a moment
You can find more news and background information on the war in Ukraine here:
That happened at night:
Ukrainian politicians reacted positively to Olaf Scholz's visit.
More heavy shelling in the east.
And: The United States is demanding "humane treatment" of foreign prisoners from Moscow.
The overview.
Pictures from the visit to Kiev - on the Scholz train:
On the 113th day of the war in Ukraine, the German Chancellor went to Kiev, accompanied by Italy's Prime Minister Draghi and French President Macron.
pictures of their trip
Russia's methods of finding new soldiers:
Putin's troops are suffering heavy losses in the war against Ukraine - he urgently needs new soldiers.
The ruler shied away from general mobilization, so the military resorted to other means
Union sees expectations of Scholz's visit to Kiev for arms deliveries disappointed:
Chancellor Scholz did not make any concrete commitments for the delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine in Kiev.
The Union criticizes that
AfD party conference: What will become of Tino Chrupalla?
The federal party conference of the AfD
begins today
and will last three days.
Venue is the Saxon Riesa.
People feel comfortable in Saxony, despite the first round of district and mayoral elections last Sunday, which was disappointing for the party.
A new national board is to be elected in the Sachsenarena
.
That was originally planned for December.
But the party postponed the event to the summer due to a “duty of care” without mentioning what the participants should be protected from: from being infected with Corona.
The Corona period has not been able to help the party politically, no matter how much exposed members tried to discredit the pandemic policy of the current and previous federal governments.
The AfD seems to have been less concerned with content than with itself for many months anyway. It
publicly celebrated power struggles
, whereupon
Jörg Meuthen
resigned as second party leader and finally left the party entirely.
Things aren't going well for the party.
She got two percent less in the 2021 federal election than in the previous one.
This was followed by three state elections in which it also fell short of its expectations.
Since Meuthen's retirement,
Tino Chrupalla
has been the sole leader of the party.
He is standing for re-election and my colleagues Ann-Katrin Müller and Severin Weiland think he has a good chance.
Whether he is elected to the top alone or with
Alice Weidel
(his previous co-group leader in the Bundestag) also depends on a change in the statutes that is being debated today.
So far, the party has actually provided for three chairmen, but in recent years it has always been led by a duo - there has never been a single leader.
It is still unclear whether the Thuringian AfD boss
Björn Höcke
– who the constitutional protection lists as a right-wing extremist – will run for the federal executive board.
My colleagues hear that many in the party consider this unlikely.
However, they also hear that
Höcke will play a central role in the deliberations on many applications
and may even become chairman of a new party structure commission.
It would be
his first party task with a nationwide function
.
Chrupalla, on the other hand, intends to get on well with Höcke, which can be seen from who would be welcome on the federal executive board.
Of course, Meuthen's friends are out of the question for him, Höcke's friends are.
You have to give the party one thing.
When it comes to political orientation, it doesn't seem to have any orientation difficulties: it's always going
sharply to the right
.
Federal party conference of the AfD in Riesa: Chrupalla's list
Loser of the day...
...is the
summer
.
It's supposed to be warm today,
even very warm at the weekend
.
We should enjoy it, even if it is no longer possible without any worries.
The connection between weather and climate is complicated.
But as soon as the temperatures get unusually high, the fear of the consequences of climate change is back and the unrest as to whether the necessary political action will be taken to counteract it.
A climate conference in Bonn
ended yesterday
-
environmental protection groups expressed disappointment at the results
.
The meeting showed once again how far apart the interests of the negotiators are from the reality of the people who are already suffering from the consequences of climate change, the Climate Action Network said.
The ten-day conference in Bonn had the task of preparing for the
forthcoming climate summit in Egypt
in November.
The further prospects: murky.
Also read about climate change: How Putin's war is weakening the fight against climate change
The latest news from the night
ISS space station has to avoid debris from Soviet satellites:
Scrap parts in threatening proximity: The ISS had to change its trajectory to avoid a debris field.
The background is a Russian weapons test from last year
Attack on well-known drug dealers – uninvolved Dutch tourist killed:
The woman was apparently sitting nearby by accident: there was an attack on a drug dealer in Colombia.
A traveler from the Netherlands was fatally hit
Musk is aiming for "at least one billion" Twitter users:
Elon Musk has spoken about his plans for Twitter - but remained vague on key points.
Meanwhile, he is being sued by a Dogecoin investor for $258 billion
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Why paramedics should pay 1456 euros for an internship:
There was a lot of outrage about the Berlin fire brigade on social media recently: an internship as a paramedic costs four digits there.
A call to Marco König from the rescue service professional association
Parents Column You like to play on the computer?
Tell me about it!
When children prefer to spend their free time in front of the console, many parents have a problem with that.
Games can even enrich family life
When Yugoslavia's workers ran the factories:
More personal freedom in socialism, and workers understand more about companies than bureaucrats: This is how Head of State Tito steered Yugoslavia into an economic and tourism boom.
Until the downside revealed itself
I wish you a good start into the day.
Yours, Susanne Beyer