Angela merkel

Saturday

William Cook

Why we should care about the German elections

German parliamentarians used to pride themselves on being boring, but the past two years have turned Teutonic politics upside down. After a decade of dreary stasis under Angela Merkel, a system designed to run on tramlines has become a rollercoaster ride. So why has the political scene in Germany suddenly become so volatile? And what are the implications of this change of pace for Britain, and the EU? The drama began when Merkel welcomed a million migrants into Germany, a decision which almost destroyed her political career. ‘Wir schaffen das!’ she told Germany. ‘We can do this!’ Unfortunately for her, a lot of Germans disagreed. Her ratings slumped, while those

Tuesday

Henry Newman

The Euro’s badly-needed reform could finally be on the cards

Has Germany finally started to shift its position on the future of the Eurozone? Speaking today, at a conference for the German equivalent of the CBI, Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared to open the door to a new form of governance for the 19-country bloc. Since the financial crisis, the common currency zone has bounced from crisis to crisis, surviving by kicking the can down the road at each critical moment. It has long been obvious that major institutional changes were required to ensure the currency’s long-term viability. During the recent French presidential election campaign, the euro was an important political issue: Marine Le Pen proposed restoring the French franc (albeit in parallel

Tuesday

William Cook

Merkel is right about Trump – so where does that leave Britain?

Angela Merkel has never been a showboating politician. Public speaking isn’t her forte – she prefers to work behind the scenes. That’s why her latest speech has made such big waves, on both sides of the Atlantic. The Washington Post said it marked the beginning of a ‘new chapter in US-European relations.’ The New York Times called it a ‘potentially seismic shift.’ Seasoned US diplomat Richard Haas described it as ‘a watershed’ in America’s relationship with Europe. So what did Merkel say? What did she mean by it? And what are the implications for Germany, and for Britain? Uttered by any other politician, Merkel’s speech last Sunday might not be

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Labour’s nasty manifesto shock – and Merkel’s Nato blunder

Jeremy Corbyn defied his critics by coming across well during last night’s debate and Labour is continuing to enjoy a revival in the polls. But the Labour leader is still facing a tough time in the press: Take a look in the small print of Labour’s plan for government, says the Daily Mail, and there’s a nasty shock waiting for you. The ‘Land Value Tax’ – which has been ‘highly praised by Jeremy Corbyn’ could ‘add more than £2,500 to the annual council tax bill’, according to the Tories. And it’s clear, says the Mail, that LVT would hit those with gardens the hardest. More worryingly though, the proposal ‘would

Friday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Donald Trump will rejoice if Jeremy Corbyn becomes Prime Minister

If, as seems increasingly likely, Jeremy Corbyn becomes British Prime Minister in June, his victory should be greeted not simply with incredulity in the United States, but also elation. A Corbyn triumph should arrive as soothing balm to Donald Trump’s wounded feelings. Corbyn stands for much of what Trump has espoused. Both men revile NATO, favour protectionism, admire Russia and want to upend the traditional political establishment. And both men were long dismissed as having zero chance at winning. And now? A Corbyn victory would help put wind in Trump’s sails. Take foreign policy. Trump was manifestly uncomfortable during his brief visit to NATO, shoving aside the Prime Minister of

Monday

William Cook

Why Brexit Britain should root for a Merkel landslide

Never mind Eurovision. For Germany, the state election in North Rhine Westphalia on Sunday was the big one – the best indication of how Germans will vote in their national election in four months time. The result was a ‘political earthquake’ according to German media – a humiliation for Martin Schulz’s Social Democrats, and a spectacular victory for Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU. For Merkel, a dead woman walking a year ago, September’s national election now looks like hers to lose. How did she manage this remarkable comeback? And what are the implications for Britain, and the EU? Yesterday’s result may have taken German pundits by surprise, but Merkel’s support has been

Thursday

Jonathan Miller

A little too perfect

Emmanuel Macron is going to be the next president of France. I know people are saying Marine Le Pen isn’t out of the race and it’s important to keep the suspense going as long as possible. But I see no scenario in which the French will vote her into the Elsyée.  Le Pen’s attempt to distance herself from the toxic National Front founded by her father, declaring herself an independent, just like Macron, is entertaining. But it will change nothing. The French may claim to be revolutionaries but they are terrified of change and Marine scares them. Avec raison.  So the serious questions are, who is Emmanuel Macron, the future

Wednesday

William Cook

Taking Ivanka Trump seriously is a masterstroke by Angela Merkel

Is Ivanka Trump’s visit to Berlin a triumph for Angela Merkel, or a diplomatic disaster? As always, that depends on which newspapers you read. Germany’s Suddeutsche Zeitung called it a ‘a veritable coup for the chancellor,’ but the headlines in the British press have focused on the boos that greeted Ivanka at yesterday’s W20 Summit, when the President’s daughter described her father as a defender of women’s rights. Sat alongside Ivanka on the conference platform, Merkel looked distinctly awkward – but Ms Trump’s appearance wasn’t entirely met with groans and jeers. Her other comments were greeted with polite applause and, on one occasion, even cheers (she praised Merkel for enforcing

Wednesday

Melanie McDonagh

Theresa May makes a stand against Saudi dress codes

Well, Theresa May met half of the Foreign Office’s dress code for women in Saudi Arabia when she arrived there yesterday. Her coat was loose, you couldn’t take exception to her trousers, but it was the hair that was the great thing. She was bare-headed, just like Angela Merkel was when she turned up in the Kingdom. The vicar’s daughter and the pastor’s daughter have both made a stand, in a country where women normally have the equivalent of a bin liner to wear when it comes to fashion.  This kind of thing matters.  For a woman head of government to dress for a visit to the Kingdom pretty well just as

Monday

William Cook

The reports of Angela Merkel’s political demise have been greatly exaggerated

Once again, the pollsters got it wrong. Yesterday’s election in Saarland was supposed to be the beginning of the end for Angela Merkel, and the start of the SPD revival under their new leader Martin Schulz. And yet, against the odds, Merkel’s conservative CDU has beaten the left-leaning SPD by more than ten per cent, a result which bodes well for her election campaign this autumn, and her bid to win a record-breaking fourth term as Chancellor. Last week, the signs for Merkel’s CDU seemed pretty bleak. Saarland’s CDU leader, so-called ‘Mini Merkel’ Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, went into this election with just one more seat than the resurgent SPD. With two

Thursday

The Spectator

Saving the children

When a humanitarian tragedy disappears from our newspapers, there are two possibilities: that the crisis is over and life for survivors is gradually returning to normal — or that the human toll has become so routine as to no longer be considered newsworthy. Sadly, the deaths of migrants from North Africa and the Middle East as they attempt to cross the Mediterranean to seek a new life in Europe fall into the latter category. Eighteen months after the photographs of little Alan Kurdi’s body on a Turkish beach generated a huge swell of public emotion, entire families are still dying on a regular basis. In the first ten weeks of

Friday

Freddy Gray

On trade, and much else, Donald Trump and Angela Merkel are worlds apart

Oh dear. Anybody who thought that, contrary to expectations, Angela Merkel and Donald Trump might get along seems to have been gravely mistaken. The meeting between the two world leaders was meant to have been held on Tuesday, but was put off by a snow storm. Things still looked pretty chilly in Washington today. Seated next to each other in the White House for the first photo-op, the Donald and the Angela – two leaders with obviously antithetical worldviews – looked terrifically awkward. They didn’t shake hands. Angela seemed slightly more civil. She tried to talk to the president. He just ignored her. The press conference was only slightly warmer. The closest moment to friendliness was when

Monday

William Cook

How will Mummy Merkel deal with Toddler Trump?

The irresistible force meets the immovable object in Washington tomorrow, as Donald Trump finally comes face to face with Angela Merkel. It seems highly unlikely that they’ll emerge from this meeting holding hands. Not only do these two world leaders disagree about (almost) everything, their personalities could hardly be less compatible. Mrs May may simper that ‘opposites attract’ but Merkel, not May, is Trump’s polar opposite. There’s little prospect of any personal chemistry at the White House this time around. But does this antipathy matter? Of course not. If anything, it’s a plus. In truth, the value of cordial relations between US presidents and foreign premiers is almost entirely confined

Thursday

James Forsyth

Theresa May’s racing certainty

There are few things more predictable than people talking about the unpredictability of politics. We live in an age, we are told incessantly, in which anything can happen politically — and regularly does. Yet there is one exception. Westminster is already sure about the result of the next general election: a majority for Theresa May. One long-serving Tory MP tells me the party has never been more certain of victory in his lifetime. The Tories, with their 15-point poll lead, do look far better placed today than they did, say, 18 months before either of the Thatcher landslides, in 1983 and 1987. It isn’t just the Tory tribe who are

Thursday

Taki

High life | 26 January 2017

 Gstaad The snows came tumbling down just as the camel-drivers headed back to the Gulf. In fact, they never saw the white outdoor stuff. And a good thing it was, too. The outdoor stuff makes everything look so pretty that the glitzy types might have been tempted to return. God forbid. Let them stick to the indoor white stuff. The problem with Gstaad is the local council. They remind me of the EU: they’re intransigent, short-sighted and stick to a losing game. In Brussels they keep passing more and more laws and regulations. In Gstaad, they keep putting up their prices and building more and more apartments. As a gentleman

Monday

James Forsyth

Why the Germans are so worried about the Trump administration

One of the advantages for Theresa May in being the first foreign leader to visit the Trump White House is that other European government are eager for information about what he actually plans to do. Both Handelsblatt and Spiegel have good pieces detailing the German government’s concerns about its lack of contact with, and information about, the new administration. Spiegel reports that an offer from Angela Merkel’s team for her to travel to the US at short notice to meet the new president has not yet received a reply. While the German Ambassador to the US’s last meeting with Jared Ksuhner, Trump’s son in law and—by general agreement—the most powerful

Wednesday

Gavin Mortimer

Unlike Merkel, Trump understands the Islamist threat to the West

The reaction in Europe to Donald Trump’s recent remarks critical of the continent was all too predictable. It was an echo of the response when, following the Islamic terror attacks in November 2015 that left 130 Parisians dead, Trump said: ‘Paris is no longer the same city it was….they have sections in Paris that are radicalised, where the police refuse to go there. They’re petrified.’ On that occasion the liberal media and the French Establishment reacted with outrage, rejecting the idea that the Republic had lost control of parts of Paris. The mayor, Anne Hidalgo, even threatened legal action against Fox News when they repeated Trump’s assertion. Now it’s Angela Merkel

Tuesday

William Cook

Trump has given Merkel a new lease of life

Donald Trump’s Times interview has been a big story in Britain, but the President Elect’s parallel interview with Bild Zeitung (Europe’s largest circulation newspaper) has made an even bigger splash in Germany. Why so? Because Trump’s comments about Germany were a lot more pointed – and specific – than the pro-Brexit platitudes he tossed to Michael Gove. Trump’s remarks about Merkel’s ‘catastrophic mistake’ of ‘letting all these illegals [sic] into the country’ hardly came as a surprise. After all, when Merkel won Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, Trump tweeted that ‘they picked the person who is ruining Germany.’ Yet until this week, there were still some Germans who thought

Thursday

Ed West

The truth behind Germany’s ‘Mein Kampf’ sales boom

A dead white man called Adolf Hitler has sold nearly 100,000 copies of his memoir, Mein Kampf, since a new edition was published last year in Germany. The book wasn’t officially banned in the country, but the copyright was owned by the state of Bavaria which prevented new editions being made. I have to admit to never having read Mein Kampf, largely because I’m quite small-minded and if everyone says a book is terrible I can’t be bothered to try it.  Hitler wasn’t much of a thinker; even his many detractors would admit he was more of a doer. So what explains the renewed success of his book in Germany? Is this

Thursday

James Forsyth

Europe’s year of insurgency

After the tumult of 2016, Europe could do with a year of calm. It won’t get one. Elections are to be held in four of the six founder members of the European project, and populist Eurosceptic forces are on the march in each one. There will be at least one regime change: François Hollande has accepted that he is too unpopular to run again as French president, and it will be a surprise if he is the only European leader to go. Others might cling on but find their grip on power weakened by populist success. The spectre of the financial crash still haunts European politics. Money was printed and