Merkel's Rudderless Party Sinking as SS Hamburg Lists Sharply to Port

‘Chaotic Demoralized Union’: Merkel’s CDU laments ‘bitter day’ after losing big in Hamburg state election

Germany's Social Democratic Party and the Greens won big during the Hamburg election,

leaving CDU far behind © Patrik Stollarz / AFP

Leadership chaos and the recent scandal in Thuringia – where the CDU sided with the tabooed AfD – led voters to punish the chancellor’s party in Germany’s second-largest city, its top-tier members and opponents believe.

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) achieved its worst ever result in the city state of Hamburg on Sunday, scoring only 11.2 percent of the vote and trailing far behind its center-left rivals, the Social Democrats and Greens, who won the support of 39 and 24.2 percent of residents respectively.

This is one of the most embarrassing state election defeats in the CDU’s history, according to Der Spiegel, second only to the 1951 vote in Bremen, where it garnered just nine percent. Unsurprisingly, morale among the Christian Democrats – already dubbed the ‘Chaotic Demoralized Union’ in the media – was as low as their election result.

“It is a bitter day for the CDU in Germany and a historically bad result in Hamburg,” lamented the party’s secretary general Paul Ziemiak. "For us as a union there is nothing to gloss over,” added Daniel Gunther, prime minister of northern state Schleswig-Holstein.

The bitter defeat didn’t come out of the blue; the Christian Democrats have suffered from the leadership crisis which broke out after party leader and designated Merkel successor Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer – or AKK as she came to be known in German media – suddenly stepped aside, sending the party into a tailspin and blowing open the race for the chancellorship.

With AKK no longer at the helm – although she technically leads the CDU – the party lacked the determination and vision needed to win. The defeat in Hamburg was about “leaderlessness,” as Saarland Prime Minister Tobias Hans put it on ARD.

Referring to the selection of a new leader, he said it was important that AKK “has the right to act in order to organize the whole thing,” but failed to mention that Kramp-Karrenbauer’s abdication was due to organization and management skills she couldn’t show.

Earlier this month, a CDU branch in the eastern state of Thuringia defied AKK’s instructions and voted with the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to unseat the Left Party’s State Premier Bodo Ramelow and install the little-known Thomas Kemmerich, from the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP).

The move, which Merkel called “unforgivable,” broke with a consensus among mainstream parties of not cooperating with the right-wing group, and “noticeably overshadowed the Hamburg election campaign,” according to CDU’s major candidate Marcus Weinberg.

“These developments have made us famous and ultimately cost a lot of votes,” he admitted, explaining why voters handed the Christian Democrats their worst result. "Despite a creative and committed election campaign, our own election goals were clearly missed,” Weinberg said.

Meanwhile, Susanne Hennig-Wellsow, head of the Left Party in Thuringia, agreed with the judgement, saying “the taboo breach has hit [CDU] all the way to Hamburg.”

Some say, however, that the “leaderlessness” and the Thuringia scandal aren’t the biggest problems in the party.

“The problems are homemade,” a high-ranking CDU member who refused to be named told Die Welt newspaper. He said the mood within the party was poisoned by envy and resentment instead of mutual support. “Internally, we tend to be malicious when one of us fails – and we don't realize that it all falls back on all of us,” he revealed.

Later in the year, the chancellor’s center-right party faces a string of local elections in Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and the city of Leipzig in the east, the results of which will likely affect the nationwide vote in 2021.

According to recent polls by ARD and Bild, CDU – and its Bavarian allies – still holds the ground with between 26 and 27 percent of voter support, but as the Hamburg vote has shown, predictability is no longer a feature of German politics.

Here's a prediction you can take to the bank - if Germany continues to list to port, especially in the national elections next year, and if they continue to ostracize the AfD, there will be a very rapid and violent rise in far-right extremism. You cannot continue to ignore the presence of Islam in a post-Christian country.

Controversial Germany-Spain Deal on Migrants Comes into Force

Germany takes advantage of left-leaning government in Madrid

African migrants react after crossing the border from Morocco to Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta, Spain

August 7, 2017. / Reuters

As a Berlin-Madrid deal to send back migrants coming though Spain comes into force, critics call it a "symbolic" gesture aimed to calm the political storm in Germany but that will not solve the migrant crisis.

Germany reached a deal on Wednesday for Spain to take back previously registered migrants who show up at the German border. The move is seen as the first step towards implementing a deal which Merkel earlier reached within the ruling coalition to defuse the political dispute in Germany over migration.

Under the Wednesday agreement, migrants picked up at the German border who previously registered in Spain will be returned there within 48 hours, German Interior Ministry spokeswoman Eleonore Petermann said.

While Berlin portrays the deal as a breakthrough in the current gridlock over migrants, some Spanish port cities are concerned there are not enough resources to cope with the new arrivals. On Thursday, the mayor of the Andalusian city, Algeciras, one of the largest ports in Europe, criticized the recent arrival of an NGO rescue ship carrying 87 migrants.

José Ignacio Landaluce told local media that as mayor, he has "to ensure citizens' interests" and that he doesn't want a "social imbalance."

"The Spanish have big hearts, yes, but on this issue we have to use our heads, because there is not enough money," he said.  

Spain overtook Italy to become the largest European gateway for asylum seekers traveling across the Mediterranean, according to recent data from the International Organization for Migration. Over 24,000 have arrived on Spanish shores so far this year – three times more than in 2017.

The vulnerability of the Spanish borders was seen in a recent incident in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, a hub for African migrants trying to reach Europe. In late July, hundreds of asylum seekers attempted to cross into Spain from Morocco, and most of them succeeded. 

Symbolic agreement?

Rafael Ripoll, the president of the right-wing Spanish party Respeto, says that Spain is blindly following orders from Germany. "The only purpose of this symbolic agreement is to help Merkel save face before her own government, which is in trouble right now. And of course, Spain is going to obediently take whatever Merkel throws at us," he told RT.

Ripoll believes that Europe – particularly Spain – can't take in more migrants. "Every week, we see problems plaguing Spanish cities, all because there is no way to control the inflow of migrants, and because there is no way to give jobs to the newcomers."

Meanwhile, "thousands of skilled young Spanish people" are leaving the country every month because the state fails to provide them with opportunities, Ripoll said. "We've made the biggest mistake a nation can make: we have forsaken our own children to take in others."

Merkel's coalition nearly fell apart in June over a rift caused by the migrant crisis. German Interior Minister and Bavaria's Christian Social Union (CSU) leader Horst Seehofer threatened to resign if the influx of asylum seekers to Germany wasn't curbed. A compromise was eventually reached after it was agreed that Germany will prevent migrants registered elsewhere from entering the country and will return them to the point of their departure. However, the political damage had already been done – recent polls show a record decline in the ratings of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling coalition.

Europe is currently experiencing the biggest refugee crisis since WWII. The number of asylum applications reached 650,000 in 2017. 

Half of ‘Deported’ Refugees Never Left Germany, Report Reveals

Islamization - Germany's amazing migrant mess;

an amazingly expensive mess

© Wolfgang Rattay / Reuters

The number of unsuccessful deportations from Germany has increased by more than 200 percent, as every second deportable migrant stayed in the country by not appearing for their expulsion appointment.

An internal evaluation by the federal police found that, as of the end of May, only 11,100 scheduled deportations had been successful out of a planned 23,900, according to the report by Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten.

Some 11,500 refugees were listed as “not found” on their appointed day, with the remaining 1,300 cases abandoned for various other reasons. Around 150 people stayed because pilots refused to take them, and in more than 500 cases, deportation was stopped because of “active or passive resistance.”

The highest level of deportation resistance came from immigrants from Nigeria and Guinea, with 60 people each, followed by Somalia, Syria, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Morocco, Iraq and Eritrea, according to German federal police.

“It creates an enormous amount of work for the federal police that every second person to be deported is ultimately not delivered by the responsible state and local authorities,” Ernst Walter, chairman of the German police union, told Welt am Sonntag. He added that the only way to prevent them from disappearing is to “make much greater use of deportation detention.”

Germany's migrant costs approaching $100 bn

Germany has seen an influx of more than 1.6 million asylum seekers since 2014, mainly from the Middle East and Africa. Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing increasing political pressure from the public to stem the flow, as estimated migrant-related costs reach €78 billion ($91 billion).

Does Little Angela Have the Courage to Stand Up to the School Yard Bully?

Spend on schools or bow to US demands?

German politicians debate NATO strategy

© Matthias Schrader / Reuters

US President Donald Trump has accused Germany of not contributing enough to the NATO budget – but will German Chancellor Angela Merkel dance to Washington’s tune?

On Thursday, Trump warned NATO members that they will be “dealt with” if they fail to fulfill their financial obligations to the US-led military alliance. Germany was singled out as one of those said to be delinquent on their obligations.

Martin Dolzer of Die Linke (Left Party) said that buying into Trump’s ideas may send the world order “into chaos,” citing US policy in the Middle East as evidence. Dolzer stressed that Germans do not want war, and said that more vital issues should be on agenda instead of boosting military spending.

“The German population does not want any more military expenses, the German population needs money for kindergartens, for education, for the growth of civil society organizations and the social sector,” Dolzer said. “There has to be a change. And the people in Germany, I think most of them want this change, but the government does not follow it.”

Though Merkel has shown no interest to raising defense spending, Alternative for Germany (AfD) chief whip Hansjorg Mueller believes she is poised to “bend down before the wish of the big brother” – a reference to Trump and the US.

“Our government is the government of a vassal state and governments of vassal states always obey to the wish of the big brother,” Mueller said.

Mueller believes a rise in defense spending would only further split German society, which is already divided over the chancellor’s immigration policy, and significantly weaken Merkel’s position. “We are viewing the doom of her leadership over Germany,” he told RT.

Nord Stream 2

Apart from its reluctance in meeting Washington’s demands, Berlin is also at odds with its ally over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. The US is opposed to the project and signaled that it might be targeted by sanctions. The measures could also affect German companies.

The situation with the project is “pure blackmail,” said Mueller, adding that he hopes Merkel does not give in the “dead-end game.”

Meanwhile, Dolzer believes the pipeline is necessary for stability. “If we want to have stable organization of the industry this is very, very necessary to build this Nord Stream pipeline and to not follow the sanctions,” Dolzer said, adding that the US government must be reminded that it cannot act like “a monopoly power” around the globe.

2% of GNP going to NATO is far too much. It is at least twice what is needed. Indeed, were it not for the relentless propaganda against Russia, there might be very little need for NATO. NATO was designed to be a deterrent to war with Russia, and now it seems determined to be the cause of it.

The USA is being insistent on raising levels of defense spending in all NATO countries for one reason only - so they can sell more weapons systems to NATO countries. Trump's resurgence of the American economy is significantly dependent upon that very thing.

What he has to do with Nord Stream 2 is very disturbing. In a world where countries treat each other with some semblance of respect, where they recognize the autonomy of other states, the US would have no business even commenting on Nord Stream 2. They oppose it because Trump wants Europe to buy American natural gas which would have to be shipped to them at a premium of about 30% above Russian natural gas through Nord Stream 2. Unable to compete in the marketplace fairly, the US has resorted to bullying tactics that are most unbecoming, almost colonial in its context.

Someone has to punch this bully square in the nose, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is little Angela. If she doesn't, I hope that all EU countries that give-in to the bully will include legislation forbidding them to procure any weapons systems outside of the EU.

'Islam Doesn't Belong to Germany': German Interior Minister Talks Tough on Immigration

Berlin lists a little further to starboard

Seehofer outlines tough new measures on immigration and deportation of Muslim migrants.

Newly-appointed Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has said that “Islam doesn't belong to Germany.” The comments contradict previous remarks from his own chancellor, Angela Merkel.

Seehofer was sworn-in on Wednesday, following protracted negotiations to form a new German government, and made the remarks in an interview with Bild on Friday. Seehofer, chairman of the Christian Social Union (CSU) in Bavaria, also outlined a number of tough new measures to curtail immigration and make it easier for Germany to deport failed asylum seekers.

Seehofer said he would implement a “master plan for quicker deportations” and seek to classify more countries as ‘safe,’ therefore making it easier to deport people to their country of origin. “My message is: Muslims need to live with us, not next to us or against us,” the minister said. “Of course the Muslims living here do belong to Germany.”

An estimated 4.4 to 4.7 million Muslims live in Germany, many from a Turkish background. More than a million middle-eastern migrants have arrived in the country since 2015 after Chancellor Merkel adopted an open-door policy.

The recent surge in popularity for the right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been linked to German dissatisfaction with Merkel's policy, coupled with fears of a large-scale terrorist incident following the Berlin Christmas market truck attack which killed 12 people in 2016.  

Gains have been made by right-wing and anti-immigrant parties in a host of European countries over the last year, most notably in Austria, Denmark and France where National Front leader Marine Le Pen lost a close-fought presidential race to centrist Emmanuel Macron.

‘You Have to Call it by Name’: Merkel Publicly Admits ‘No-Go Areas’ in Germany

The New Normal - Muslim No-Go Zones in Germany

Migrants stay outside the Berlin Office of Health and Social Affairs (LAGESO), October 12, 2015 /

Hannibal Hanschke / Reuters

“No-go areas” do exist in Germany, Angela Merkel admitted in an interview, adding that the arrival of “so many refugees” in the country “has raised multiple questions.”

Speaking with RTL, Merkel acknowledged that there are areas in Germany where people cannot feel safe. She also made it clear that it’s time for the authorities to do something in order to ensure public safety.

“It's always a point to me that [ensuring] domestic security is the state's obligation, the state has the monopoly of power, the state has to make sure that people have the right to it whenever they meet and move in a public space,” Merkel argued.

She then took aim at “no-go areas,” which gained notoriety all across Europe during the refugee influx that reached its peak in 2015. Merkel bluntly dismissed the claim that 'no-go areas' are non-existent in Germany, stressing instead that “there are such spaces, and you have to call that by name and you have to do something about it.”

Merkel, who is steps away from her official fourth term as the Germany chancellor, said her government had a “tough time” in the past. She then referred to harsh criticism over her “open-door policy” and her reluctance to set an upper limit for the new refugee arrivals: “Of course, the arrival of so many refugees has raised multiple questions.”

However, some critics said that Merkel did not allow much self-criticism during her speech. Merkel is not known to have said that she wouldn’t have acted another way when the migrant crisis broke out.

While the chancellor refrained from touching upon the subject of rising violent crime among refugees, her interview came several weeks after a government-sponsored study showed a drastic increase in violent crime committed by male migrants aged 14 to 30. 

The massive influx of asylum seekers led to a spike in violent criminal acts, the study, which was conducted by a group of criminologists and forensic experts, stated. The review was conducted at the request of the German Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth.

Refugee policy became the subject of extensive negotiations between Merkel’s conservatives and the Social Democrats when the two discussed reaching a coalition agreement earlier this year. The agreement, among other points, emphasized the need to crack down on human traffickers and “massive strengthening” of the EU border agency Frontex.

This is good! Unlike some European countries, Merkel is not ignoring the problem of violent behaviour from migrants, nor is she pretending it doesn't exist. 

Merkel Walks Out of Parliament After AfD Leader Lambasts her Support for Migrant Quota System

In several decades as a political junkie, I have never heard of a

head of state walking out of parliament because they didn't like

what the opposition was saying. Is Angela getting tired?

Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses the German parliament on February 22, 2018. © Axel Schmidt / Reuters

German Chancellor Angela Merkel walked out of a parliamentary session after a leader from the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party criticized her support of a proposed EU refugee distribution system.

While Merkel and AfD have never been friends, one particular comment by the party’s co-founder, Alexander Gauland, prompted her to leave the Bundestag on Thursday. That remark slammed the chancellor's support for an EU quota system for accepting refugees.

"Countries want to decide for themselves who they take in. There is no national duty with regard to multiculturalism," Gauland said.

AfD co-founder Alice Weidel also had a lot to say during the session, including her view that Merkel is trying to punish the UK for voting to leave the European Union.

"The EU wants to make an example of Great Britain, a punishment beyond any economic or political reason. This is not how one treats a European partner," Weidel said. "Now Brussels, Paris, and Berlin are afraid that others could follow, that other states in Europe could take back their sovereignty."

She went on to accuse the European Commission of "planning to restrict Britain's access to the single market even during the transition period." Such a plan against Germany's biggest trading partner in the EU amounts to "taking free trade and competition as a hostage and making a failed EU ideology," Weidel said.

"The good trading relationship with Great Britain and the rest of the continent have to be maintained – otherwise Europe will be at a disadvantage in global trade." Merkel appeared to be less offended by Weidel's comments, as she at least remained inside parliament while the AfD leader was speaking.

While some of the AfD leaders' remarks were booed in the Bundestag on Thursday, the fact remains that it has seen a sharp growth in popularity. Recent polling found that it has garnered record-high support, becoming more popular than the Social Democrats (SPD) for the very first time. 

I wonder if the Visegrad group knew they have an ally in the German Bundestag?

Germany Will Once Again Have a Functioning Government, Finally

Merkel strikes power deal with Social Democrats

for German coalition

By Susan McFarland 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Social Democrat Party leader Martin Schulz reached an agreement Wednesday for a new coalition contract. File Photo by Herby Sachs Wdr/ EPA-EFE

UPI -- After weeks of talks, German leader Angela Merkel reached an agreement Wednesday with the Social Democrat Party -- which would structure the Berlin government and keeps the chancellor in office for four more years.

If approved, the agreement would give control of the foreign ministry, finance ministry, and the labor and social ministry to the party, which is led by former European Parliament president Martin Schulz.

Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, under the agreement, would gain the economy ministry while giving up the interior and finance spots.

Bavaria's Christian Social Union, which is tougher on immigration than Merkel, would lead the interior ministry.

The deal needs approval by SPD's membership to move forward.

Four years ago, the majority of the party's rank and file were on board with joining Merkel's government. The group's mood eventually changed, though, and is now more divisive -- with many members saying the Social Democrats would be better at rebuilding in opposition than joining Merkel again.

If the deal is not approved by the 460,000-plus SPD members, Merkel would need to either pursue a minority government dependent on opposition votes to pass legislation -- or to return to the ballot for an election.

If approved, the deal could add four more years of power for Merkel, who has already served for more than 12 years as Germany's leader.

Preliminary Coalition Talks in Germany Suggest Immigration Continue at About 200,000 /yr

New German parliament to cap refugee inflow & scrap tax hike – coalition roadmap

Bundestag, Berlin © Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

German parties have agreed upon a 28-page blueprint, forming a possible basis for breaking the stalemate in coalition talks, according to German lawmakers.

Speaking to reporters following 25-hour-long talks, the leaders of the three parties praised the “excellent” results, but stressed that on many points – notably migration and taxes – there is still much work to be done. The party delegates are now to discuss the draft with members to pave the way for formal coalition talks.

The leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Martin Schulz, who previously shunned the notion of a coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel, has come around to forming a government with her bloc.

“We Social Democrats, in our [leadership] committee, decided unanimously to recommend... to the party congress giving the party leadership a mandate to pursue coalition negotiations to form a government,” Schulz said on Friday.

Merkel is optimistic about the possibility of forming a coalition with the Social Democrats. The chancellor said that the newly-formed government would be a “new awakening” for Europe, vowing also to come to an agreement with France over the future of the EU.

Moving even further to the left could hardly be called a 'new awakening'. Left-leaning governments in the EU are seriously bringing cultural suicide home with reckless and idiotic Islamization. Merkel thinks she can control Islam in Germany, but she will find out too late that it is absurd.

Merkel’s conservative bloc ally, Horst Seehofer, said that if Schulz's party supports the blueprint, a formal coalition agreement may be reached before Easter.

A member of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) as well as another lawmaker from the CDU’s Bavarian sister-party CSU, Dorothee Bar, tweeted the photo of the document’s cover on Friday.

“Many, many hours of painstaking work and alignment are contained in these 28 pages,”member of the Christian Democratic Union or CDU Julia Klockner said.

The draft suggests keeping the number of refugees coming to Germany within the range of 180,000-220,000 per year, according to German media. The document reportedly covered the refugees’ family reunification process, suspending it till a new law is adopted and aiming to finally cap it at 1,000 people per month. The heads of the coalition parties also ruled out the tax increases earlier demanded by the SDP.

Considered a potential breakthrough on a new grand coalition following months of political uncertainty, the document could nevertheless be changed before the start of the formal talks.

Merkel’s conservative bloc, including the CDU and the CSU, embarked on negotiations over the potential forming of a coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) led by Martin Schulz on Saturday. Should the outcome be fruitful, it may pave the way to forming a grand coalition of the two biggest parties.The parties clashed over a number of crucial issues, including refugee policies, the future of the European Union and budgeting.

Germany Still Struggling to Put Together a Functional Government

Good match? Merkel & Social Democrats still at odds on major issues

as coalition talks gets underway

Angela Merkel is apparently doing her best trying to hammer out a coalition deal with the Social Democrats to finally get a functioning government. 

On Sunday, Merkel’s conservative bloc consisting of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian ally, the (CSU), embarked on negotiations over the potential forming of a coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) led by Martin Schulz.

The two sides have just five days to try and find common ground. Should the outcome be successful, it may pave a way to the majority government.

But the parties are still divided on a number of crucial issues which could make a finding a solution palatable to both camps a bridge too far. In fact, in November 2017, Schulz ruled out any possibility of a new government with Merkel. And even though he recently made a U-turn on that position, the SPD chief was clear that his party wants “to push through as many red policies in Germany as possible." In addition, Schulz also faces opposition within his own ranks which wants the SPD to part ways with Merkel’s bloc.

Refugee policies

Confronted by public discontent over her handling of the refugee crisis and the rise of the right-wing Alternative for Germany party, Merkel and her party decided to adopt a tougher policy, including accelerated deportation. In October, the CDU and the CSU agreed to limit the number of asylum seekers entering Germany.

The CSU – the leading political force in Bavaria – went further and proposed even stricter measures. They included cutting benefits to refugees, introducing mandatory age tests for asylum seekers, and extending the ban on refugees to reunite with their families.

These proposals seem to be at odds with the SPD stance. Most recently, the Social Democrats criticized the ideas of suspending family reunification for refugees as well as of mandatory age tests for underage asylum seekers. The SPD is also against the deportation of Syrian refugees, citing the security situation there.

The future of EU

The future of Europe is also a potential stumbling block in the ‘grand coalition’ talks. While Schulz is strongly advocating for the creation of a “United States of Europe” by 2025, (adding that all those who disagree should leave the bloc), the CSU leader Horst Seehofer invited the outspoken euro-skeptic, Hungarian PM Viktor Orban to his party's conference in southern Bavaria.

Orban is known for his staunch euro-skepticism posture and combative attitude towards Brussels. He reiterated his position that nation states should have more power within the Union, particularly in the field of labor and financial policy. Hungary's PM added that he is opposed to “replacing a nation [state’s] responsibility with national irresponsibility.”

Military spending

Another potential hurdle is defense spending. Merkel’s conservative bloc seeks to significantly increase Germany’s defense budget to raise overall military spending to 2 percent of its GDP. The CDU/CSU alliance also advocates increasing the number of the German Armed Forces personnel by 18,000 and providing the military with new equipment and weapons.

The Social Democrats, in contrast, are strongly against increased defense spending, and support a “disarmament initiative.” They also suggest limiting the export of small arms to only NATO and EU countries.

This strikes me as the only sensible plank in Schulz's platform. I hate the reckless and unnecessary spending on militaries in Europe and the sale of arms to countries they could very well end up fighting in the future. It benefits arms manufacturers and no-one else. This is 'deep-state' theology!

The talks with the Social Democrats are considered by some experts to be Merkel’s last chance to form a majority coalition. Should the negotiations collapse, Germany would face new elections or a minority Merkel government.

Meanwhile, public support for the ‘grand coalition’ seems to be waning as the public mood appears to be shifting towards new elections. A recent poll showed that a new vote is backed by more Germans than those supporting a continuation of the coalition talks.

“The trust in the grand coalition is beginning to diminish quite considerably in the German population,” Rainer Rothfuss, a German geopolitics scholar, told RT. He said the next elections may come earlier than expected, and that Merkel has failed as a negotiator while reaching out to the liberals, represented by the Free Democratic Party and the Greens during last year’s failed coalition talks.

Apparently, she is unwilling to attempt a coalition with the AfD and FDP. 

The End of Merkel? Open-Door Migrant Policy Sends Coalition Running for the Exits

After Greeks started painting 'Der Fuhrer' mustaches on Angela Merkel because of her hard-line on their utterly irresponsible finances, she saw the migrant crisis as a way to boost her image to one of compassion. The gambit worked, for awhile, and then the reality of the consequences of inviting a million Muslims into Germany with no vetting began to set in. After 2 years, some politicians are overcoming their political correctness and beginning to realize that Germany is on the road to cultural suicide.

Migrants take selfies with German Chancellor Angela Merkel © Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing an unprecedented political crisis that could upend her image as the “new leader of the west” after the Free Democrats (FDP) abruptly pulled out of negotiations with Merkel’s conservative bloc and the Greens.

Responses to the failed negotiations were immediate. The euro plunged to a 2-month low against the yen, and a planned meeting between Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was cancelled “in view of the political development last night,” according to German government spokesman Steffen Seibert.

Merkel won a fourth term as chancellor in September’s national Bundestag election, but her own party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and its Bavarian ally the Christian Social Union (CSU), lost 65 seats between them — their worst showing in decades.

With her own conservative bloc unable to command a majority in parliament, Merkel attempted to forge a so-called ‘Jamaica’ coalition with the pro-business FDP and the progressive Green Party.

But after more than four weeks of negotiations, FDP leader Christian Lindner announced on Sunday that his party was withdrawing from the proposed political alliance, citing irreconcilable differences between the would-be coalition partners.

Migrant crisis lays waste to Merkel’s coalition

Disagreements over climate, energy, and monetary policy required difficult compromises — but “the elephant in the room” that made the Jamaica coalition untenable is Germany’s migrant crisis, Maximilian Krah, a former CDU politician, told RT.

“The migrant issue is the main issue in the whole of Germany,” Krah insisted. “Whenever you go into private discussions, that’s the issue. But political correctness prevents the German public from debating it openly,” he said.

“If you read the declaration of the liberals when they broke up the coalition talks yesterday night, the migrant crisis was just one word among a lot of others but no one believes that they broke up because [of] the debate on ‘Industry 4.0’ or digital industry.”

Since 2015, over 1 million refugees have flooded into Germany from the Middle East and North Africa. Merkel’s uncompromising open door policy towards migrants galvanized Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which scooped up 13 percent of the vote in September’s election.

Frank Hansel, a member of German parliament from AfD, told RT that Merkel’s unwillingness to change course led to the downfall of her proposed majority coalition — and ushers in the “end of the Merkel era.”

“She was not able or capable or willing to change her policies regarding the euro crisis which still divides Europe", Hansel said of Merkel. “She was not willing to change her policy regarding the illegal mass migration. So this really had to come to an end. The Jamaica government will never come into existence.”

A political system in crisis

Merkel’s options are limited as she attempts to navigate what is essentially unchartered territory in German politics.

The creation of a new majority coalition is unlikely, as it would require the staunchly anti-Merkel Social Democrats (SPD) to join forces with the conservatives. Hours after the Jamaica coalition talks failed on Sunday night, SPD deputy leader Thorsten Schäfer-Gumbel stated unequivocally that his party was “not the spare wheel on Angela Merkel’s careening car,” as cited by Deutsche Welle.

Forming a minority government, while possible, is a “long and humiliating procedure,” Dr. Rainer Rothfuss, a geopolitical analyst and consultant, told RT. “The German political system is in crisis. This has been clear already when we saw the election results in November,” he added.

According to Germany’s constitution, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has the option of nominating someone for the office of chancellor. In this scenario, Steinmeier would likely nominate Merkel, but if she failed to win an absolute majority in the Bundestag, it could trigger a new election within 60 days.

The end of Merkel?

Journalists, pundits, and politicians alike have now called into question the popular mantra that, in the wake of Trump’s presidential election victory, Merkel is the “new leader of the West.” The failed coalition will also likely hurt Germany’s standing within Europe, which has looked to Berlin for political and economic leadership, Rothfuss told RT.

“Germany, at the moment, has lost influence inside the EU, and I think that this reflects also the misguided policies of Germany in the past two or three years which started most of all with the 2015 refugee crisis which led to an influx of over 1 million refugees from the Middle East, and which also led, in consequence, to the Brexit vote,” said Rothfuss.

While Merkel’s fate is uncertain, experts argue that it is clear we are witnessing the “final stage” of her chancellorship.

“We’ve reached the final stage of Merkel’s chancellorship, but I can’t tell you how long this stage will last,” said Krah. “It can last 3 months or 3 years. But you can be sure you won’t see Merkel in charge by the year 2020.”

Merkel Replaced Germany’s Slaughtered Jews with Their 'Worst Enemies' – Karl Lagerfeld

A migrant takes a selfie with German Chancellor Angela Merkel © Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, 84, who serves as head creative director for Chanel and Fendi, struck two raw nerves with one controversial statement, saying Angela Merkel had replaced millions of Jewish Holocaust victims with their "worst enemies," in an apparent reference to the Muslim refugee influx.

Lagerfeld brushed all political correctness aside to bridge the 70-year gap between World War 2 and the current refugee crisis gripping Europe. "One cannot - even if there are decades between them – kill millions of Jews so you can bring millions of their worst enemies in their place," he told the television show “Salut les terriens!” on France's C8 channel on Saturday.

He preceded his inflammatory comment with a warning that he was about to "say something horrific" about Merkel's "huge error" of accepting so many refugees into the country. "I know someone in Germany who took a young Syrian and after four days said, 'The greatest thing Germany invented was the Holocaust,'" he added, as quoted by AFP.

The Hamburg-born fashion designer accused Merkel of trying to boost her own image by letting so many migrants into Germany.

"Merkel had already millions and millions (of immigrants) who are well integrated and who work and all is well... she had no need to take another million to improve her image as the wicked stepmother after the Greek crisis," said the designer. His comments prompted several hundred people to lodge official complaints, according to France's media regulator, the CSA, which said it is looking into the situation.

Around 1 million mainly Muslim migrants – many of them from war-torn Syria and Iraq – are estimated to have entered Germany since 2015, as part of the worst refugee crisis since World War II. Merkel has been criticized both domestically and abroad for her open-door policy for those fleeing war and persecution, with critics citing strains on the social welfare system and a rise in migrant-related crimes.

However, Merkel's CDU party and its Bavarian SCU sister party agreed in October to cap Germany's intake of asylum seekers at 200,000 a year. That number could be increased or lowered by the Bundestag in exceptional circumstances, Der Spiegel reported at the time, citing a draft paper.

EU's Largest Party Calls for EU-wide Ban on Muslim Veil

© Gonzalo Fuentes / Reuters

The EU Parliament’s biggest group, the European People’s Party, has expressed support for a Europe-wide ban of the Muslim veil citing both cultural and security concerns.

“The EPP calls for… A ban on full-face veils (i.e. the burqa or niqab) in public places, both for reasons of security and because seeing one another’s faces is an integral part of human interaction in Europe,” the EPP’s resolution stated, as cited by The Independent.

The party, which currently holds 216 seats of the 751-member European Parliament, has adopted such a measure as official policy under a resolution entitled, "For a cohesive society: Countering Islamic extremism."

The EPP adopted the measure at its congress in Malta this week.

“We want a total ban of face covering in the EU” said Manfred Weber, the group’s leader in the European Parliament, as cited by the The Express. Weber is a member of Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU alliance in Germany with whom the EPP is affiliated.

Other provisions contained include “the avoidance of concentrating thousands of third-country nationals in any one location” and “mandatory integration requirements” for welfare recipients.

While the resolution is nonbinding, an EPP spokesperson called for an EU-level discussion on the matter but admitted that it doesn’t align with current EU policy objectives, reports The Independent.

The EPP boasts both President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and Hungarian PM Viktor Orban as members.

The issue of Muslim veils is being hotly debated elsewhere in Europe, with France passing a contentious ban on Muslim face coverings in 2010, while several areas of Switzerland have adopted similar measures.

And the Netherlands just passed a bill forbidding the use of veils in public buildings and transportation. This is an important step in changing the attitude of cultural suicide that permeates the EU.

Facebook Privacy Under Spotlight as Syrian Refugee Loses ‘Fake News’ Case

 Syrian refugee Anas Modamani takes a selfie with German Chancellor Angela Merkel 

© Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

The question of online privacy and what Facebook is, and isn’t, doing to protect its users is under the spotlight once again after a Syrian refugee lost a case against the social network over fake news posts alleging he was a terrorist.

Anas Modamani, a refugee from just outside Damascus who arrived in Germany in July 2015, after crossing from Turkey to Greece in a small boat, gained notoriety when a photograph of him taking a selfie with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in September 2015 went viral. It was soon used to falsely claim the 19-year-old was a terrorist.

The photo was used in posts and stories alleging the refugee was responsible for the Berlin Christmas market attack in December, the Brussels terror attack in March 2016, and for setting a homeless man on fire in Berlin. Modamani soon became a target for racism and hate as his image was used as a symbol of Germany’s refugee policy.

"I cried when I saw it," Modamani told Al Jazeera. "I want to live in peace in Germany. I fled from the war and bloodshed in Syria to live in safety... I was too afraid to leave my house after I saw what people wrote about me.”

Modamani’s lawyer, Chan-jo Jun, said in January that Modamani was “fighting back based on his personal rights so that no person is able to slander him or accuse him of crimes.”

On Tuesday, however, a German judge ruled that Facebook didn’t have to seek out and delete defamatory posts as it wasn’t the “perpetrator or participant in the smears.”

"Facebook didn’t adopt the statements and the postings as its own opinion," Presiding Judge Volkmar Seipel said, as cited by Bloomberg. "It’s not Facebook that’s claiming these things when users are uploading the picture."

Jun accused Facebook of failing to take sufficient action to stop the defamatory images and posts from being shared. "We need to decide whether to allow Facebook to do whatever it wants – to keep anything online that elicits traffic," Jun said after the ruling. "Lawmakers need to step in."

The ruling appears at odds with Facebook’s policy of removing content it deems inappropriate. The social media giant has come under fire for censoring art, and for failing to remove reported sexually explicit images of children.

Mark Zuckerberg’s company has also been criticized for selectively removing posts it says incite violence, and not removing others. It has reportedly worked with the Israeli government to remove and suspend content and accounts at its request.

Facebook has also been involved in the fake news debate. During the US presidential elections, it was criticized for allowing the spread of fake news stories.

In January, the European Commission warned it would face legal action if it did not eliminate fake news. The company has since begun flagging content it believes is “disputed.”

So it can, and does, flag content that is disputed, but claimed that it shouldn't be held accountable for such disputed content. It seems impossible for FB to be able to identify every item of fake or questionable info, so I'm not sure how far they can be pushed to do so, but there is a need for them to try; it's already approaching the point where one can hardly believe what he reads on FB. 

I am curious, though, why he didn't sue some of the people who actually posted his picture with stories of terrorism. He might have had more success there.

EU Uses Russia as ‘Tool’, Creates Hostile Situation – Former OSCE Assembly VP Willy Wimmer

War with Russia; Nato; European security

Wimmer pretty much nails it; although, keep in mind

he is addressing an RT audience

Former Parliamentary State Secretary in Germany's Defense Ministry and Ex-Vice President of the OSCE's Parliamentary Assembly Willy Wimmer. © Mikhail Voskresenskiy / Sputnik

The EU tries to create a hostile situation against Russia and uses it as a “tool” in terms of the press and influencing the population, German ex-VP of the OSCE Assembly told RT, calling the situation “disastrous.”

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is the world's largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control and the promotion of human rights, freedom of the press and fair elections. 

The OSCE is concerned with early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management, and post-conflict rehabilitation. Its 57 participating states are located in Europe, northern and central Asia and North America and cover much of the land area of the Northern Hemisphere. It was created during the Cold War era as an East–West forum.  Wikipedia

“I think we have a disastrous situation in the EU, and we face, since some years, the situation where they do their utmost to create a hostile situation against the Russian Federation...” Willy Wimmer, also former state secretary to Germany’s defense minister, told RT’s SophieCo.

“...And when it comes to the press and when it comes to influencing the population, they used, really, Moscow as a tool for their own purpose,” he continued, responding to a question about unfounded allegations that Russia interfered with German politics in a bid to influence the federal vote.

“I think it’s so interesting that even the German Security Service – Bundesnachrichtendienst [BND] – just told the public that there’s no influence by the Russian Federation, which looks like a campaign of disinformation. So, I think now they face, in Berlin or in Brussels, an interesting situation. Again, they have to deal with their own problems and not to use Moscow as an excuse.”

The former OSCE Parliamentary Assembly vice president went on to state that Western Europe has feared two things for decades.

“The first is to start a war and have a European battlefield and the second fear is to face something like a US-Russian condominium on Europe,” he said referring to a statement by Germany's Vice-Chancellor and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, in which he said the US and Russia should find common ground – but not at the expense of Europe.

When it comes to European sanctions against Russia, Wimmer said they are in place “because of the coup d’etat in Kiev, which has been organized by the West.”

George Soros' NGOs in Ukraine were involve in the Euromaiden uprising that caused the elected, pro-Russian head of government to flee for his life. Soros' NGOs were created specifically to help former USSR countries with their conversion from communism. Now that communism is gone from that part of the world, Soros' NGOs appear to be fighting Russia and any kind of conservatism. 

“Why do we have sanctions against the Russian Federation? There's no reason,” Wimmer said, adding that such sanctions hurt the EU’s own interests and noting that the bloc will likely follow suit if President Donald Trump removes US sanctions against Russia.

When it comes to NATO, Wimmer accused the alliance of being “outdated.”

As I have been saying for years, this is an organization looking for a reason to exist; if it can't find one; it will create one. That appears to be what it is doing in eastern Europe by making Russia into a bogeyman. It is what appears to have happened in 1992, after the fall of communism, when talk of NATO becoming obsolete first began.

Is it not 'passing strange' that NATO is suddenly reacting to the annexation of the Crimea, 2 and a half years after it happened? Is it a coincidence that their reaction began after candidate Trump started talking about NATO being obsolete?

NATO's purpose is, ostensibly, to prevent war, but there has to be a threat of war for it to prevent. The problem with creating a threat of war is that it often escalates into real war. Do we really want a war with Russia? Are we nuts? Is Europe being made 'more secure' by the hostile actions now occurring on its Russian borders? I would argue that it is less secure now than at anytime in the cold war since Czechoslovakia.

“NATO is outdated, not only because of the remarks of President Trump that NATO is obsolete. NATO is outdated because the European Parliament, the European population never in history voted for NATO as an aggressive alliance. NATO was a defensive alliance and should be restricted on German territory as such. What we see in these days is NATO at the Russian-Western border. This was never in our interest and is never backed by international rules and regulations...” he said.

Wimmer added that if Trump were to start a debate on the alliance’s role and legal structure, such a discussion would be “in favor of the European population.”

Meanwhile, Wimmer stated that although Merkel criticized Trump’s travel ban for citizens of seven mainly Muslim countries, secure borders are also in the interest of Germany and Europe as a whole.

“We are interested in having secure borders, no wars on the other side of the border and no refugees coming by hundreds of thousands to our countries. We should help them live in their own countries and not destroy them, and not destroy the future of these people,” Wimmer said.

He went on to accuse Merkel of opening Germany's borders and “not acting on the basis of our law.”

“We live in a situation where we never lived in before – the German government has to be based on our own laws. When we allow the federal chancellor to do her own business, we are facing a critical situation and when it comes to hundreds of thousands of people of whom we don’t know that they are in the country, of whom we don’t know about their names, their background – I think we never saw, in modern European history, a country being organized like this,” he said.

Wimmer said that when it comes to terrorism situations in various Western countries, we must “blame our own governments for not obeying our own laws” and therefore causing such security problems.

Merkel will stand for re-election in the federal election in September. Whether or not she succeeds in beating out top contender Social Democrat Martin Schulz will, according to Wimmer, depend on other German election outcomes, as well as elections in other Western European countries.

“...All these results will have a major effect on the inner German situation, because in the very moment we all have the feeling, when it comes to Europe, we live on a hand grenade. It can explode every second and this will have a major influence on the German elections in September,” he said.

Merkel’s CDU Human Rights Speaker Quits Party over ‘Open Door’ Policy

President of the German Federal Association of Expellees (Bund der Vertriebenen, BdV) Erika Steinbach (L) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel © Thomas Peter / Reuters

A human rights spokesperson for Chancellor Merkel’s CDU is quitting the conservative party citing sharp discontent with the government’s “political will” to let thousands of unidentified refugees in, despite the risk of terrorists slipping through as well.

Erika Steinbach, a longtime member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the party’s human rights spokesperson, explained her demarche in a Saturday interview with Die Welt.

“Would I vote CDU at the moment? No. Would I join the CDU today? No. I can only draw the honest conclusion of quitting the CDU,” she told the newspaper. 

Steinbach, who until recently was a member of the CDU faction’s leadership, maintained that the government’s decision to allow hundreds of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers into Germany without checking their identity went “against our laws and against EU treaties.”

She claimed that Merkel’s cabinet had deliberately encouraged illegal immigration: “At the Federal Office for Migration, thousands of passports have been identified as counterfeit, without any legal consequences for the respective migrants being drawn. There is a political will behind it.”

She also argued that the failure to identify new arrivals has resulted in a security lapse that has allowed terrorist organizations to send their operatives into Europe.

“With migrants came not only asylum seekers, but also – as many warned from the very outset – terrorists. Our security environment has significantly deteriorated since opening the borders,” Steinbach said.

CDU’s leadership has yet to comment on her decision to resign, though Manfred Pentz, the party head from Steinbach’s home state of Hessen, said that it was “predictable.”

“It would be consistent if she also laid down her Bundestag mandate [her credentials as a lawmaker] which she… owes to the party,” Pentz said.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper has reported that the far-right anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party promptly received Steinbach’s resignation. 

AfD Vice-chairman Alexander Gauland said he will “reach Mrs Steinbach very soon and discuss her future political plans.”

While Steinbach said she isn’t tempted to join the AfD, she expressed hope the party will enter the parliament after September’s general election “so that there is finally an opposition.”

Steinbach herself was the subject of intense criticism last year when she posted an image depicting a blonde child surrounded by South Asian-looking women with a caption atop reading “Germany 2030” and one below with the women asking the child, “Where are you from then?”

"Germany 2030, Where are you from then?"

Many considered the tweet to be openly racist and xenophobic. The backlash forced Steinbach to produce an awkward statement that read, “It is not an aggressive photo, there are no Arabic refugees depicted, just friendly Indians looking curiously and [interestedly] at a child,” as cited by Deutsche Welle.

She also waded into hot water in 2012 when she claimed Hitler’s NSDAP was “a left party” because it had the words “socialist” and “workers’” in its name – a statement that also triggered a barrage of criticism in the German media.

Germany took in some 890,000 asylum seekers in 2015 alone, but the number dropped to 280,000 the following year due to the closure of the ‘Balkan route’ and a migrant deal struck between the EU and Turkey to stem the flow of refugees into Europe, according to AFP.

I suspect there are some polls behind this move with an election in 9 months, otherwise the timing is curious. The reasons she states were more applicable a year or two ago than they are now, so why did it take so long for her to decide?