But they won’t.
That the SPD even uses the word “could” says it all.
Germany’s ties with China chould change fundamentally – SPD leader.
Germany would be forced to cut ties with China in the way it has with Russia should China attack Taiwan, the leader of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) told the weekly Die Zeit in comments published on Wednesday.
Like duh. Always has been. Otherwise they wouldn’t call it Berlin.
The street violence in Berlin on New Year’s Eve has triggered a debate on law and order ahead of regional elections in several states, including Berlin. Bavaria’s center-right Premier, Markus Söder from the Christian Social Union (CSU), lashed out at the center-left government in Berlin claiming it could “neither organize elections nor guarantee the safety of its citizens”.
What’s not to like?
Oh, yeah. Commercial real estate is taking a dive now too.
German Real Estate Deals Plunged 50% in Fourth Quarter, BNP Says
Germany’s real estate market took a deep hit in the fourth quarter as investors shied away from deals on the back of soaring financing costs.
Total investments in the country’s commercial property sector only reached €9.9 billion ($10.6 billion) in the last three months of 2022, a decline of 50% compared with the five-year average for the period, according to a report released by BNP Paribas’ real estate unit on Monday. The development is largely due to soaring interest rates, a weakening economy and record inflation, it said.
That means poison attack.
Iranian man held in Germany over suspected chemical attack – A 32-year-old Iranian man has been arrested in Germany for allegedly plotting an “Islamist-motivated” attack.
The man had been plotting to use cyanide and ricin to commit a “serious act of violence.”
If the Germans don’t know about losing energy bets, nobody does. Old Vlad better listen up.
Putin has gambled away gas leverage, says German vice-chancellor – Robert Habeck says ‘half of our eggs were in the basket of Putin’ but Germany is now recovering capacity.
Vladimir Putin has gambled away his gas leverage over Europe, Germany’s vice-chancellor has claimed as he sounded a note of cautious optimism over his country’s energy supplies during a visit to Norway.
They’re all too yellow to admit that none of this will deliver enough energy in their lifetimes, if ever at all.
Germany and Norway reach blue hydrogen agreement – Germany’s RWE and Norway’s Equinor have agreed to supply Germany with low-emissions hydrogen fuel. The long-term plan is to provide 100% cleanly sourced green hydrogen.
What is blue hydrogen? For years, the prospect of clean hydrogen fuel — which emits mostly water vapor when burned — has excited those hoping to abandon fossil fuels.
However, the production of completely clean “green” hydrogen, which is separated from water with power generated by clean renewables such as solar and wind, is not currently viable at a large scale.
The alternative “blue” hydrogen, which is produced by burning gas, remains a cheaper option and aims to capture and store more than 95% of emissions.
And defense for free (from Dire Straits, sort of).
Our German Ally: Tanking.
Putin has given any number of reasons (all of them nonsense) to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. One of them was that Russia was “threatened” by NATO’s expansion. That is, to put it mildly, unconvincing. Russia’s grumbling about Ukrainian independence dates back to the Yeltsin era, long before (the special case of the vanished East Germany aside) NATO had expanded to include any countries in the former Soviet bloc.
A more convincing explanation (so far as the Kremlin’s attitude to NATO was concerned) was that Putin had seen the alliance’s weakness and concluded that it would present Moscow with no problems in the event that Russia took back control over its neighbor. An important reason why the Kremlin might have seen things that way was the position of Germany, a supposedly key member of NATO, but one that had a distinctly, uh, nuanced view of what membership of the alliance meant.
One obvious sign of that was the country’s neglect of its armed forces throughout Angela Merkel’s dismal chancellorship.
Now that the COVID pandemic is finally over.
Germany: New Year’s Eve fireworks for sale again after ban – People in Germany will be allowed to legally purchase fireworks to celebrate New Year’s Eve. They had been banned for the past two years to avoid injuries that could overburden hospitals during the COVID pandemic.
Hundreds of thousands of young people start smoking.
Cigarette boom in Germany – Last year, the proportion of smokers among 14- to 17-year-olds almost doubled, a new study reveals. Health Minister Lauterbach is horrified.
That means complacency or smugness.
A long and highly valued German state of mind.
I still recall the sardonic, patronizing response I received in the German Chancellery around 2010, when I tried to warn my interlocutors about the danger of Russian hybrid warfare tactics—the cocktail of disinformation, economic coercion, subversion, espionage, and threats of force that Russia uses against its neighbors. “You are not seriously saying that Russia would conduct these operations against the Federal Republic of Germany?” my hosts asked, incredulously.
“Duh, yes,” I replied.
Scholz publicly hankers for a return to Europe’s “pre-war peace order,” suggesting that the lessons of 2022 have yet to sink in.
Observing Hermann 