There Are Consequences?

Even in Merkel’s Germany?

CDU

I doubt it. It just looks that way at first glance. Nothing ever really changes here.

Impatience at a four-month lockdown and a glacial Covid-19 vaccine rollout have begun to eat away at popular support for German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her conservatives months before a general election.

The party suffered a blow on Sunday, recording one of its worst-ever defeats at regional elections in two populous states in Germany’s affluent south, according to preliminary results.

Self-Sufficient?

That’s pure nationalism! And you call yourselves good Europeans. All day long.

Self

Germany seeks to be vaccine self-sufficient by next year – From 2022, Germany should be able to produce enough of its own vaccines to inoculate the whole population in the case of a pandemic, a top official said on Saturday.

Vaccination commissioner Christoph Krupp told newspapers of the Funke Media Group that, by May, a government task force would put forward a concept to achieve the goal of setting up a state-guaranteed system for vaccine production.

Europe, That’s What Went Wrong

Germany’s COVID management: World wonders what’s gone wrong – A year ago, Germany was effusively praised for its coronavirus response. Nobody would think to do that now. If anything, the international view today is a mixture of astonishment and schadenfreude.

Germany

As reported earlier“Germany is the architect of the European failure because Germany and Merkel were behind pushing for the European process that was a failure from the beginning.”

Europe “ought” to work. But it doesn’t. Then the real world bites back.

Just What Do You Mean When You Say “Ethical Standards?”

Must have got lost in translation or something.

Masks

Hello? Is there anybody in there? These are politicians, people. Violating ethical standards is what they get paid for.

German mask scandal: ‘Unforgivable violations of ethical standards’ – Andreas Nick, a prominent member of Germany’s ruling CDU party, has strongly criticized the two conservative politicians at the heart of a damaging mask procurement scandal on DW’s Conflict Zone.

“Individual cases shouldn’t be used in a demagogue fashion to discredit parliamentarians and politicians who serve the public to its best interests.”

We’re From The Berlin City Government

The “red-red-green” city government. And we’re here to help.

Control

A disaster foretold – After a year, Berlin’s experiment with rent control is a failure. Rents may be down, but so is the supply of homes.

”I WORRY ABOUT Berlin,” says Rolf Buch, a born and bred Rhinelander. The chief executive of Vonovia, Europe’s biggest residential-property firm, thinks that the city’s policy of capping rents has achieved very little good, but caused severe collateral damage. Even if the federal Constitutional Court declares the rent cap unconstitutional in the next few months, as many expect it to do, Berlin will not go back to the status quo ante. Protests are here to stay, Mr Buch reckons.

 

German Of The Day: Gesichtskondom

That means face condom.

German

You know, face mask? I don’t make this up that German allows you to make this stuff up. It’s a popular national pastime.

Pandemic Inspires More Than 1,200 New German Words.

Like English, German also offers the possibility of combining of words, especially nouns. The resulting noun chains in English typically feature spaces or hyphens between the different elements, while German ones normally appear as one word. The German penchant for creating complex compound nouns has long been the stuff of comedy. Mark Twain devotes part of his essay on The Awful German Language to these “curiosities,” and many people are familiar with ones like “der Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän” (the Danube Steamship Navigation Company Captain).

 

Nice Europeans

Come in last.

Nice

Germany should have led the world at handling the pandemic. But experts slam Merkel’s vaccine response as a disaster.

“Germany is the architect of the European failure because Germany and Merkel were behind pushing for the European process that was a failure from the beginning,” Julian Reichelt, the managing editor of Germany’s largest selling tabloid newspaper Bild, told CNN.

“She wanted to make it all about Europe and her being a great European,” he says.

German Of The Day: Wer ist Schuld?

That means who is guilty, who is responsible?

Vaccines

It started out with not enough Covid vaccines being ordered (Germany left that up to Brussels – big mistake). Now, after proclaiming the efficacy of Covid quick tests to make up for this lack of vaccines, not enough of these were ordered either.

Who is to blame? That’s easy. It’s never Angela Merkel, ever. See the guy up there on the right? That’s her health minister.

Corona-Pandemie – Schnelltest-Chaos spitzt sich zu – Wer ist schuld?

Unhappy?

Who cares? You didn’t vote for me. As a matter of fact, nobody did. Other than non-elected officials like me, that is.

Unhappy

You can’t fire me. And I don’t quit. I’m not a quiter. I’m a loser maybe, but I’ll quit when I decide to, thank you.

Germans unhappy with EU’s handling of vaccine scheme – Roughly half of Germans believe the EU has handled the coronavirus vaccine rollout badly, according to an opinion poll. It comes as separate research finds a majority want an end to the country’s lockdown…

The United Kingdom has given at least one jab to 31% of its population, while Germany has so far at least partially vaccinated 7.63% of its population (that actually means more like 3.5, of course), according to figures compiled by Our World In Data.

That is marginally above the EU average of 7.60 people for every 100.

Would You Place The Largest Opposition Party In Your Country Under Domestic Surveillance?

Would you have the FBI spy on, say, the Democrats? Yeah, I would too. But that’s not the point. The point is, first of all, that this guy down here looks really, really mean.

AfD

The second and more important point is that by placing the largest opposition party in your country under domestic surveillance you are placing a very large percentage of your electorate under suspicion of being, in this case, Nazis. You can do that here in Germany. Coming to your country soon too?

Germany Places Right-Wing Opposition Party Under Domestic Surveillance – Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has put the country’s largest opposition party under surveillance as a potential threat to the country’s constitution, according to public (they mean state TV) broadcaster ARD and other media outlets. The move affects dozens of lawmakers who are in the right-wing Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party.

I can’t shake the feeling that the other political parties – and they are all on the same sheet of music here – don’t welcome competition from other political parties. Especially from those who have already stolen a considerable number of your voters.

“Angela Merkel’s government is trying to stigmatize us and to really put us in the Nazi corner.”