Tag: Angela Merkel

Schulz has sunk without trace in Germany; Hollande is no longer president of France; Merkel will not stand again. “There was real regret, of course, but also huge uncertainty, in the immediate aftermath of the referendum,” Zuleeg said. There was an understanding that a partner was leaving – not just any partner – and that how the EU responded would decide its future.” The foundations of Michel Barnier’s mandate as the European Union’s chief negotiator – no negotiation before article 50; no cherry-picking benefits of the single market without accepting all its obligations; no trade talks before Brexit – were laid at an EU summit held less than a week after the referendum. The mooted extension to the transition period is a new idea being put forward by the EU to help Theresa May square the circle created by the written agreement last December and the draft withdrawal agreement in March. The Irish and the EU will also still need the backstop in the withdrawal agreement, which must be signed before the business of the trade deal can get under way. Otherwise it is a no-deal Brexit. “For France and Germany in particular, that’s the EU’s soul.” However, Brexit has also had an impact on the continent’s Eurosceptics, he added. If the early setting of the EU27’s red lines made it “very hard indeed for the UK to get a grip on any part of the process”, Zuleeg said, Britain really did not help itself: “Normally in negotiations you reach a compromise position, then present it to the other side. Britain couldn’t get to the compromise.” So the government kept postponing any internal decision on its Brexit position. “The EU forced it to choose between breaking the political promises made by Brexiters,” said Zuleeg, “or incurring significant economic harm.

Merkel announced that she will not be seeking any political posts after her term as chancellor ends in 2021. I will not be seeking any political posts after the current terms ends in 2021," she added, in what was the first confirmation from the German leader that she will step down after being in power since 2005. The announcement follows a disappointing regional election in the state of Hesse on Sunday. "It is worth noting at this point that the chancellor is elected by the Bundestag (German Parliament) while the leader of the CDU is elected by CDU party members. A regional election in the German state of Hesse delivered another political blow to Merkel on Sunday, with more voters fleeing to the left and right. Merkel's CDU party and her coalition partner in Berlin, the Social Democratic Party, saw heavy losses in the state of Hesse on Sunday. The SPD saw its support fall from 30.7 percent in 2013 to 19.8 percent in the vote. Meanwhile, the Greens gained 19.7 percent (up from 11.1 percent) and the AfD was seen with 13.2 percent of the vote, tripling its vote share from 2013 and allowing it to enter parliament for the first time. Meanwhile, Kal Klose, chairman of the Greens party in Hesse, told CNBC that the regional election had shown that "the people don't like the style of how the grand coalition works." "The underlying dynamic in German politics is twofold," Nickel continued in his note.

The German leader has also ruled out standing for a senior position within the EU with speculation growing she wants to quit politics completely. Angela Merkel’s party, the Christian Democratic Union, suffered a 10 percent slump in the polls yesterday, to win just 28 percent of the vote in the central German state elections. CDU sources said Mrs Merkel has told her party she will not stand as a candidate for Chancellor or MP after 2021 but she has not announced what her long term plans are. During a CDU leadership meeting this morning, Mrs Merkel said she wanted to remain Chancellor until 2021. Mrs Merkel has been leader of the CDU since 2000, and Chancellor for 13 years, a period which has seen her dominate EU and world politics.. She has also ruled out running for a senior position in the European Union after the European parliament elections next year, members of her Christian Democrats (CDU) conservative party said. While Mr Merz is ready to put his name forward for CDU leader, Mrs Merkel's rumoured preferred successor is the party's secretary general Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer who has already announced her intention to stand. Mrs Merkel has suffered a series of regional election setbacks which have undermined her authority and last weekend's results from the western state of Hesse were the final blow which left her with no choice but to quit. They polled fourth with more than 13 percent of the vote in their first election since forming in 2013. "Secondly, this fourth term is my last as German chancellor. "At the federal election in 2021, I will not stand again as chancellor candidate, nor as a candidate for the Bundestag, and I won't seek any further political offices."

S houldn’t the anti-populists have started to rally by now? If the responsible liberal technocrats are right about populism, and it is led by dim bulbs, or the corrupt, or the compromised, we should see signs of it falling on its face. Shouldn’t we? The year 2015 was the year that shocked the system. You know what comes next: Brexit and Trump’s victory. Or you can try to shore up liberalism with a bit of authoritarianism and political brinksmanship of your own. Liberal European figures have tried mixtures of all these strategies, and they continue to fail. He now has an approval rating that matches Donald Trump’s at his depth. Populists may fail where they achieve power and office, because their ranks are so filled with amateurs, cranks, and bounders. You can’t write down Ireland’s debts, because the French consider the country a co-conspirator with American tax avoiders.

The Bavarian elections were not an “earthquake”, but they were certainly an “upheaval”. Few party systems still have one, let alone two, parties that gain more than a third of the vote Against these big losses stood major gains. While falling well below the poll scores that made international news a few months ago, the AfD was still the biggest winner in their first Bavarian elections. In terms of aggregate scores, the leftwing parties (the SPD and Greens) largely offset each other, as did the two rightwing parties (the CSU and AfD). Similarly, in many countries, including Belgium and the Netherlands, we see social democratic parties lose (big) and Green parties, and sometimes the radical left, win (big). In these cases, the bloc moves (somewhat) to the left. Second, the party system, including the left and right blocs, has become more fragmented. Few party systems still have one, let alone two, parties that gain more than a third of the vote. Most parties today are medium-sized, which means the blocs no longer consist of a big social democratic party and a small Green party, but two near equal-sized parties. This transformation of European politics deserves more attention from academics and journalists alike, who too often get distracted by a simplistic “populists versus establishment” frame, and reduce stability and volatility to gains and losses of individual parties.

“There’s no reason to hang on to the grand coalition at any price,” he tweeted, adding that the Bavarian election outcome showed the coalition’s “stability is dwindling.” The big winners of the night were the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which debuted in a Bavarian election with 10.2 percent, and the Greens, which more than doubled its 2013 result to finish with 17.5 percent. One-third of voters cited migration and the integration of foreigners as the biggest problem facing the state in an exit poll for German public television. Three-quarters of Bavarian voters think the Social Democrats should try to renew themselves in opposition in Berlin. If confirmed, the result would be the worst-ever in a state election for Germany’s oldest political party, which is ceding many of its traditional supporters on the left to the Greens. Many voters complain the SPD has lost its profile under Merkel, who has co-opted and taken credit for various SPD initiatives over the years. In Bavaria, where the SPD had long been the No. 2 political force, 76 percent of voters believe the party should try to renew itself in opposition in Berlin, according to an exit poll for German public television. The SPD initially resisted joining another grand coalition, after seeing its support dwindle significantly during its last term as part of a Merkel government. The CSU leadership decided to go toe-to-toe with the AfD on the question of migration. “The results still show that you cannot govern in Bavaria without the CSU.

Speaking to the Guardian, Röttgen, a prominent member of Angela Merkel’s CDU governing party, said both sides needed to make concessions to reach an agreement if a catastrophic no-deal was to be avoided. Brussels rejects Theresa May's plea to break Brexit deadlock Read more He said: “In my opinion and from the outside, the only way Britain is to reach a reconciliation and end these deep divisions through society is if it holds a referendum in which no one can say, after two years of deep discussion, they did not know the consequences of Brexit. Very few knew the full consequences of Brexit after the first referendum.” He said he supported a three-choice referendum in which voters chose between the government deal, a no-deal Brexit and remaining in the European Union. It will be remembered after the party conference. It matters that the foreign secretary shows responsibility in his language. He is one of the most senior figures in government and responsibility is required.” In one of the first signs that Germany may be willing to take up at least part of Theresa May’s Chequers proposals, Röttgen said the EU should be prepared to give the UK access to the single market in relation to goods, but not services, in return for the UK accepting EU rules and the customs union for goods. Tories fight over what's left of their stash | John Crace Read more He said the EU could in return offer unspecified concessions on free movement. It is a position on which the EU has to change to find compromise. There has been growing concern in UK government circles that Merkel, weakened at home, is deferring to a harder-line France in the talks, making it more difficult to persuade the German chancellor to assert her instinct for a pragmatic compromise. European leaders thought Theresa May’s approach of either Chequers or no-deal was inappropriate.

While Brussels has always insisted that the integrity of the single market must be protected, and that the plan to allow the UK to effectively remain in the single market for goods but not for services is unacceptable, Downing Street was hoping to today for emollient, compromise language that would allow May to persuade her party that the plan is still viable. Instead, the EU’s most senior figures shot it down. She went on: And Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said the UK’s proposals were “not acceptable” in their current form, particularly in relation to the single market. At a press conference she said: She also insisted that she still believed a deal was possible, telling journalists: But at the press conference she looked seriously unsettled by what was being said about her plan, and the line of questioning it provoked from journalists. At his post summit press conference he said: Brexit is the choice of the British people and it is a choice pushed by certain people who predicted easy solutions ... Brexit has shown us one thing - and I fully respect British sovereignty in saying this - it has demonstrated that those who said you can easily do without Europe, that it will all go very well, that it is easy and there will be lots of money, are liars. This is all the more true because they left the next day, so they didn’t have to manage it ... Brexit shows that it is not easy to leave the EU. Tory MPs have urged May to abandon her Chequers plan in the light of the Salzburg setback. After the summit he said: Interestingly Grant Shapps, the former Conservative party chairman who voted remain, also suggested that in the light of what happened at Salzburg he was becoming increasingly keen on a no deal Brexit. (@grantshapps) I notice the blunt message for Theresa May in Salzburg in which Council President @donaldtusk says her Brexit plan won't work for EU. Here is some more Twitter comment on Salzburg from British journalists.

If women needed any more reason to be put off politics, episode three of Bodyguard was probably it. (At the time of writing, this theory is one of several. Only show creator Jed Mercurio knows the rest.) Bodyguard may be fiction, but its portrayed world of toxic masculinity, fragile egos and women wearing high heels from dawn until dusk is probably not that far off the mark. We don’t know if Montague, the fictional home secretary, is dead – apparently she might just be laying low until the finale – but in the real world, female heads do roll. Amber Rudd, for example, resigned from the Home Office after failing to prevent or deal with the Windrush scandal, while male politicians who have arguably committed equally egregious acts have simply escaped through the revolving doors of a cabinet reshuffle. Forgive me, but work-life balance does come into it. When I was lucky enough to have dinner in the canteen at Westminster a few years ago, I vividly remember having a chat with a female MP. It perhaps goes some way to explaining why so many powerful women don’t have children, whether it be Angela Merkel, Julia Gillard, Natalie Bennett or even the fictional Julia Montague. Once you are elected, you will be lucky if you have one full day off a week.

In both its content and its contradictions, the Church of England’s senior prelate was channelling not so much the infinite divine as a highly contemporary and earthly mood about what has happened over the past decade. The Great Crash exposed things that were very wrong with the way the economy is organised and those ills – sins, to an archbishop – have still not been fixed. | Yanis Varoufakis and others Read more He did nationalise them and he was right to do so. Bankers continued to enjoy lavish rewards while millions of other people paid the price in squeezed living standards and reduced services. There was a lag before the political blowback arrived. That formula went bust with the banks. It is likewise a struggle to believe that Jeremy Corbyn would have taken over the Labour party. In Britain, we were spared the horrendously high levels of unemployment that scarred the 1930s and the 1980s, but it also accelerated a change in the nature of work. The politicians who lost the last decade did not appreciate that enough. The politicians who win the next decade will likely be the ones who get it.