PARIS/BERLIN/WASHINGTON (own report) - A Europe-wide think-tank warns of “far-reaching European consequences” of Marine Le Pen’s de facto exclusion from the next presidential election in France. The court ruling has deprived Le Pen of the right to stand for election with immediate effect. This development is, as a recent article from the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) put it, likely to lead to an immediate upswing of support “for anti-establishment movements throughout Europe”. Opinion surveys indicate that almost half of the population in France believes that the judgement was politically motivated. Leading politicians of the extreme right from all across the European Union, including a prime minister and a deputy prime minister, have voiced their support for Le Pen. The Rassemblement National (National Rally) leader has also received wider widespread international backing beyond the EU. Condemnation of the sentence has also come from the right in North America, Latin America and Israel – in the case of Israel, from a government minister who recently hosted representatives from far-right parties around Europe at a conference in Jerusalem. In the United States, the highly influential Trump-advising Heritage Foundation has also weighed in. Le Pen’s conviction has consolidated core elements of a new network of the transatlantic far right as it closes ranks. Read more

TEL AVIV/BERLIN (own report) – Israel’s ultra-right government seeks to deepen its cooperation with the extreme right in Europe and, in principle, does not rule out working with the AfD. Representatives of various parties aligned to the far-right Patriots for Europe (PfE) bloc, now the third largest group in the European Parliament, attended an international conference in Israel last week. Organised by Israel’s Minister for Diaspora Affairs, it was billed as a gathering to discuss the fight against antisemitism. Attendees included Jordan Bardella, President of the French Rassemblement National (RN). Likud, the party of Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had earlier been accorded observer status with the PfE grouping in the EU. Israel’s Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, has instructed Israel’s diplomats in France and elsewhere to normalise relations with various extreme right-wing parties. Yet the majority of these parties grew out of traditionally antisemitic circles. In many cases they are directly linked to Nazi collaborators. Israel’s Minister for Diaspora Affairs, Amichai Chikli, says that he “hopes” the AfD will break with certain controversial politicians, clearing the path for direct cooperation with his government. The German government works very closely with Netanyahu, who supports Chikli. Read more

BERLIN (own report) - A leading German daily newspaper is now calling for the country to “pull out of the Two Plus Four Treaty”, clearing the way for Germany’s nuclear armament. A recent editorial in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) argues that “German military preparedness” requires nuclear warheads as part of the ramping up of the military, but notes the obstacle of treaty obligations. Berlin is prohibited not only from procuring nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons but also from increasing the number of Bundeswehr personnel beyond 370,000. The push in some quarters for Germany to become a nuclear power comes as experts confirm that, technologically, Germany is certainly capable of building nuclear bombs and setting up nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. The only problem in terms of logistics is, according to the FAZ opinion piece, finding a location to conduct the unavoidable nuclear tests for an independent nuclear weapons programme. Politically and legally, this move would also demand Germany’s withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This could have far-reaching global consequences. For one thing it would only encourage a number of countries already considering nuclear weapons to take the leap: not only Iran and Saudi Arabia but also South Korea and Poland. Surveys indicate that public approval for a German atom bomb is growing, but more people are still against it. Bundeswehr experts identify longstanding “moral reflexes” behind public reservations – reflexes which, they say, must be overcome. Read more

BERLIN/ANKARA (own report) - German politicians are reacting to the arrest of Turkish opposition politician Ekrem İmamoğlu and many of his supporters with empty words. Their inconsequential appeals are a face-saving exercise. İmamoğlu, the popular mayor of Istanbul and a potentially strong candidate for president in the next election, was arrested on Wednesday. The charges appear to be flimsy. Many of his supporters have also been arrested, while a company he owns has been expropriated. İmamoğlu’s CHP party speaks of a “an attempted coup against the potentially the next president.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared that the move “weights on relations between Europe and Turkey”. No practical consequences can be expected. For Germany and the EU are dependent on cooperation with Ankara when it comes to preventing refugees from moving on to Europe, not to mention European efforts to bring Ankara into an anti-Russian alliance. Brussels is also keen to engage with Turkey as a trade and energy hub. There are, in any case, hardly any effective instruments for exerting political pressure on Turkey. On the contrary, it is Ankara that has grown in strength over recent years and secured options with alternative cooperation partners. As a leading Berlin foreign policy journal put it, Turkey is an “unpredictable, indispensable” partner. Read more

BERLIN/WASHINGTON (own report) - The outgoing German government sees the mass dismissal of scientists in certain fields by the Trump administration as an opportunity to bring “the best minds in the world” to Germany. As the Minister of Education and Research, Cem Özdemir, explains, Berlin must “make it clear” that leading researchers from the United States are “welcome in Germany” if they “no longer see any prospects for themselves to research freely” in the United States. Özdemir does not want this invitation to be understood as “poaching”. He prefers the term “brain circulation”. In the US, thousands of academics have now been fired because they are working in research fields that the Trump administration does not want to be addressed, such as climate or vaccination research. According to the Max Planck Society, there has already been a significant increase in applications from American scientists. The attempt to attract these specialists to Germany comes at a time when major German science organisations are warning that they are falling behind internationally due to insufficient funding and excessive bureaucracy. In addition, German academics are worried about their freedom of expression. Especially in connection with conflict in the Middle East, heavy-handed pressure to conform is being exerted by the Germany authorities. Read more

BERLIN/MOSCOW/WASHINGTON (own report) – A politician in Germany’s future coalition government has, for the first time, discussed the advantages of bringing the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline back into operation. If “peace” is restored between Russia and Ukraine, “the embargoes will, sooner or later, fall away,” says CDU MP Thomas Bareiß on the social network LinkedIn, “and, of course, gas can then start flowing again.” Bareiß, who was Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Economics until 2021, is responding to reports in the American and British media that US businessmen are planning a move to take over the Nord Stream 2 operating company. The Americans are looking for business opportunities in the context of a projected peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine and a thaw in relations between Washington and Moscow. Such a takeover would further tighten US influence on the EU’s natural gas supply. US liquefied natural gas already made up around half of total LNG imports in 2023. However, the Russian share of LNG imports to Europe is actually increasing again. The still intact line of the Nord Stream 2 pipelines could transport around 27.5 billion cubic metres of gas a year. That would cover about a third of Germany’s import needs. Read more

BUCHAREST/BRUSSELS (own report) – Romania is seeing a growing protest against dubious interventions in the country’s presidential election. The political establishment, supported by Brussels and Berlin, is accused of blatant manipulation. Manipulation began last November in response to the unexpected first-round victory of a presidential candidate regarded as pro-Russian. After strong disapproval signalled by EU leaders and an openly critical intervention by the then US administration under President Joe Biden, Romania’s Constitutional Court declared the election null and void. Now, the NATO-sceptical candidate, an independent politician from the far right, has been barred from standing in the presidential re-run in May. He won the first round at the end of November partly on a peace and anti-corruption ticket, gaining the support of many Romanians who considered corruption to be rife across the Romanian political establishment. The public was already highly critical of their annulment, but the stratagem to exclude a popular candidate is now driving more voters to the extreme right. Such machinations were also evident in neighbouring Moldova at the end of 2024. Pro-Western political forces in one of the poorest countries in Europe won the presidential election by a whisker, thanks to irregularities in voting arrangements for the many Moldovans living abroad: 231 polling stations were set up in Western countries, compared to only two in the whole of Russia. Read more