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

BERLIN (own report) - In view of the Trump administration’s power play, calls are getting louder in Germany for the European Union to become an independent force on the global stage. As a statement from the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) put it, “Europe must mobilise its ample resources to replace America as a global leader.” Berlin and Brussels are setting out unprecedented spending plans, in the high three-digit billion range, for arming Germany and the EU. Proponents of rapid militarisation want to procure European weaponry rather than American. This view is now being adopted even by traditionally transatlantic-aligned media. As the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung puts it, “A country that, overnight, stops military aid for a partner at war can no longer be trusted.” A concerted arms build-up will be accompanied by moves to give all of Berlin’s activities abroad a sharper focus on national interests. To this end, there are calls for Germany’s international development ministry to be incorporated into the Federal Foreign Office – creating a kind of “Ministry for German Interests”. These steps are in fact aimed at realising a long-standing ambition of West German foreign policy: leveraging the EU to achieve a partnership of equals with the US. Read more

BERLIN (own report) – In Berlin, government advisors and foreign policy experts are calling for a massive increase in the military budget, drastic cuts in social spending and the vigorous indoctrination (“change of mentality”) of the population. Rapid militarisation is, they argue, the task of the next German government. These demands are spelled out in the current issue of Internationale Politik (IP), a journal published by the influential German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). Its cover story is entitled: “What the world expects from Germany after the election.” One contributor writes, for example, that the next government must prepare society “for Germany to become the leading European power, diplomatically and militarily.” This means it is necessary to “anchor the Zeitenwende in people’s minds.” Indeed, this Zeitenwende, an “epochal turning point” for rearming and preparing for war, is well underway. A professor at the Bundeswehr University in Munich now proposes the introduction of a “defence tax” of between 1 and 1.5 per cent of income tax. Failure to significantly upgrade the Bundeswehr would, he warns, mean that “Germany’s influence” in international affairs will “permanently wane”. Another author warns that the disintegration of the European Union is a “realistic scenario” for the first time since the 1950s. Read more

BERLIN/WASHINGTON (own report) - The AfD has become the first party of the extreme right in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany to achieve over 20 per cent in a Bundestag election. It is now the second-strongest parliamentary group in the new parliament. This result confirms that the political balance is shifting to the right – across the EU and also in Germany. Far-right parties have even become the strongest force in some member states. They are the forces behind the prime minister of Italy and a number of ministers in other EU countries, both in the EU and also particularly in Germany. And, for the first time since 1949, extreme right elements are openly supported by members of the US administration. Vice President JD Vance gave his backing to the AfD ten days ago on the fringes of the Munich Security Conference. Elon Musk publicly called for AfD votes on the eve of the election. Friedrich Merz (CDU), who must be regarded as the next German Chancellor, announced to the US media that he intends to do something about Musk’s interference in the German election campaign. He would not, Merz said, rule out confrontations with the Trump administration after assuming power. As for the American side, their sharp economic and political threats against Berlin amount to an attempt to relegate Germany and the EU to the role of fringe players in global politics. Read more

BERLIN/MUNICH (own report) – Bureaucratic and police interventions to prevent a United Nations representative from speaking on Palestine mark a new low point in Germany’s ongoing suppression of free expression and assembly. In recent days, planned appearances by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, have been cancelled at short notice in both Berlin and Munich under pressure from politicians and state authorities. The pretext for this latest crackdown is a policy of rigorous action against anyone alleged to hold antisemitic views. A replacement venue was found at short notice on Tuesday for Albanese: in the editorial offices of the leftist daily ‘junge Welt’. But the organisers then found themselves under intense surveillance by armed police. Police vehicles surrounded the building and officers forced their way in despite objections by the organisers. This ugly episode took place against a background of growing repression of those demonstrating against war in Gaza. Rallies are being violently dispersed, one formal reason being the language used by speakers: any language other than German or English can lead to arrest. This also goes for anti-Zionist Jewish protesters speaking Hebrew. Moreover, having adopted a controversial catch-all definition of antisemitism, the German government is now effectively curbing academic freedom. Renowned academics have been sharply criticising these policies – in vain. Read more

PARIS/BERLIN (own report) - In response to their exclusion from the Ukraine peace talks by the US, the bigger EU states, EU leaders and the UK came together in Paris on Monday to make a show of closing ranks. The Trump administration announced last Friday that it would negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine with Russia on without anyone else being at the table. The first direct talks are beginning without delay this Tuesday in Saudi Arabia between Foreign Ministers Marco Rubio and Sergei Lavrov. Washington’s decision to exclude the EU has pushed Europe to the sidelines and represents a bitter blow for Berlin and Paris in particular. On the one hand, yesterday’s meeting in Paris was intended to look at possible security guarantees for Kiev. Europe might, for example, put troops on the ground in the hope of gaining leverage and forcing its way back into a Ukraine peace process. The deployment of Germany’s Bundeswehr alongside other European armies is under discussion. On the other hand, European leaders are considering a massive joint arms build-up with the aim of turning the EU into an independent military power – independent, that is, of the United States. However, serious differences continue to exist within the EU. A continuation of the war in Ukraine is still considered by some as an option. Read more

KINSHASA/KIGALI/BERLIN (own report) – The decades-long support for Rwanda from Germany and the EU has increasingly been sparking protests due to the role played by the country in the fighting in eastern Congo. The Rwandan government in Kigali has for decades supported all kinds of militias in the neighbouring Kivu provinces in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Those forces are plundering raw materials on a huge scale and smuggling them into Rwanda. Kigali earns billions from these activities, while enabling militias to fight an ongoing war in eastern Congo. In recent months and weeks the M23 militia, with direct front-line support from the Rwandan army, has conquered large areas of the Kivu provinces. Countless inhabitants are fleeing their homes. Germany has, for a long time, been cooperating closely with Rwanda, a former colony of the German Reich. Berlin has also been considering Rwanda as a possible location for outsourcing asylum procedures to distant parts of the world. Last year, the EU signed an agreement with Kigali for raw material supplies. Observers expect “blood minerals” from the war in eastern Congo to be reaching Europe through this channel. Read more

BERLIN/DAMASCUS/RIYADH (own report) – With German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on a trip to the Middle East and EU promises to ease sanctions on Syria, Berlin is working to influence the transitional government in Damascus. Steinmeier visited Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey this week for discussions that included developments in Syria. Saudi Arabia and Turkey in particular exert strong influence on the interim president Ahmed al Sharaa. Qatar, whose emir spoke on the phone with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday, is also a key backer. Syria’s interim regime, which has emerged from the long-standing jihadist militia Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), is already facing criticism for creating “informal power structures” and a new “deep state”. At the same time, tensions are rising between the Sunni majority and the Alawite minority. Al-Sharaa is rejecting calls for autonomy from the Kurdish minority in northern Syria. Turkey, meanwhile, has begun military support for Damascus, training and arming the reformed Syrian armed forces. Berlin is keen to cooperate more closely with Ankara. Read more