German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosted French President Emmanuel Macron for talks yesterday, just days before Berlin takes on the rotating presidency of the EU with an economy mired in the worst crisis since World War II.
Germany’s chairing of the 27-member bloc would be its last with Merkel in charge, and could be the one that defines the legacy of the leader dubbed the “eternal chancellor.”
With the future of the bloc’s relationship with Britain still to be determined, a crucial shift to a lower carbon world in the balance and crises from Libya to Syria all jostling for attention, there is no shortage of burning issues to tackle.
Photo: EPA-EFE
However, it is the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic devastation it has wrought that would dominate and concentrate minds.
“This crisis that we’re currently experiencing is different compared to any other we have experienced since the founding of Europe,” Merkel, in power since 2005, told parliament in an address laying out Berlin’s priorities for the EU presidency.
“Alone in Europe, it has claimed more than 100,000 lives. A few weeks of economic standstill was enough to endanger what we have built up over years,” she said.
In an interview published on Saturday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said it was “very fortunate that Germany is taking over the presidency at this time of a major crisis.”
Merkel’s long experience and credibility “helps enormously,” she told the Handelsblatt newspaper.
Besides its geopolitical weight and economic heft, Germany takes on custodianship of the bloc with a strong hand as it has so far withstood the health emergency better than most other member states.
Compared with the debt crisis that threatened to sink the single currency zone in 2009-2010, Germany looks very different today — it is out with Scrooge and in with Lady Bountiful.
Once an obstinate champion of budgetary rigor, Merkel’s government has ditched its no-new-debt dogma to throw resources at the crisis. Its program to shore up the economy totals more than 1 trillion euros (US$1.13 trillion) in spending, loans and guarantees.
Together with Macron, Merkel sketched out the backbone of the 750 million euro fund proposed by Von der Leyen to bolster the bloc’s economy. The fund would offer grants — with no repayment obligation — to countries hardest hit by the pandemic, a major policy U-turn for Berlin.
With an eye on the devastating blow taken by the worst-hit countries like Spain or Italy, Merkel said that it was “imperative that Germany not only thinks of itself, but is prepared for an extraordinary act of solidarity.”
“In such a crisis, everyone is expected to do what is necessary, and what is necessary in this case is rather extraordinary,” she told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
The recovery fund is likely to be among the key points raised when Merkel and Macron meet at German government retreat Meseberg.
Despite opposition from fiscal hardliners, such as Austria and the Netherlands, observers believe that the EU’s paymaster Berlin would ram through an accord.
“When the Germans are certain they are right, it’s very bulldozer, there is no margin for discussion,” a high-ranking EU official said.
An EU diplomat agreed, saying: “On the recovery fund, I expect Germany to dictate the whole process. Merkel is holding all the cards.”
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
RSS