A Trumpian trade war, a new German government, and an Italian election mess

A new government is finally ready to take office in Germany, just in time for a threatened trade war from Washington and political chaos in Europe's fourth largest economy.

In rejecting spitzenkandidaten, Macron has let the perfect be the enemy of the good

National leaders, led by Emmanuel Macron, have refused a European Parliament demand that citizens should select the next EU president. The reasons have more to do with institutional rivalries than citizens’ interests.

“Don’t count your spitzens before they hatch,” tweeted Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė ominously as she entered Friday’s summit of EU leaders in Brussels. 

The Lithuanian president was referring to the so-called ‘spitzenkandidaten’ process, used in the last European Parliament elections in 2014 for the first time to select the European Commission President as a result of the public vote. National leaders of the 27 future EU member states (that is, all except the UK) were meeting Friday to decide whether to use the process again in next year’s election.

The latest on Brexit and German coalition formation

As Brexit negotiations continue in Brussels and coalition negotiations continue in Berlin, Tyson Barker and I discuss what's next for both of these contentious talks in this month's Brussels2Berlin podcast.

As 2017 ends, are we also coming to the end of the US-EU military alliance?

In this end-of-year podcast, Tyson Barker and I discuss what PESCO means for the future of NATO, and tell you what to watch for as 2018 dawns.

The coalitions podcast: chaos in Berlin, calm in Bonn

Germany's political future is now uncertain after 'Jamaica' coalition talks collapsed. Meanwhile, the global climate coalition is holding strong after a summit in Bonn.

The future of Europe - Macron vs. Lindner

This week, Emmanuel Macron threw down the gauntlet for his vision of a stronger, more federal European Union. But his bold words were tempered by the election result in Germany two days earlier. And just a few days later, violence in Catalonia further undermined his vision of European unity.

Angela's bad night - a German election special

Today's German election has dealt a blow to the country's mainstream parties, with a dismal performance by the centre-left SPD and a hit for Angela Merkel's CDU. Meanwhile, the new populist far-right Alternative for Germany is set to become the country's third largest party. Tyson Barker and I give you the latest from Berlin, live as the result come in.

One speed or two? Juncker challenges Macron's EU vision

In this week's podcast, we dissect President Juncker's State of the European Union speech and talk to journalist Soeren Kittel about next week's German election.

 

Fake Brexit: Is Britain heading for pseudo-independence from the EU?

On this week's podcast, we look at issues of national pride. Would a 'fake Brexit' be enough to satisfy British yearning for a feeling of sovereignty? And as the German election nears, what does a recent uproar about the use of English in Berlin say about the changing nature of German politics?

Who will be Merkel's dance partner?

Germany’s upcoming election is eliciting a collective yawn in Europe, with a Merkel win almost certain. But surprises may be in store in who voters choose to be with her in government.

Compared to some of its neighbors, Germany isn’t known for having elections with edge-of-your-seat excitement. Particularly in the past decade, as Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU bloc has dominated politics, federal elections haven’t had much in the way of surprises.

But this year was supposed to be different. People expected a real contest between two credible candidates on September 24. That didn’t pan out.

Merkel has now been in power for twelve years, and she is running for a historic fourth term that could make her, along with Helmut Kohl, the longest-serving chancellor in modern German history. But many of her decisions have proved unpopular, particularly her controversial move to welcome Syrian refugees fleeing that country’s civil war in August 2015. It was thought that voters were ready for change.

Will Germans really deliver Merkel a historic fourth term?

On this week's Brussels2Berlin podcast, Tyson Barker and Dave Keating talk to Deutsche Welle reporter Sumi Somaskanda about the upcoming German election.

Auto chiefs win again in Berlin. But beware Hendricks revenge

Germany's powerful carmakers got what they wanted from yesterday's diesel summit. But everything may change after the election.

At the press conference following yesterday's crisis summit in Berlin to deal with the unfolding Dieselgate scandal, you would have been forgiven for losing track of who was who.

With only five lecterns and around 20 participants, they had to play a round-robin of auto executives, each taking the stand to say how very, very sorry he was over revelations of cheating and collusion that have come out. Each middle-aged white German man was more indistinguishable than the next. 

But all the while there was one woman standing to their left, looking very out of place. It was the summit's co-host, the center-left German environment minister Barbara Hendricks. And as the German auto chiefs detailed the agreement reached inside, an agreement in which she had been politically defeated, you would see on her face that she was already plotting her revenge. 

Is Berlin overthinking dieselgate and Russia sanctions?

On this week's Brussels2Berlin podcast, Tyson Barker and Dave Keating talk about the two issues engulfing Berlin at the moment. Both may be a bit overblown.

The German autostate

Whether or not it was illegal, revelations about German automakers cheating the system are denting ‘brand Deutschland’. Do Germans play by a different set of rules?

The allegations that have surfaced this month against German automakers seem to confirm the worst suspicions that many in Europe hold about the EU’s largest country: while they insist on rigid enforcement of rules for everyone else, Germans seem to think the rules don’t apply to them.

A report by Der Spiegel magazine last week alleged that Germany’s five biggest automakers - Volkswagen, BMW, Daimler, Porsche and Audi - have been colluding for two decades on pricing, suppliers and diesel technical standards, in order to give them leverage over foreign competitors. This week the European Union said it is investigating the issue, and has appointed a vice president to oversee the investigation.

On the way in, and on the way out?

On this week's Brussels2Berlin podcast, we talk Turkey, and Brexit. It was a bad week for EU relations with both.

 

Who won the G20?

Angela Merkel won, Donald Trump lost and Theresa May...was she even there?

Germany’s late but welcome turn on gay marriage

Merkel’s decision to allow same sex marriage is a calculated political move ahead of the election. 

For several years, Germany has seemed like a strange anomaly in Western Europe on one of the key cultural issues of the modern era. 

As country after country passed gay marriage in Europe and the Americas, Germany held out. 

On the gay marriage map of Europe, a wave of dark blue came rushing in from the West. Starting with The Netherlands and Belgium in 2001, countries adopted full gay marriage. 

The most surprising development came in 2015, when the Irish voted in a referendum to allow gay marriage - the first country to do so by public vote. Long known as a conservative country dominated by the Catholic church, it was a chance for the country to demonstrate just how much it has changed over the past three decades. 

But meanwhile in central Europe, everything remained frozen.

Who is Germany’s anti-Trump?

The US President heaped further scorn upon Germans during last week’s NATO summit. In a German election year, he will become the perfect foil.

Even before last week’s NATO and G7 summits in Europe, Angela Merkel knew that Donald Trump would not have kind words for the Germans.

Having already suffered the indignity of having him refuse to shake her hand during her state visit to Washington - possibly as revenge for her frosty response to his election - Merkel could have expected that Trump’s obsession with the German trade surplus and lack of military spending would again bring hostility during their second meeting. It did.

Hurricane Trump comes to Brussels

While the current US president bullied and berated in Brussels, Obama awed and inspired in Berlin. Which man truly represents the American people?

Perhaps no image of Donald Trump's visit to Brussels will be more enduring than the now-notorious video of him pushing the prime minister of Montenegro out of the way so that he could get to the front of a shot of NATO leaders.

As an US citizen, I felt a deep sense of shame watching the incident. There was something painfully American about it. The worst part was his expression after the shove - the brash sense of entitlement, the obscene strutting. In just a few seconds Trump had confirmed the stereotypes that so many Europeans have about Americans. And it was consistent with his behavior during the entire Brussels visit - bullying, gloating, preening.

After trauma of Lisbon, Macron faces uphill battle for EU treaty change

The new French president may have softened Merkel's resistance to change, but leaders across Europe will be wary of opening a pandora's box.

Emmanuel Macron made his first foreign visit as French president yesterday, coming here to Berlin for a meeting with Angela Merkel.

That Berlin was his first destination is no surprise. The Franco-German relationship is the most important for Paris, and also the most important relationship in the European Union as a whole. But there was an added importance to this first visit. During his campaign Macron made promises about a process of renewal and reform of the EU. None of that will be possible without the cooperation of Germany's chancellor.

We still do not know if Merkel, a conservative, will be that chancellor. Germany is having a general election in September and she may be unseated by her center-left challenger Martin Schulz, a former president of the European Parliament.