The German Election of Chancellor 2017

I don't know how an average news reader missed the fact that Merkel's seat is up for grabs next month. I guess my country's media is working overtime to fillet Donald Trump and can't be bothered with elections of global consequence...

Article 39
[Electoral term – Convening]
(2) The Bundestag shall convene no later than the thirtieth day after the elections.

Article 63
[Election of the Federal Chancellor]
(1) The Federal Chancellor shall be elected by the Bundestag without debate on the proposal of the Federal President.

Article 69
[Deputy Federal Chancellor – Term of office]
(3) At the request of the Federal President the Federal Chancellor, or at the request of the Federal Chancellor or of the Federal President a Federal Minister, shall be obliged to continue to manage the affairs of his office until a successor is appointed.

I’m reading that the Chancellor has announced some type of emergency related to the US refusing to fork over more billions to Ukraine.

Emergency money

The coalition wants to keep this option on the table, for example for financing reconstruction efforts in the Ahr Valley, which was devastating by floods in 2021.

"The constitution expressly stipulates that credit ceilings can be raised to deal with natural disasters and extraordinary emergencies," said Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Next year, €2.7 billion in flood aid will be financed through loans.

Authorities expect uncertainties and potential emergencies in connection with Ukraine. So far, €8 billion has been earmarked for direct aid in 2024, to be paid though the regular budget. But what would happen if the US — Ukraine's biggest financier — were to cease supporting the embattled country?

Speaking at a SPD party conference, Chancellor Scholz said a "major" financial challenge would arise "when others struggle." He said Germany would have to reach decisions to be able to handle such a situation. By this, he was referring to suspending the debt brake — a move the liberal FDP opposes.

FDP Finance Minister Christian Lindner appears, however, to have relented over Ukraine, saying that "if the situation changes and the international community reaches joint decisions, we are fully capable of acting, including when options provided by the federal budget are exceeded."

I don’t see a thread on German Politics, but I think we should have one.

I’m reading that the Chancellor has announced some type of emergency related to the US refusing to fork over more billions to Ukraine.

Someone, get that man his own fork.

Walter, is Germany sending troops to Lebanon?

Lash wrote:

Walter, is Germany sending troops to Lebanon?

Why?

Politicians from Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, including a personal aide to its leader Alice Weidel, met the head of the rightwing extremist Identitarian Movement and neo-Nazi activists to discuss a “masterplan” for mass deportations in the event of the party coming to power, it has been reported.

The meeting, which was first reported on Wednesday by the investigative outlet Correctiv, took place last November at a countryside hotel on the outskirts of Potsdam. It is likely to feed a fraught debate over whether the AfD should be banned due to growing concerns that it poses a fundamental threat to German democracy.

Buoyed up by discontent over immigration, the AfD is polling in first place in all five of Germany’s eastern states, three of which are holding elections later this year. While both the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the liberal, pro-business Free Democratic party (FDP) have, for now, ruled out entering coalitions with the party, its presence at the meeting suggests a far-right organisation with its eye on political gains in the near future.

Invitations seen by Correctiv and the Guardian describe the meeting as an opportunity to present “an overall concept in the sense of a masterplan”. The meeting was attended not only by two state and municipal-level AfD politicians but also one active member of the Bundestag, Gerrit Huy, as well as Roland Hartwig, a former MP who has acted as a personal aide to Weidel since September 2022. One party branch of the AfD’s has described Hartwig as being tasked with the party’s “strategic positioning”.

The AfD figures were meeting with Martin Sellner, who was tasked with introducing the “masterplan” and is a key figure in the pan-European “New Right” and who, in 2019, was permanently barred from entering the UK because of his extremist views. The Identitarian Movement, whose Austrian branch Sellner used to lead, openly opposes the idea of multicultural societies and expounds the conspiracy theory of a “great replacement” to replace Europe’s white population with people from Africa and the Middle East.

The Identitarian Movement is on a list of organisations whose membership the AfD considers incompatible with party membership, and the party has denied ties to the movement in the past. However, in recent years the AfD has done little to distance itself from the activist network.

One key idea that Sellner has been trying to nudge into the political mainstream is “re-migration”: the forceful return of migrants to their countries of origin via mass deportations. Such deportations would target not only asylum seekers but, as Sellner elaborated in a recent article for the New Right journal Sezession, also citizens holding German passports who, he claims, “form aggressive, rapidly growing parallel societies”.

According to Correctiv’s account, the explosive subject of “re-migration” apparently dominated the discussions between AfD politicians and rightwing extremist activists, with Sellner allegedly presenting the forcible extradition of “non-assimilated” German citizens as the biggest “challenge” if the AfD were to gain power.

deas discussed at the meeting, according to Correctiv, included that of deportations to an unnamed state in northern Africa that would provide space for up to 2 million people. People who lobby on behalf of refugees in Germany could also go there, Sellner is reported to have suggested.

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