Showing posts with label Merkel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Merkel. Show all posts

Friday, 26 February 2021

Merkel says vaccination certificates ready within 3 months

 A few short months ago any suggestion of this was 'disinformation' and a "conspiracy theory' that could get you censored or deplatformed.

Merkel: EU Leaders Agree to Introduce Vaccination Certificates, They Will Be Ready Within 3 Months

The concept of vaccination certificates was rolled out as an idea that could facilitate travel between the countries of the bloc during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.



Sputnik,

25 February, 2021


German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday that the leaders of the European Union have agreed on the need to introduce a certificate of coronavirus vaccination, noting that the bloc will need three months to prepare.

"Everyone agreed that we need a digital vaccination certificate," Merkel said during the press conference after the virtual EU summit.

According to the chancellor, such certificates will at first be developed by each member country, with the European Commission later making them "compatible" so that they can be used in any European Union country.

This, along with additional information on citizens, will make travelling within the bloc possible and could also allow for nationals of other countries to arrive to the EU, Merkel noted. In Germany, the decision has already been made to issue the certificates.

Charles Michel, the head of the European Council, stated that the current bloc's priority is speeding up production and delivery of the vaccines around the EU.

"Our #1 priority is speeding up the production & delivery of #COVID19 vaccines and vaccinations across the EU", he tweeted. "This includes working with industry to scale up production. And we want more predictability & transparency from pharmaceutical companies."

​EU leaders agreed that vaccine production capacity must be increased, noting that the bloc needs to prepare for a scenario in which continuous vaccinations will be carried out over the coming years due to emerging novel virus variants.

While the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage across much the world, including in the EU, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said that 50 million vaccine doses have been delivered in the bloc, and "work is ongoing to tackle new variants."

"The measures in place across Europe are working", she asserted. "Our efforts will pay off."

The idea of digital certificates for the coronavirus vaccination was implemented in Greece in January, with the country's prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, asserting that it would help facilitate travel within the bloc. Mitsotakis voiced support for the initiative to be introduced across the EU.

Friday, 23 August 2019

Germany doubling down on disastrous policy


Germany Seeks Migrant 

"Coalition Of The Willing" 

Repeating Merkel's 2015 

Mistake

22 August, 2019

Germany's Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, marches down the same path that doomed Angela Merkel.
Germany should promote a "coalition of the willing" among European Union countries that are prepared to accept refugees saved in the Mediterranean Sea, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Saturday.
"We must now move forward with those member states that are ready to receive refugees — all others remain invited to participate," he told the RND media group.
Germany would be willing to make a substantial contribution to the alliance and accept a set share of refugees as part of a "binding" redistribution system, he added. Maas, a Social Democrat, said that disputes between EU countries about redistributing refugees "must no longer" impede an agreement on saving migrants from drowning in the Mediterranean. "This blockade must finally come to an end," he said.
Maas's proposal was immediately rejected by Austria's former chancellor, Sebastian Kurz. Kurz, whose conservative People's Party is the frontrunner to win Austria's parliamentary vote in September, dubbed the common refugee policy a failure, adding that all Mediterranean migrants should be sent back to their home countries.
"The distribution of migrants in Europe has failed," Kurz said on Saturday. "We are once again discussing ideas from 2015 that have long proved impractical."

Puking on More Europe

Hello foreign minister.
Please consider the idea that the EU is puking on both more migration and more Europe.

Germany Brandenburg Polls

Excuse me for pointing out that the anti-immigration, anti-Euro AfD party is currently poised to win the Brandenburg Election on September 1.

Not Just One Poll

Polls are just that. And while I freely admit 21% is not a majority, I would also point out that FDP and much of CDU is against "more Europe", especially more immigration.

Merkel Supports More Immigration

If you "depend" on low-skill immigration, what the hell does that say about your current population?
Yeah, let's welcome millions of unskilled migrants, give them free money, free housing, free this, and free that while they do not speak German and have no desire to ever speak German.
Merkel's government "grand coalition" damn near collapsed over immigration.

How is SPD Doing?

I ask "How is SPD doing" because Merkel's foreign minister Maas is a member of SPD.

Merkel Effect

Some of the demise of SPD is simply the "Merkel Effect".
The country is clearly sick of Merkel. And because of SPD's affiliation with Merkel, support for SPD has plunged like a rock thrown from the Golden Gate Bridge.
The Greens are pro-immigration but look closely.
The collapse of CDU is an anti-Merkel effect. And most of the demise of SPD corresponds to the rise of AfD, not the rise of the Greens.

Friday, 16 August 2019

The sinking German economy and Angela Merkel

Angela Merkel sinks German economy, hands over control of EU to Macron

Germany Stalls and Europe Craters

Alastair Crooke


11 August, 2019
The influential economic commentator on Europe, Ambrose Pritchard Evans, writes:
“German industry is in the deepest slump since the global financial crisis, and threatens to push Europe’s powerhouse economy into full-blown recession. The darkening outlook is forcing the European Central Bank to contemplate ever more perilous measures.

“The influential Ifo Institute in Munich said its business climate indicator for manufacturing went into “free fall” in July, as the delayed damage from global trade conflict takes its toll and confidence wilts. It goes far beyond the woes of the car industry. More than 80pc of Germany’s factories are in outright contraction.”
Why? What is going on here? It seems that, though other European member-states used to be Germany’s largest market, Germany’s first and third largest export destinations are now the US and China, respectively. Together, they account for more than 15% of all outbound German trade activity. More than 18% of Germany’s export goods ended up somewhere in Asia. Therefore, Germany’s industrial struggles in 2019 point the finger in the direction of its external focus, which means the US, China, and Asia – i.e. its largest marginal trade partners. And the principal assailants in today’s trade and tech wars.
Clemens Fuest, the Ifo president, says: “All the problems are coming together: It’s China, it’s increasing protectionism across the board, it’s disruption to global supply chains”.
But if Germany’s manufacturing woes were not sufficient in and of themselves, then combined with the threat of trade war with Trump, the prospect indeed is bleak for Europe: And the likelihood is that any of that ECB stimulus – promised for this autumn, as Mario Draghi warns that the European picture is getting “worse and worse” – will be very likely to meet with an angry response from Trump – castigated as blatant currency manipulation by the EU and its ECB. EU Relations with Washington seem set to sour (in more ways than one).
But there is more: Speaking in the German parliament, Alice Weidel, the AfD leader, tore into Chancellor Merkel for her, and Brussel’s, botched handling of Brexit (for which “she, Merkel bears some responsibility”). Weidel pointed out that “the UK is the second biggest economy in Europe – as big as the 19 smallest EU members combined”. “From an economic perspective, the EU is shrinking from 27 member-states to 9. In the face of such an enormous event, the EU reaction verges on a pathological denial of reality … [they should recall] that German prosperity and jobs are at stake here. It is clearly in Germany’s interest that trade and investment continue unhindered. But, out of blind loyalty, you [Merkel], follow France, which wants to deny Britain access to the Single Market. Yes, you [Merkel] are considering not allowing Britain access to the European Economic Area, because France does not want it. [Sarcasm] that would be too much: Too much free trade; too much fresh air in the markets … France with its failed industrial policy serves as [the new] blueprint [for the EU]”. (See video here).
Weidel’s last point is key: She is implying that Macron is positioning himself to eclipse Merkel as the EU leader on the waning of the Chancellor’s influence and credibility. Macron intends to impose instead, the “failed” French industrial model, to Germany’s disadvantage, Weidel suggests.
She is not alone in this suspicion. Trump too, dislikes any prospective Macron take-over of the EU leadership that will (almost certainly) be more hostile to any trade agreement with the US (especially on agriculture), and which would open French industry to US competition. Hence Trump’s riposte (on French wine) in retaliation to France’s new taxes on US tech firms – contributing little, or nothing, to the French Treasury. Trump is enlisting too in the battle for the future shape of Europe. It is going to be a battle royal.
A major threat to the EU now emanates from the least anticipated direction – from the US. At no point did European leaders consider their project as a challenge to US power. Rather, they saw progress in their careers as contingent on receiving the US approval. Consequently, they deliberately chose not to found the Euro in anything other than within the dollar sphere. They never considered the possibility that the United States might change attitude. And now – suddenly – the EU finds itself exposed to all manner of sanctions through the Euro’s close vulnerability to dollar hegemony; from a possible trade and tech war between Europe’s two key trading partners; and even a falling-out as a result of a changing US defence calculus. Steering a course between the US and China will challenge deeply Europe’s imbedded cultural predisposition.
Weidel also warns the German Parliament that that the biggest consequence for Germany from Brexit is not just its exports, but rather, without the UK as a EU member, Germany will lose its ability to assemble a blocking majority (35%) in Council: And, absent this ability to block, Germany may not be able “to stop the crisis-ridden, Club-Med States and France, from reaching into community funds”.
This goes to the crux of the European crisis: an accord rooted in Germany’s traumatic experience of the inter-war hyper-inflation; in the Great Depression of the 30s; and to the social erosion to which it led. To exorcise these ghosts, Germany deliberately painted the EU into an automatic system of austerity ‘discipline’– enforced through a German surveilled, Central Bank (the ECB). The whole was ‘locked-fast’ in automaticity (i.e. in Europe’s ‘automatic stabilising mechanisms’). This was conceded by other European states (the core accord), since it seemed the only way (it was said), that Germany would agree to put its revered ‘Ark’ of the then stable Deutsche Mark, into the common ‘pot’ of the ECM system.
Professor Paul Krugman explains:
“How [then] did Europe manage to follow a common monetary policy … with an European Central Bank, explicitly … set up to give each country an equal voice, and yet satisfy the German demand for assured monetary rectitude? The answer was to put the new system on autopilot, pre-programming it to do what the Germans would have done if they were still in charge.
First, the new central bank – the ECB – would be made an autonomous institution, as free as possible from political influence. Second, it would be given a clear, very narrow mandate: price stability, period – no responsibility at all for squishy things like employment or growth. Third, the first head of the ECB, appointed for an eight-year term, would be someone guaranteed to be more German than the Germans: W. Duisenberg, who headed the Dutch central bank during a period when his job consisted almost entirely of shadowing whatever the Bundesbank did”.
Krugman is too polite to say it explicitly, but it never was a common policy. It was German control, hidden in stabilising mechanisms, designed by Frankfurt. The loss of this mechanism is what is frightening man of the German élite.
And Macron has just exploded that original Franco-German compact through putting a French woman (Lagarde) in charge of the ECB; a self-declared Federalist (“I want a United States of Europe”) as EU Commission President, and a Brexit hawk as President of the EU Council. Macron’s triumph over Merkel is intended to de-throne Germany. And a punishment Brexit – both to weaken Germany, and to sap Germany’s voting power at the Council – as well as the satisfaction of seeing a chastised Britain being chased from out of the EU.
So Macron is ushering in his notion of a closer centralised European governance – but who is to pay for it now? Without Germany’s former level of contributions and Britain’s input as a major contributor nation, the EU can neither reform itself (since many reforms would require Treaty re-writes), nor afford itself.
And wide political discontent to the Macron formula is already baked in for the future, as Frank Lee notes:
“Those Eastern European states which emerged from the break-up of the Soviet Union had been led to believe that a bright new world of West European living standards, enhanced pay levels, high rates of social mobility and consumption were on offer.
Unfortunately, they were sold an illusion: the result of the transition so far seems to have been the creation of a low-wage hinterland, a border economy on the fringes of the highly developed European core; a Euro version of NAFTA and the maquiladora, i.e., low tech, low wage, low skills production units on the Mexican side of the US’s southern borders”.
And we are not talking ‘just Latvia’: For many in the East of Germany (the AfD’s electoral heartland), German unification in 1990 was not a merger of equals, but instead an “Anschluss” (annexation) with West Germany taking over East Germany. Reasons for East German disenchantment can be seen everywhere: The eastern population has shrunk by about 2 million, unemployment has soared, young people are moving away in droves, and what was one of the Eastern Bloc’s leading industrial nations is now largely devoid of industry.
And here lies the kernel of the crisis. There has been a call from all sides to try something different: such as relaxing the fiscal rules that are destroying public services; or, more daringly, to touch the ‘holy grail’: of reform of the financial and banking system.
But here is the rub: All such initiatives are prohibited in the locked-down treaty system. Everyone might think to revise those treaties. But that is not going to happen. The treaties are untouchable, precisely because Germany believes that to loosen its hold over the monetary system will be to open Pandora’s Box to the ghosts of inflation and social instability rising, to haunt us anew. Weidel was very clear on this danger.
The reality is that the European ‘lock-down’ derives from a system that has willfully removed power from parliaments and governments, and enshrined the automaticity of that system into treaties that can only be revised by extraordinary procedures. No one in Brussels sees any prospect of ‘that’ happening – hence the Brussels ‘record’ is stuck: repeating the mantra of ‘There Is No Alternative’ (TINA) to more, and closer, Euro-integration. And that is precisely what the European ‘sovereigntists’ are determined to oppose, by all means possible.
Only the onset of the coming recession in Europe and the associated sovereign debt crisis may prove sufficient to shake Brussels from its smug torpor, and to focus minds on how to manage the coming crisis. As Evans-Pritchard concludes, the ECB cannot save the eurozone another time. The baton passes to the politicians – if they are able?
Welcome to the new phase of Westphalian struggle: European ‘Empire’ – to be, or not to be.

Wednesday, 26 June 2019

Merkel has sold out on Iran


Germany vs. Iran – Has Germany Sold Out to the Devil?


By Peter Koenig



23 June, 2019


Madame Angela Merkel – the head of Europe’s strongest economy, of the leader of the European Union, said that there was strong evidence that Iran attacked the two tankers in the Gulf of Oman. Ten days ago, German Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, travelled to Tehran, officially to “save” the Nuclear Deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – JCPoA), but in reality, to ‘negotiate’ with Tehran ways so Germany and by association other EU members, might still do business with Iran, against some “concessions” by Iran, in order to appease Washington.

Iran’s President Rouhani reacted quickly. FM Maas got the cold shoulder and was dismissed. And rightly so. Maas was not really representing Germany – but the United States. Iran gave the EU an “ultimatum” of 60 days to stick to their commitments on trading with Iran according to the Nuclear Deal – despite the US reneging on it – or else, Iran may bypass some of the conditions under the JCPOA accord. The EU – not being independent and her member countries having lost all sovereignty by submitting to the dictate first from Brussels, second from the tyranny of Washington, didn’t like the ultimatum, and said so in a joint statement. They added a weak and meek phrase, “We call on countries not party to the JCPOA to refrain from taking any actions that impede the remaining parties’ ability to fully perform their commitments;” not even daring calling the country by name, for whom the statement was destined, i.e. the US of A.

Germany’s position is as absurd as it has ever been since Merkel and the entire Bundestag accepted the sanctions imposed by Washington on Russia in 2014 – and replicated them along with the rest of the EU – even to their own detriment and to the detriment of the entire EU. Chancellor Merkel and apparently the entire Bundestag, again, go along with Washington’s equally absurd and false accusation that Iran has attacked the two tankers, one Japanese owned, the other Norwegian. The latter belonging to a close friend of Iran’s, and the Japanese one, hardest hit – exactly at the time when Japan’s PM Shinzō Abe, was visiting the Ayatollah in Tehran to discuss how to maintain the Nuclear Deal – trading – despite the sanctions and threats of Washington, hence, a friendly visit.

A blind person can see that these were two false flags – so thinly masked, with badly fabricated US ‘video evidence’ that even according to CIA and US military brass did not deliver conclusive evidence. In fact, none at all. Madame Merkel – why do you not first ask the obvious question “Cui bono?”— Who benefits? Certainly not Iran – but the aggressor, the US which has been planning and preparing for war with Iran for decades, ever since the first Iraq war under Father Bush, in 1991. At the 2003 invasion of Iraq – Bolton openly expressed his dreams to demolish Iran. He and Pompeo are liars and war criminals, who run the White House and pretend to run the Pentagon – and who act in impunity. Their power seems limitless. Trump – seems to be a mere puppet.

Getting Merkel on board of the flagrant US lie that Iran was attacking two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, is a strategic hit, enhancing the lies’ credibility and, thus, making a US attack on Iran more palatable to the rest of the world. Yet, apparently this was not enough. The Pentagon sent an unmanned high-altitude Global Hawk drone into Iranian airspace, a provocation Iran could not resist and shot the drone down, but not before sending warning signals, about which today nobody talks. The world shouldn’t know that Iran had the noblesse to warn the US about the drone being in their airspace. As can be expected the White House gnomes deny that the drone was invading Iranian airspace, but pretend it was in international air space, when it was shot down.

Has Europe Rebelled?

This raised the ante for Washington to launch an attack on Iran. All was planned to be carried from Thursday to Friday (20 to 21 June), and at last minute Trump stopped it. Is it true? – It could be, because somebody a bit ‘higher up’ than Trump and his warrior minions, must have realized the danger that such an attack may pose to the rest of the world – or actually that it could trigger a nuclear conflict. However, that the attack plan was stopped doesn’t mean it was canceled. Maybe it was just postponed.

In the meantime, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ordered all US airlines to avoid the Gulf of Oman and the Gulf of Hormuz. And, as could be expected, the airlines of Washington’s “true” puppet allies have followed suit, i.e. Australia’s Qantas Airways Ltd, Singapore Airlines Ltd, Germany’s Lufthansa, British Airways, Air France and its Dutch KLM affiliate, as well as Malaysia Airlines, said they were re-routing flights to avoid the area. Others may follow under direct or tacit pressure of the US. The Japanese airline ANA said they were considering alternative routings. Effectively, the US was able to declare a no-fly zone over a significant area of Iran.

Let’s make no mistake, all the visible key figures at the helm of the White House – are run in the back by Israel, by Netanyahu and the Chosen People he represents, those who also run Wall Street and the western world’s banking and financial system. Israel would like to see Iran in rubbles, or better, in eternal chaos, the goal that was set for Iraq, Afghanistan and that the US was and still is dreaming for Syria. This bunch of evil elite pulls the strings and hopes to soon pull just ONE string for global hegemony, under a ONE World Order.

Back to Germany. Instead of jumping off the sinking ship of Washington and its faithful entourage of the willing, as rats would do, and as the vast majority of the German people would prefer, let alone German and European business, Madame Merkel and apparently all her circles, including Berlin’s Parliament, follow the US flagrant lie propaganda. Why? – Well, this is the deal: There are many ways to “buy” top politicians, with threats or with money or by outright inflicting fear through ‘proxy-assassinations’.

Once Germany is on board – the rest of Europe will follow suit. In that case, Washington – Trump and consortia – think they have Iran totally strangled, by blocking all trade and all financial transactions, plus confiscating Iranian assets abroad – on top of imposing stiff tariffs, so that Iran can no longer afford importing vital goods for manufacturing – or for sheer survival from the west. Once a country is weak, it can be taken over easily. So, the western, AngloZionist thinking goes.

Iran – her Fifth-Columnists aside – is strong and has already proven that it is detaching from the west. Even trying to adhere and fight for the Nuclear Deal which the west, i.e. Europe is incapable of respecting for lack of backbone, is a waste of time. To demonstrate that Iran has alternatives, Mr. Rouhani was attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on 13 and 14 June 2019, by invitation of China, the leader of the 8-member “club”.

SCO stands for promoting peace, trade and a non-aggressive defense strategy (the antidote to the NATO-type military aggression). As of now, Mr. Rouhani is an observer for his country, Iran which is in an advanced stage in the process of entering the SCO as a full member. This could happen later this year or in 2020. Iran would recover her sovereignty, her economic potential and would – and will – be able to detach from the west, pretty much as did Russia and China, the two super-powers under constant assaults of sanctions, denigration and false accusations.

Turkey – is in a similar situation. If Turkey is admitted by the SCO – also very likely – their NATO exit will be imminent. What that will mean for the rest of NATO, at this point we can only guess and dream of, especially since there is an ever-stronger people’s movement throughout Europe to exit NATO. It is particularly strong in Italy and paradoxically also in Germany. The vast majority of Germans want to exit NATO, but the government doesn’t listen. “So far” doesn’t listen. The German anti-NATO movement has been gaining strength ever since the anti-nuclear energy protests in the early seventies which were followed and intensified in the late 1970’s early 1980s against nuclear arms stockpiled in Germany by the US, particularly those stored at the US Air Force base of Ramstein, near Kaiserslautern.

The “so-far” is a precursor to a break with NATO, as the pressure against the USAF base Ramstein, against NATO, is mounting, and that, when Madame Merkel decides firmly to go with the sinking ship – risking to pull Germany and her people down the drain for sheer senseless and outdated obedience to the succumbing tyrant. How absurd!

While Iran is making smart moves, gradually away from western economics, from trading with the west – and moving eastwards – where the future is – Germany backtracks, literally into the orbit of a dying beast, into what is ever-more detectible – a decaying empire.

When will Germany wake up? When the first bombs fall on her cities – a WWI and WWII redux? Except this time, it may not be just the falling of conventional bombs. It may be nuclear meeting nuclear at Ramstein. Madame Merkel, your obligation to the people who apparently elected you is larger than you think and larger than yourself – and much larger than whatever goes on in your mind to follow a defeated warrior and rogue nation into hell.


Monday, 3 June 2019

Merkel's Government On Verge Of Collapse


"The Coalition Has Come To An End": Merkel's Government On Verge Of Collapse After SPD Chief Resigns


2 June, 2019

Merkel's shocking announcement last week that she was "unretiring" after the CDU's abysmal showing in last week's EU Parliamentary election - the party's worst result ever in a national election which cost the CDU/CSU's position as the largest party in the bloc's largest legislative body - and as a result the Chancellor would withdraw her support from her own hand-picked successor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, or AKK, has itself been throw into chaos after the leader of Chancellor Angela Merkel's junior coalition partner, the SPD, resigned on Sunday from her party's top posts, raising the possibility that Germany's embattled government could collapse.
Andrea Nahles, who heads - or rather headed - the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), came under intense pressure after voters handed the party its worst European election results a week ago as Europe continues to revolt against establishment parties.
Andrea Nahles headed the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD)
Ahead of three key state elections in eastern Germany in September, the SPD had initially planned to re-examine its partnership with Merkel's centre-right CDU-CSU alliance in the autumn. But ahead of the planned leadership vote on Tuesday, Nahles said she would give up her jobs as both party chief and head of its parliamentary group, the AFP reported.
"The discussions in the parliamentary group and the broad feedback from the party showed me that the support necessary for the exercise of my offices is no longer there," Nahles said much to Merkel's shock, as suddenly the coalition government exists only in theory.
The 48-year-old said she hoped her resignation "would open the possibility that the succession can take place in an orderly manner".
Merkel - whose approval has also collapsed ever since she admitted over a million Syrian refugees in Germany as a result of her disastrous "Open door" policy - said on Sunday that Germany's government would push on with its work despite the setback.
"What I want to say for the government is that we will continue with our work with all seriousness and with great responsibility," she said.
Maybe not: speaking to Bild, Harald Christ, deputy chief of the SPD's economy forum, said that Nahles's decision had put the future of the coalition in serious doubt.
"To all those who are happy today: it is a great loss for German politics. Nahles stands for the existence of the GroKo - whose stability is now in question," he said, using the German short-form for grand coalition.
Some of those who were quite happy are all the newly ascendant parties, like the Greens and AfD, which have torn Germany's centrist system apart, resulting in an unprecedented (well, one precedent) divergence between the extreme left and right.
Which is why anxiously watching as the SPD tumbled into disarray, CDU heavyweights urged their centre-left partner not to endanger the coalition: "The voter mandate is valid for four years and political parties must ensure stability in difficult times," the CDU's Bundestag deputy president Hans-Peter Friedrich told Bild, clearly anticipating the collapse of the government.
"An early end of the GroKo would only benefit the political fringes."
Of course, Merkel's CDU itself has been scrambling to retain voters, after it too scored a record low in the European elections.
Following Nahles' bombshell, the CDU said both Kramp-Karrenbauer and Merkel would address the press later on Sunday. But the far-right AfD had already counted its chickens, and said the government was already disintegrating.
"Not only is the SPD dissolving, the GroKo too is walking the political stage only as one of the undead," wrote the co-leader of the AfD's group in parliament, Alice Weidel, on Twitter.
According to the AFP, some of Germany's largest newspapers reached similar conclusions.
Bild noted that "the SPD is bleeding to death. The GroKo too". And the Sueddeutsche daily predicted that "the coalition has come to an end", adding that "the Social Democrats have just defeated the woman who with great effort brought the alliance together. What's the point now then of continuing to torment themselves with this?"
The point is that the alternative is the the beginning of the end for Europe as we know it, and Brussels will do everything in its power, and beyond, to prevent giving power back to the people.