Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Germany

  • Dutch, German Liberals Split on Climate, Sustainability

    Christian Lindner
    German finance minister and Free Democratic Party leader Christian Lindner boards a government plane to Washington DC, April 22, 2022 (Bundesfinanzministerium)

    Germany’s Free Democrats are turning their backs on climate and sustainability. Across the border in the Netherlands, by contrast, a liberal-led government has accelerated its program to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

    The Dutch coalition — which includes two Christian democratic and a left-liberal party in addition to the Free Democrats’ ally VVD — is raising taxes on coal use and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in order to pay for subsidies on green hydrogen, solar panels and secondhand electric cars. It is also banning most gas-powered boilers in favor of electric heat pumps by 2027.

    The German liberals resist a similar ban. They nearly torpedoed an EU phaseout of diesel and petrol cars. (more…)

  • Germany Scales Back Cannabis Legalization

    Cannabis plant
    Cannabis plant (Unsplash/Roberto Valdivia)

    German health minister Karl Lauterbach has had to scale back his plan for cannabis legalization.

    Rather than allow Germans to buy up to 30 grams of weed in specialized stores, they could buy a maximum of 25 grams in “clubs” of 500 members.

    There would also be a limit on the level of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, a psychoactive substance) in weed sold to users aged 18 to 21.

    Anyone could still grow up to three cannabis plants at home. Criminal records for possession and self-cultivation would be expunged if the bill is accepted by the Bundestag. (more…)

  • German Liberals Stab Dutch Liberal in the Back

    Jan Huitema
    Jan Huitema, a member of the European Parliament for the Dutch liberal party, answers questions from reporters in Brussels, October 28, 2022 (European Parliament/Philippe Buissin)

    German liberals have thrown a wrench in the EU’s plan to phase out diesel and petrol cars, arguing a 2035 deadline is too strict.

    “It is contradictory when the EU Commission calls for high climate protection targets on the one hand, but on the other hand makes it more difficult to achieve these targets through overambitious regulation,” transport minister Volker Wissing told the Bundestag on Friday.

    A vote of EU transport ministers planned for Tuesday has been postponed. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is attending a German cabinet meeting on Sunday to discuss their about-face.

    Wissing’s change of heart is a stab in the back of fellow liberal Jan Huitema, who steered the car legislation through the European Parliament. Wissing’s FDP and Huitema’s VVD are the fourth- and fifth-largest parties in the Renew group. (more…)

  • Macron Is Winning the Argument for State Aid in Europe

    Emmanuel Macron Ursula von der Leyen
    French president Emmanuel Macron listens to European Council president Ursula von der Leyen during a summit in Prague, Czech Republic, October 6, 2022 (European Council)

    77 percent of all state aid approved in the EU last year went to French and German companies, according to figures from the European Commission.

    The two countries, which have 40 percent of the European economy between them, benefited from a suspension of antitrust rules first put in place during COVID-19.

    France would make the suspension permanent. Two years ago, the European Commission rejected such a French proposal. Now it is more sympathetic.

    I have a story in the Netherlands’ Wynia’s Week about what France wants, why the European Commission changed its mind, and how France and Germany were able to take advantage of exemptions to the rules of the single market. Here is a summary for English readers. (more…)

  • Rent Control Keeps Failing. Countries Keep Trying

    Madrid Spain
    The sun rises over the Gran Vía of Madrid, Spain (Unsplash/Arw Zero)

    So politicians understand how prices work after all.

    Spain, Germany and the Netherlands are capping prices of electricity and heating for consumers. Energy providers are still paying high prices for oil and record prices for natural gas due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, so governments will make up the difference.

    The price energy providers charge is based on their costs plus a profit. If they can’t pass higher costs on to consumers, they would either have to cut their own costs, for example by laying off staff; scale up, which isn’t easy in Europe’s heavily regulated energy market; or fail.

    Somehow that logic is lost on many when it comes to housing. The same three countries have capped, or are capping, rents, but there is no compensation for landlords. Nor for developers, who can sell fewer rental apartments.

    Landlords make up the difference by underinvesting in maintenance. Developments simply don’t happen.

    Which are then used as arguments for even more regulation. (more…)

  • Support for Legalizing Cannabis, Cocaine Grows

    Karl Lauterbach
    German health minister Karl Lauterbach (Bundesministerium für Gesundheit)

    Germany plans to legalize the sale of recreational cannabis in 2024.

    Germany allows medical use of cannabis, but it is seldom prescribed. Karl Lauterbach, the health minister, wants to license the production, distribution and sale of recreational cannabis. Consumers would be allowed to buy up to 30 grams in specialized stores and they could grow three cannabis plants at home. All criminal cases would be closed.

    There would be quality requirements, but no price regulation. Lauterbach left open the possibility of a cannabis tax on top of sales tax (19 percent), but cautioned that legal cannabis must be competitive with the black market. (more…)

  • Europe’s Energy Crisis, Explained

    Eemshaven Netherlands power plant
    Coal plant and wind turbines in the Eemshaven of the Netherlands (Kees van de Veen)

    European countries spent €280 billion on subsidies and tax cuts in the last year to help businesses and households pay their energy bills.

    It may not be enough.

    Prices surged when Russia expanded its war in Ukraine in February and European states agreed to reduce their imports of Russian natural gas. The EU as a whole got 40 percent of its gas from Russia in previous years. That is down to 20 percent.

    But there are more factors pushing up electricity and gas prices. Here is an overview, including what governments have done to ameliorate the effects. (more…)

  • European Military Support for Ukraine Dries Up

    Dutch self-propelled howitzer
    Dutch self-propelled Panzerhaubitze 2000 takes part in a military exercise in Sweden, October 2018 (Ministerie van Defensie)

    For the first time since the Russian invasion in February, European countries did not pledge additional weapons to Ukraine in July.

    The German Kiel Institute, which keeps track of countries’ humanitarian as well as military assistance to Ukraine, reports that the United States is providing €25 billion in weapons, in addition to €20 billion in humanitarian and financial support. European countries, including the UK, are giving less than €10 billion in arms.

    Christoph Trebesch, who leads the team in Kiel that compiles the data, calls it “surprisingly little considering what is at stake.” He compares the €10 billion for Ukraine to the €750 billion Europe, excluding the UK, spent to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

    I have a story in the Netherlands’ Wynia’s Week about Europe’s waning support for Ukraine. I’ll translate the highlights. (more…)

  • Even in Gas Crisis, Germany Refuses Nuclear Power

    Germany coal power plant
    Coal power plant outside Hamm in Westphalia, Germany (Draheim/Hans Blossey)

    Germans are urged to ration gas. “We are in the midst of a gas crisis,” according to economy and climate minister Robert Habeck. “From now on, gas is a scarce asset.” Russia has reduced supplies to what used to be its largest customer in the EU in anger over the bloc’s support for Ukraine.

    All consumers, whether in industry, in public institutions or private households, should reduce their gas consumption as much as possible, so that we can make it through the winter.

    Habeck is auctioning gas supplies to industry to incentivize conservation, providing €15 billion in credit to pay for non-Russian gas supplies and reopening mothballed coal power plants.

    If Russia cut off gas completely, Habeck fears the economic impact would be “worse than the COVID pandemic.” The Green party leader has likened a Russian gas stop to a “Lehman Brothers effect.” The American investment bank’s collapse triggered the 2008 financial crisis.

    Yet even now, Habeck will not keep Germany’s three remaining nuclear plants, which provide 5 percent of its electricity, online. They are slated to be retired at the end of the year. (more…)

  • Germany Admits Failure of Ostpolitik 2.0

    Olaf Scholz
    German chancellor Olaf Scholz sits down to give a news conference in Berlin, February 16 (Bundesregierung/Johannssen-Koppitz)

    The Financial Times reports that German businesses are steeling themselves to sever links with Russia.

    The German government is raising defense spending to €100 billion this year, meeting NATO’s 2-percent norm for the first time in thirty years and giving Germany a larger military budget than Russia. It is buying fifty new warplanes, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

    The government also supports the European Commission’s proposals to make the EU less dependent on Russian oil and gas.

    I’m the glass-half-full type, so I want to say better late than never. But Germany really is late in seeing Vladimir Putin for who he is. (more…)

  • Germany Exports Its Energy Failures

    Olaf Scholz
    German chancellor Olaf Scholz arrives in Rome, Italy, December 20, 2021 (Bundesregierung)

    The Netherlands is forced to drill for almost twice as much natural gas this year as it intended to, partly as a result of higher-than-expected demand from Germany.

    Germany requires an additional 1.1 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas, and the Netherlands is contractually obliged to provide it.

    The Dutch need 2 bcm more for their own consumption plus 1.6 bcm to fill depleted stores for next winter.

    Altogether production must rise from 3.9 to 7.6 bcm — still a fraction of the 72 bcm of gas the Netherlands produced as recently as 2013.

    The Netherlands has small gas fields in the North Sea. The bulk of its gas is extracted from the northeastern region of Groningen. Or was, because the government had promised to shut down production there entirely.

    Years of drilling have caused increasingly violent earthquakes. The government has so far paid €220 million in compensation to owners of damaged homes. Another €250 million may be needed. A parliamentary inquiry into the government’s handling of the damage is due to begin next week.

    Which makes Germany’s request especially awkward for the Netherlands’ prime minister, Mark Rutte. He has asked the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, for alternatives. (more…)

  • Expropriation Unlikely in Berlin, But So Is Cheaper Housing

    Berlin Germany
    Tower blocks in Berlin, Germany, May 3, 2020 (Unsplash/Sebastian Herrmann)

    Berliners voted in September to expropriate apartments from large landlords. 56 percent supported the proposal in a referendum, which would put around 243,000 of the city’s 1.5 million rental apartments in public ownership.

    I argued against expropriation at the time, and have written a follow-up for the Dutch opinion website Wynia’s Week in which I argue the city is unlikely to go through with it. It is a bad proposal, one that is opposed by even the center-left, and it may not stand up in court.

    Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean either the city or the federal government is likely to ease Berlin’s housing shortage. (more…)

  • Struggling Through Simms

    Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, from 1453 to the Present

    Historians tend to discourage each other from writing sweeping histories. Usually that’s good advice. Few individuals know enough to write “the” history of peasantry or “the” history of the fifteenth century or “the” history of France. Better to devote a few years of your life to writing a thorough history of peasant life in fifteenth-century France than try to be the next Fernand Braudel.

    We still want the best historians to at least make an attempt at grand narrative, or we couldn’t see the forest of history through the microhistory trees.

    Good examples from recent years include John Darwin’s After Tamerlane (2007) and Peter Frankopan The Silk Roads (2015) for inner, and Victor Lieberman’s Strange Parallels (2003, 2009) for coastal, Eurasia, and Jack Goldstone’s Why Europe? (2008) for the rise of the West (far superior to Niall Ferguson’s more popular book on the topic).

    Brendan Simms’ Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy is a lesser entry in the genre. (more…)

  • How to Keep an Empire for a Thousand Years

    The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe's History

    Keeping a thousand years of European history readable is no small feat, but Peter H. Wilson manages it.

    The Holy Roman Empire touches on everything from high politics to peasant life. Wilson’s central insight: the empire’s perceived weaknesses were its strengths.

    The Holy Roman Empire changed composition through the centuries. Its internal organization was in a constant state of flux. Emperors had to negotiate to come to power and compromise to stay in power. Autonomy given to one city or prince did not necessarily apply to another. For a long time, such agreements were not even written down. The empire refused to lay down one law, one language, one religion. It ended up a patchwork of overlapping competencies and jurisdictions that kept bureaucrats, lawyers and politicians busy for centuries. (more…)

  • What’s in Germany’s “Traffic Light” Coalition Agreement

    Olaf Scholz
    German finance minister Olaf Scholz attends a debate in parliament in Berlin, July 8, 2018 (Bundestag/Inga Kjer)

    Germany’s Social Democrats, Greens and liberal Free Democrats are ready to govern. Two months after the federal election almost to the day, they unveiled a 177-page coalition agreement that lays out their program for the next four years.

    Social Democratic Party (SPD) leader Olaf Scholz, who would succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor, described the deal as the “biggest industrial modernization of Germany in more than 100 years.” It calls for major investments in decarbonization and digitalization.

    Free Democratic Party (FDP) leader Christian Lindner would succeed Scholz at the Finance Ministry, despite his party being the smallest in the “traffic light” coalition (named after the parties’ colors).

    The Greens get climate and foreign policy, and the right to nominate Germany’s next EU commissioner. (Unless the conservative Ursula von der Leyen is reelected as commission president.)

    Here are the highlights. (more…)