Can a Bavarian Oktoberfest beer indulger bring down the Berlin government?

In the late hours of last Monday, Horst Seehofer the Bavarian, a right wing politician and standard Oktoberfest beer indulger, who has lately discovered the attractions of anti-immigration rhetoric, finally backed off from his threats to bring down Angela Merkel’s Federal government. He is the President of the right wing Christian Social Union party present […]

The Bavarians threaten Berlin and Brussels with immigration crisis

In an unprecedented move, the German Interior Minister is betraying his boss – Chancellor Angela Merkel – and is forming an anti-refugee alliance with the extreme right-wing Austrian government and the precarious new Italian populist administration. The impossible German Interior Minister, Horst Seehofer, the leader of the Bavarian CSU party and junior partner in the […]

Germany may have a stable and more cooperative government

The center right and center left German mainstream political parties agreed yesterday evening to form a new grand coalition government. It will be the third time since 2005 the two Christian parties and the socialists jointly govern their country. The socialists will control the Finance, Foreign and Labor ministries, with Martin Schulz, the Social Democratic […]

Germany not famous for easy way outs from political stalemates

And now ‘Frau Bundeskanzlerin’ what? The truth is though whatever the future holds for the German political landscape, is no good. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s failure last weekend to form a government, with a viable parliamentary majority has irreparably stained the so far pristine scenery of the country’s politico-economic affairs. The unsuccessful attempts to convince liberal […]

German political spillovers: ECB’s Draghi resists first attacks by AfD

Last Monday, Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, speaking at the Economic Committee of the European Parliament had the opportunity to test the grounds and familiarize himself with the nature of political climate he may come across after the German elections. He had a heated exchange with the head of the AfD group […]

Elections results: Austerity’s black to prevail in the new multicolored German government

During the past ten years, Germany has become a politically boring country and yesterday’s election is not going to change that, despite the loss of around one million votes for the Chancellor’s party. Angela Merkel’s win came to none’s surprise and the results permit her to embark on a fourth term in the top job. […]

Why is Grexit again in the news? Who is to pay for Eurozone’s banking problems?

Grexit, Greece’s exit from the euro area, is back in the news – for the wrong reasons. During this past week, the country’s creditors, the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the European Stability Mechanism and the International Monetary Fund, finally agreed amongst themselves to set even tougher conditions in order to continue refinancing the […]

Deutsche Bank chased away from US, threatened with more fines

The US Department of Justice settled its claims against Deutsche Bank, the biggest German lender, for packaging and selling toxic mortgage securities to uninformed customers prior to the 2008-2010 financial crisis. Initially, the Justice Department had asked for $14 billion, but it seems it settled for a fine of $7.2bn. However, this is not the […]

Why is Merkel’s Germany so liberal with the refugees? Did the last elections change that?

There are many lessons to be learned from last Sunday’s elections in Germany. For one thing, the widely expected electoral setback that the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) experienced last Sunday doesn’t seem to constitute a major blow to her dominant political status. She continues to be the central […]

Bundestag kick starts the next episode of the Greek tragedy

It’s quite astonishing to watch the German Parliament, the Bundestag, voting on Friday 30 November, with the overwhelming majority of 473 deputies in 584 present, saying yes to a third in a row aid programme for Greece, while all the major media insist, that the public opinion in this country is against any help Berlin should […]