Free Republic

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced she will give up leadership of her center-right Christian Democrat Union (CDU) party after 18 years in the post, German media has reported. Merkel announced during a meeting with officials that she will not seek to run for re-election at the party's convention in December. But she made clear that she wanted to remain as chancellor, a position she has held since 2005, CNN affiliate RTL reported, citing party sources. Angela Merkel's Bavarian allies lose majority in crushing vote The announcement is a sign of Merkel's weakened power within her own party, and waning...

Three years ago, a horde of "migrants" from the Islamic ummah arrived suddenly in the Hungarian capital of Budapest, marching right through a sovereign nation without a care in the world. They were on their way to the promised lands of old Christendom, and the glittering, helpless welfare societies that tried to offer cradle-to-grave security but too late realized that it forgot the cradle part, and only had the grave to look forward to. Shortly thereafter, the Hungarians sealed their borders, built a fence, and enlisted other similarly minded countries in central Europe to join them in an adamant refusal...

Over half of German citizens living under Angela Merkel's seemingly disastrous open-border regime want to leave the country, according to Die Welt - referring to a YouGov survey commissioned by financial services provider Transferwise.

German and Romanian officials are attending a memorial service for the 30,000 people, mostly Ukrainian Jews, murdered on October 22-23, 1941. The massacre has been a long overlooked page of WWII history — until now. On October 12, 2018, Shalimovka, an area of new housing development on the outskirts of Odessa, will be the site of an unusual event. The German and Romanian ambassadors will make appearances there, and Holocaust victims' organizations will travel to take part, too. During the event, a speech from German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be read aloud, the RathsChor choir from the northern German city...

The Christian Social Union (CSU), who have almost single-handedly ruled the wealthy beer-and-lederhosen state since the 1960s, are expected to lose their absolute majority, polls say. The other partner in Merkel's fragile 'grand coalition', the Social Democrats, are also set to do poorly while the far-right and anti-immigration AfD look certain to enter the state assembly. The biggest winners, however, may be the left-leaning Greens who have doubled their poll ratings to around 18 percent since the last state elections, which would make them the second strongest party. If the surveys prove correct, the Bavarian election will mark another step...

Voters in the southern German state of Bavaria go to the polls on Sunday in a regional election that could shake the fragile coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. The Christian Social Union (CSU) -- a conservative sister party to Merkel's Christian Democrat Union (CDU) -- has dominated Bavarian politics for almost seven decades. Apart from a three-year period in the 1950s, the party has continuously governed the state since 1949. At this election, however, the CSU could lose votes to the anti-immigration, far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party and to the left-wing, environmentalist Greens.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel threatened to scrap her visit on Wednesday to Israel if the Jewish state destroyed the illegal Bedouin outpost of ...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday warned US President Donald Trump against “destroying” the United Nations. “I believe that destroying something without having developed something new is extremely dangerous,” Merkel said at a regional election campaign event in Bavaria. The veteran leader — a close ally of Trump’s bugbear Barack Obama while he was president — added that she believed multilateralism was the solution to many of the world’s problems. […] In his second appearance before the UN’s annual gathering last week, Trump told the General Assembly that he and his administration “reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace...

The elephant in the room when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Friday was the fundmantal disagreement between their countries on human rights. Germany has been very critical of Ankara on this score, while Erdogan has insisted that Berlin do more on German soil to go after detractors he claims are terrorists.At their post-meeting press conference, Merkel argued that the important thing was that the two sides were talking.“I consider the visit very important because when there are differences, a personal meeting is vital to resolve them,” Merkel said. Ties with Germany deteriorated following a failed...

Putin and Orban are increasingly conscious that their regular contacts have failed to bring the two countries closer together. In fact, despite its reputation as the EU’s most pro-Russian member-state, Hungary actually expelled a Russian diplomat in response to the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, unlike fellow EU member-states Slovenia, Bulgaria, Austria, Slovakia, Greece. In the spring, Orban readily deployed anti-Russian rhetoric during Hungary’s parliamentary election campaign. Bela Kovacs, a member of the European Parliament from the Jobbik opposition party, was indicted for alleged spying on the eve of the vote, having faced accusations of being a Russian agent...

This month, the doors will open at the Institute of Social, Economic and Political Sciences (ISSEP) in Lyon, France’s third-biggest city. It will, its high-profile backers hope, become a breeding ground for the country’s next generation of conservative thinkers and leaders. It also marks the return to public life of Marion Maréchal, once the great hope of the French far right, who is the college’s director. She said the idea was to train a new crop of politicians and officials to replace the “visionless” Parisian elite. She was the youngest member of France’s parliament before stepping away from politics in...

For most of Germany’s postwar history, the conservative CDU/CSU and the Social Democrats (SPD) were the undisputed twin poles of German politics. Known as Volksparteien, literally “popular parties,” these big-tent associations of interests have led every government since 1949. They were the German equivalents of the Republicans and Democrats in the United States or Tories and Labour in the United Kingdom. But their popularity is eroding alarmingly. In the words of venerable German political scientist Herfried Münkler, the Volksparteien look increasingly like “last year’s models.” The most recent Deutschlandtrend survey, published on September 20, put support for the CDU/CSU at...

President Donald Trump publicly rebuked German Chancellor Angela Merkel on July 11 for Germany’s decision to buy a massive amount of gas from Russia. “I think it’s very sad,” he said. "Germany is totally controlled by Russia,” he later said, “I think it’s a very bad thing for nato and I don’t think it should have happened.” Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 are key components of Putin’s plan to tighten his grip on nations in Eastern Europe that used to be part of the Soviet Empire. Since these pipelines travel directly from Russia to Germany, they enable Putin to...

In Magyar Idők, Zoltán Kottász contends that the 2019 European Parliament election campaign will be the first EP election in which real European issues will dominate. While in the past, EP elections in all member states were determined by domestic issues, in 2019, EU voters will decide about the future and identity of Europe, the pro-government commentator suspects. Kottász predicts that the campaign will be fought between what he calls ‘globalist multculturalist parties’ led by French President Macron, and ‘forces which champion national sovereignty’ that oppose migration. Kottász thinks that PM Orbán’s anti-multiculturalist and anti-immigration vision are becoming increasingly popular...

Germany and the US appear to be edging closer to political confrontation. The Federal Prosecutor says there is sufficient evidence to open a politically explosive investigation into NSA spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone. […] In the close to eight months that have passed since the first reports were published about the National Security Agency’s massive spying operations, the only things Germany has been given by the US are well-meaning assurances. Last summer, the German government sent a list of questions about their surveillance programs to the Americans and the British, whose GCHQ intelligence agency has likewise been accused...

Merkel defended democratic values in an interview following a contentious summer for her government. Interior Minister Horst Seehofer also said he doesn’t expect a repeat of the crisis that nearly upended Berlin. German Chancellor Angela Merkel emphasized the importance of press freedom, protections for minorities and independent courts in an interview with public broadcaster ARD on Sunday. “Democracy is more than just somebody getting a majority,” Merkel said. “Democracy is protection for minorities, press freedom, the right to demonstrate — democracy is independent courts.” If the independence of those institutions is no longer safeguarded, “then democracy would no longer be...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany’s current account surplus is set to remain the world’s largest this year despite increased trade tensions, the Ifo institute said on Monday, in an estimate likely to renew criticism of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s fiscal policies. The International Monetary Fund and the European Commission have for years urged Germany to do more to lift domestic demand and imports as a way to reduce global economic imbalances and stimulate growth elsewhere. Since his election, U.S. President Donald Trump has also criticized Germany’s export strength. Germany’s current account surplus — which measures the flow of goods, services and investments...

FRANKFURT, Germany — German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russia's President Vladimir Putin will have plenty to talk about when they meet Saturday — thanks in no small part to U.S. President Donald Trump, whose sanctions and criticisms over trade, energy and NATO have created new worries for both leaders. The two will meet at the German government's guest house outside Berlin and will give short statements beforehand but aren't planning a news conference, German officials have said. Government spokesman Steffen Seibert has said that topics will include the civil war in Syria, the conflict in Ukraine, and energy questions. Putin...

Pope Benedict strongly criticized the European Union on Saturday for excluding a mention of God and Europe’s Christian roots in declarations marking the 50th anniversary of its founding. Pope Benedict warned the bloc was headed up a slippery slope of indifference and said it could not deny its “historical, cultural and moral identity” that Christianity helped forge. In a toughly-worded speech to European bishops, Benedict said Europe was committing a form of “apostasy of itself” and was thus doubting its own identity. The Pope, who like his predecessor John Paul often calls for a mention of God and Christianity in...

During the July 2018 NATO summit, elements of the USA newsmedia focused on President Trump’s accurate attacks on Western Europe’s contradictory actions and positions in the arenas of defense and commerce. What the USA newsmedia covered much less was how welcome those points were to NATO members from Eastern Europe, whose memories of Russian aggression are much more recent, perhaps, than those of Western Europe, making them as wary of these issues as Mr. Trump is. Delegates from Poland, Lithuania, and Romania, for example, appeared just as happy about Mr. Trump’s comments as delegates from England, France and especially Germany...