German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she will team up with France to hold the EU together and pledged to her form next government “without delay.”
In a New Year’s Eve speech to the nation, Merkel outlined a vision for her fourth term that includes an alliance with French President Emmanuel Macron to strengthen Europe’s economic clout and control migration, while upholding values of tolerance and pluralism within the EU and abroad.
“Twenty-seven countries in Europe must be impelled more strongly than ever to remain a community,” Merkel said in a copy of the speech provided by her office in advance of the televised address yesterday. “That will be the decisive question of the next few years. Germany and France want to work together to make it succeed.”
Photo: EPA
Merkel’s effort to combine the strengths of the euro area’s two biggest economies has been hamstrung by Germany’s longest post-election party deadlock since World War II, which has left her a caretaker chancellor since September last year.
Exploratory talks on renewing her coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD) are due to start on Sunday.
After a poll last week suggested that Germans increasingly do not want Merkel, 63, to serve another full term, the German chancellor sought to put her stamp on the political debate.
Merkel said she is committed to forming “a stable government for Germany without delay in the new year.”
That is likely to be more difficult than in the past, especially after Merkel’s attempt to create a coalition with the Free Democratic Party and the Greens collapsed in November.
After serving as Merkel’s junior partner for eight of her 12 years in office, voter support for the Social Democrats slumped to a post-war low in September.
Wolfgang Schaeuble, the former German minister of finance who is now president of Germany’s lower house, told Berlin’s Tagesspiegel newspaper that a stable alliance with the SPD is preferable, though governing without a parliamentary majority would be an option if talks with the Social Democrats fail.
Looking back on a year that brought a far-right party into German parliament for the first time since the early years after World War II, Merkel acknowledged a growing divide between the winners of Germany’s economic boom and those left behind who worry about crime, violence and migration.
“Both are realities in our country: success and confidence, but also fears and doubts,” Merkel said. “Both are sources of motivation for me.”
More than half of the supporters of both Merkel’s CDU-CSU bloc and the SPD expect them to agree on another “grand coalition” of the two biggest parties, according to a Dec. 19-21 YouGov poll of 2,036 people.
Even so, 47 percent want Merkel to step down before the end of the four-year mandate her party won in September, up from 36 percent in October, according to the survey published on Wednesday.
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
RSS