I meant, in the grand scheme of history, Merkel's actions will be remembered as the "Right" or "Noble" thing to do. Politically it has not played well in the short run.
There is some truth to that. When you look at where the AfD did best, it is in the 5 Lander that made up East Germany. And that is also where die Linke did best. Add the two parties up and you get 34.4% in Brandenburg, 36.4% in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 43% in Saxony (AfD largest party there), 37.4% in Saxony-Anhalt and 39.6% in Thuringia. (Berlin with its civil servants and governmental hangers on still registered 12% for the AfD and 18.8% for die Linke, but the vote there is split between CDU supporting former West Berlin and Linke supporting former East Berlin). So you have two pro-Russian, anti-constitutional parties whose members feel left out both of the general economic strength of Germany as well as the post reunification system, getting getting more than a third of the vote in the part of the country that was a dictatorship within the lifespan of most of the voters. That worries me. It is especially concerning when you see how wealthy say the Rhineland or Bavaria is, and realize how poor the former east still is.
There have been three reforms packets to national asylum laws and regulations since the beginning of the Syrian refugee crisis. This is a topic that is only going to get touched when there is an actual crisis going on. It was the same with the Balkan wars and influx of refugees in the mid 90s. No matter how you handle it some people will be pissed. It's not like refugees arriving in Italy and Greece trickling through to central Europe is a new phenomenon, Border Countries have been complaining about the lack of help with this from other EU countries for at least 15 years. If I remember correctly Germany also voted against a new EU wide reform to border laws and refugee distribution only a few years before this crisis hit. Talk about shortsighted. It's not like you couldn't see this one coming.
Looks like Schäuble will become president of parliament. Greeks will be happy. Andrea Nahles to become SPD whip, asked today how she feels about her former CDU colleagues: "A bit sympathy, and from tomorrow on we will smash them right the faces"
One of Spiegel's big opinion commentators revealed the following today: In 2012 AfDs leading candidate Gauland was part of the so called Berlin circle of old, conservatives who have connections all through the party and the country. Merkel's then party secretary Gröhe came to talk them since they were unhappy about Merkel left course of the party. Gröhe yelled at them like they were politics interns and at some point through the tirades Gauland just sat back and stopped responding. One year later, in 2013, he left the CDU after 40 years and helped founding the AfD. There will be no piece for the CDU as long as Gauland controls the party -thats for sure. So basically ALL of this could have been prevented if one of Merkel's main allies had treated them a bit more respectful.
Coalition talks have been halted for the upcoming elections in Lower Saxony. Merkel's CDU blew a 10 pt lead there in the meanwhile - outcome could change a lot. Today CDU and CSU holding talks and it seems like CSU will be trying to force Merkel CDU to far more conservtive positions(mostly stolen from AfD) 10 Gebote der #CSU für #Merkel, von #Obergrenze bis #Leitkultur Passend zum Spitzentreffen heute Wir fragen #Spahn #BaB nach Lösung 18.30 pic.twitter.com/XEf8y6qn0S— Tina Hassel (@TinaHassel) October 8, 2017
Austria is the Canada of Germany right. If the poll is right, deferentially a right + far right party will form. https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...97043e57a22_story.html?utm_term=.7122ee96ef70
Saxony's minister president(you might say governor) surprisingly stepped down 2 days ago because AfD outperformed CDU there. He was one of the Merkelianers who support Merkel in preventing CDU returning to the democratic right again.
Constitutive session of Bundestag today seat plan empty government seats to the right of the speaker. (Future government will sit right next to AfD) former finance minister Schäuble elected presiding officer of Bundestag
They should really have chairs with the same color as the party that's sitting in them. CDU/CSU members get black chairs, SPD members get red chairs, and so on.
This gif from Spiegel daily and they dont seem to be happy about how the day went * first AfD speech ever calling the other parties out on changing the 150 year old rule shortly before the elections that the oldest Bundestag member opens the new one. It would have been an AfD guy and they changed it to who is member of Bundestag for the longest time, an FDP guy. So rather unknown AfD guy came out saying he found only one comparable case in 150 years of parliamentary history with the last guy to do it: Herman Göring in 1932 shots fired bruh
Heute show put up some forbidden signs at the entrance of Bundestag where AfD MEPs came along and one of them read "It is forbidden to set fire to the Reichstag"
F**k AfD in this instance, they deserve a break in convention. How many of them are west German?? Russian puppets
Not quite. The most MEPs are from the west since the west is far more populous. E.g. 12,4% in Bavaria gets you 14 MEPs while 27% in Saxony only gets you 11.
After a week of heated coalition talks it might be worth looking at the Bundesrat where a possible Jamaica coalition doesnt have a majority. That means a future government would have to buy votes of several states to get bills through It's German federalism stupid. However colourful the new federal government will be, it has to deal with an even more crazy Monnet type of impressionism in the state's chamber @bundesrat eg in migration issues #JamaikaKoalition #DEinEU via @heutejournal pic.twitter.com/mP1N2QFraD— Bernd 🇪🇺 Hüttemann 🦋 🇺🇦 (@huettemann) November 3, 2017
German Chancellor Angela Merkel must agree 'Jamaica Coalition' in next few hours to avoid fresh election. https://t.co/dmO3BMluZR pic.twitter.com/oXeCkY0N47— AFP News Agency (@AFP) November 16, 2017 If we dont have a coalition by Sunday 6 pm we will run into snap elections