Customers to be affected by strikes at Postbank

The trade union Verdi is picking up the pace again of the fourth round of collective bargaining for Postbank. On Thursday, three groups of employees are to strike simultaneously.

In addition to employees in the service units at the back office and the call centers, it is also calling on employees in the branches throughout Germany to strike.

“This will once again send a clear signal that all employees are behind the demands for a significant improvement in pay and an extension of protection against dismissal,” said Verdi negotiator Jan Duscheck in Berlin.

Strikes have already been taking place in the back office and call centres since Tuesday, but they are now being expanded to the branches in order to directly affect customers and send a clear signal, said Verdi.

The next round of negotiations for higher wages is set to take place in Frankfurt on April 16th. 

German Chancellor Scholz hails ‘historic, indispensable EU reform overhaul’

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday evening welcomed a landmark overhaul of the EU’s asylum and migration rules adopted by the European Parliament, calling it a “historic, indispensable step”.

The agreement stands for “solidarity among European states”, Scholz wrote on X, formerly Twitter, adding that it would “finally relieve the burden on those countries that are particularly hard hit”.

The EU parliament on Wednesday adopted a sweeping reform of Europe’s asylum policies that will both harden border procedures and force all the bloc’s 27 nations to share responsibility.

The parliament’s main political groups overcame opposition from far-right and far-left parties to pass the new migration and asylum pact — enshrining a difficult overhaul nearly a decade in the making.

European Commission President and German Ursula von der Leyen hailed the vote, saying it will “secure European borders… while ensuring the protection of the fundamental rights” of migrants.

“We must be the ones to decide who comes to the European Union and under what circumstances, and not the smugglers and traffickers,” she said.

READ ALSO: Struggling German Greens urge EU to reconsider asylum reforms

Germany plans measures to help companies rebuild Ukraine

The German cabinet on Wednesday signed off on a package of measures to support businesses involved in the reconstruction of Ukraine, including grants and favourable interest rates.

“Ukraine needs more than just weapons to survive this war. It is also important that the economy continues to function and that the country can finance reconstruction,” said Development Minister Svenja Schulze.

The 15-point plan includes grants and loans for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Ukraine as well as investment guarantees for German companies, according to a statement from the development and economy ministries.

It also includes plans for a national public lender in the style of Germany’s KfW development bank.

“We are already in talks with the Ukrainian government about such a funding institution,” Schulze said.

The new lender is set to evolve out of the Ukraine Business Development Fund (BDF), co-founded by the KfW in 1999 to provide low-interest loans for SMEs in Ukraine.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the BDF has helped around 40,000 SMEs to stay afloat during the war, according to the ministries.

EU rights agency says police racism under-reported

The European Union rights agency on Wednesday called for reforms “to stamp out racism in policing” across the bloc, including collecting data better to assess the problem.

People of different ethnic backgrounds experience racist comments, more frequent stops and even violence, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) found in its first comprehensive EU-wide study on racism in policing.

Among its recommendations was the better collection of data. It found “most EU countries do not collect official data on racist incidents involving the police or they do not record them properly”.

“The lack of national data makes it difficult to fully assess the magnitude of the problem and design effective responses,” it said.

Only the Czech Republic, Germany and the Netherlands publish data regularly or upon request.

The report also found a lack of recruitment policies to improve ethnic diversity.

Germany’s Lufthansa suspends flights to and from Tehran

German airline Lufthansa on Wednesday said it had suspended flights to and from Tehran, probably through Thursday, “due to the current situation in the Middle East”.

“We are constantly monitoring the situation in the Middle East and are in close contact with the authorities,” the airline said in a statement.

IS suspects held in Germany for enslaving Yazidi children

Two suspected members of the Islamic State (IS) group have been arrested in Germany accused of enslaving and sexually abusing a pair of Yazidi girls in Syria and Iraq, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The Iraqi suspects, identified only as Twana H. S. and Asia R. A. , are accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and membership of a foreign terrorist organisation, the federal prosecutor’s office said.

They were arrested Tuesday in Regensburg and the Roth district, both in the southern state of Bavaria.

The pair were married under Islamic law and were members of IS in Iraq and Syria from 2015 to 2017. During this time they held two Yazidi girls, aged five and 12, as slaves, according to prosecutors.

The Yazidis are a Kurdish-speaking group hailing from northern Iraq. They have for years been persecuted by IS militants who have killed hundreds of men, raped women and forcibly recruited children as fighters.

With reporting by AFP.