Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

POLITICS

Crisis talks as Merkel’s coalition suffers new blow

Parties in German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government are set to hold separate crisis talks on Monday, after her fragile coalition suffered a fresh blow as the leader of junior partner SPD quit.

Published: 3 June 2019 08:31 CEST
Crisis talks as Merkel's coalition suffers new blow
Chancellor Angela Merkel and Andrea Nahles talk in March 2019. Photo: DPA

In a shock announcement on Sunday, centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) leader Andrea Nahles said she was stepping down from her party's top jobs following late May's European elections drubbing.

The 48-year-old's decision left the SPD in disarray, and raised questions over the survival of Merkel's coalition.

Whether the unhappy partnership between Merkel's centre-right Christian Democratic Union and its sister party the Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) alliance and the SPD can go on until the end of its term in 2021 could now hinge on Nahles' successor.

Anxious to calm the jitters over her government, Merkel said on Sunday that it will push on and fulfil its mandate.

“What I want to say for the government is that we will continue with our work with all seriousness and with great responsibility,” the veteran leader said in a statement to the press.

The leadership crisis at the SPD could not have come at a worst time for Merkel's CDU, which was itself struggling to halt a haemorrhage of voters as the younger generation ditched it in droves for the Greens.

READ ALSO: Why can't Germany's Social Democrats pull themselves together?

Voices are growing louder within the coalition for the parties to part ways.

Harald Christ, deputy chief of the SPD's economy forum, warned that “Nahles stands for the existence of the GroKo – whose stability is now in question.”

“In my view what comes next is the end of the GroKo – everything else leads nowhere,” he told Bild daily.

The deputy leader of the CDU-CSU alliance, Carsten Linnemann also warned in an interview with RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland that “if we are unable to progress with the SPD, then we should draw a line under this and ask ourselves if continuing with the GroKo still makes sense.”

Crisis to crisis

The alliance between Merkel's Christian Democrats and the SPD was fragile from the start.

Wounded by an election rout in 2017, the SPD had initially sought to go into opposition, but was reluctantly coaxed into renewing a partnership with Merkel.

Many within the party however remained wary of continuing to govern in Merkel's shadow, and the coalition has lurched from crisis to crisis.

The SPD, Germany's oldest party, had initially planned to re-examine the alliance in the autumn — half-way through the four-year mandate.

READ ALSO: The winners and losers: Six things to know about the EU election in Germany

But with a free-fall in its ratings unending, the SPD's timetable may yet be accelerated.

After last Sunday's European election, the SPD has been staring at the prospect of another debacle in three upcoming state polls in Saxony, Brandenburg and Thueringia, where the far-right AfD is poised to make
significant gains.

With its anti-immigration campaign, the AfD in 2017 drew voters angry with Merkel's decision to let in more than a million asylum seekers into Germany.

But it is now the Greens which may have become the biggest headache for the SPD.

READ ALSO: 'Surfing the Zeitgeist': How the Greens won over Germany

While sharing the centre-left position on the political spectrum, the Greens are proving more attractive to young voters because of their environmental platform.

In a national survey released Saturday, the Greens came in top for the first time – enjoying more support than Merkel's CDU-CSU alliance. The environmental group had a lead over the SPD of around 15 percentage points.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

GERMANY AND RUSSIA

Germany, Czech Republic accuse Russia of cyberattacks

Germany and the Czech Republic on Friday blamed Russia for a series of recent cyberattacks, prompting the European Union to warn Moscow of consequences over its "malicious behaviour in cyberspace".

Published: 4 May 2024 10:29 CEST
Germany, Czech Republic accuse Russia of cyberattacks

The accusations come at a time of strained relations between Moscow and the West following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the European Union’s support for Kyiv.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said a newly concluded government investigation found that a cyberattack targeting members of the Social Democratic Party had been carried out by a group known as APT28.

APT28 “is steered by the military intelligence service of Russia”, Baerbock told reporters during a visit to Australia.

“In other words, it was a state-sponsored Russian cyberattack on Germany and this is absolutely intolerable and unacceptable and will have consequences.”

APT28, also known as Fancy Bear, has been accused of dozens of cyberattacks in countries around the world. Russia denies being behind such actions.

The hacking attack on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD party was made public last year. Hackers exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook to compromise e-mail accounts, according to Berlin.

Berlin on Friday summoned the acting charge d’affaires of the Russian embassy over the incident.

The Russian embassy in Germany said its envoy “categorically rejected the accusations that Russian state structures were involved in the given incident… as unsubstantiated and groundless”.

Arms, aerospace targeted: Berlin 

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the cyber campaign was orchestrated by Russia’s military intelligence service GRU and began in 2022. It also targeted German companies in the armaments and aerospace sectors, she said.

Such cyberattacks are “a threat to our democracy, national security and our free societies”, she told a joint news conference in Prague with her Czech counterpart Vit Rakusan.

“We are calling on Russia again to stop these activities,” Faeser added.

Czech government officials said some of its state institutions had also been the target of cyberattacks blamed on APT28, again by exploiting a weakness in Microsoft Outlook in 2023.

Czech Interior Minister Rakusan said his country’s infrastructure had recently experienced “higher dozens” of such attacks.

“The Czech Republic is a target. In the long term, it has been perceived by the Russian Federation as an enemy state,” he told reporters.

EU, NATO condemnation

The German and Czech findings triggered strong condemnation from the European Union.

“The malicious cyber campaign shows Russia’s continuous pattern of irresponsible behaviour in cyberspace, by targeting democratic institutions, government entities and critical infrastructure providers across the European Union and beyond,” EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said.

The EU would “make use of the full spectrum of measures to prevent, deter and respond to Russia’s malicious behaviour in cyberspace”, he added.

State institutions, agencies and entities in other member states including in Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia and Sweden had been targeted by APT28 in the past, the statement added.

The latest accusations come a day after NATO expressed “deep concern” over Russia’s “hybrid actions” including disinformation, sabotage and cyber interference.

The row also comes as millions of Europeans prepare to go to the polls for the European Parliament elections in June, and concerns about foreign meddling are running high.

Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky told AFP that “pointing a finger publicly at a specific attacker is an important tool to protect national interests”.

One of the most high-profile incidents so far blamed on Fancy Bear was a cyberattack in 2015 that paralysed the computer network of the German lower house of parliament, the Bundestag. It forced the entire institution offline for days while it was fixed.

In 2020, the EU imposed sanctions on individuals and entities linked to the APT28 group over the incident.

SHOW COMMENTS