NEWS FROM BERLIN

280 Berlin “Kitas” on strike for 5 days

The union ver.di wants minimum staffing ratios and increased staff training for daycare centres (“Kitas”), but an ongoing conflict between them and the Berlin Senate is in deadlock. Last Monday a “warning strike” began, closing 280 daycare centres across the city and impacting around 35,000 children. The union is not demanding more money for its workers, but Kita employees are trying to get the Berlin Senate to agree on a number of policies, among them minimum staffing ratios, rules to protect the health of staff, improved training and more time for educational work aimed at increasing the overall quality of care. Source: The Berliner

AfD loses bank account

The AfD has lost its account with Berliner Volksbank. This was announced by Omas gegen Rechts after a meeting with the bank’s CEO, Carsten Jung. The anti-fascist senior citizens initiated a petition on the online platform innn.it two months ago and have now collected more than 33,500 signatures in favour of ending Berliner Volksbank’s business relationship with the party. The bank itself did not want to confirm the move, citing banking confidentiality . However, when asked by the taz newspaper whether the donation account had been closed, they were told: “Have a look at the AfD website.” On the party’s website, the option of donating by bank transfer to the account at Berliner Volksbank has disappeared. Source: taz

Neo-Nazis beat several people to the ground in Berlin

In Berlin, right-wing extremists attacked a group of people on their way to a demonstration in the Marzahn-Hellersdorf district. Several people were injured. According to witnesses, the masked perpetrators were armed with wooden clubs, batons, quartz gloves and tear gas. The attack took place on Saturday afternoon at Ostkreuz in front of a Biomarkt. The anti-fascists had met there to travel together to the demonstration. Up to 20 neo-Nazis stormed into the group of people waiting at Ostkreuz in rows of two and attacked “two at a time.” A police spokesman mentioned that a federal police officer was also attacked and injured when she tried to intervene. Source: t-online

NEWS FROM GERMANY

Hartz IV returns

The federal government wants to use stricter rules to encourage more recipients of the so-called ‘citizen’s allowance’ to take up work. This is part of a 31-page catalogue of measures, the “Growth initiative – new economic dynamism for Germany” published by the government last week. This annoncment has come while the introduction of ‘basic child benefit’, approved in the coalition-governments agreement, has not been implemented according to the planning and has received no public response. It had always been described as one of the government’s most important social policy projects. Seven social associations and the DGB had already warned against a freeze on citizen’s allowance. Source: jungewelt

Major construction kicks off to fix Germany’s railways

On July 15th the state-owned railway company, “Deutsche Bahn (DB)” will start a massive renovation program. It plans to renew 40 main train routes by 2030. Each of them will be closed for several months while construction work is carried out. The first slated for renewal is the line connecting Frankfurt and Mannheim known as the Riedbahn. This plan – the largest infrastructure program in DB’s history – is expected to cost €45 billion. Train delays with DB have steadily increased in recent years. In 2023, less than two-thirds of long-distance trains reached their destination on time – a record low. Source: dw

German defense minister not satisfied with the military budget gap

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) expressed his dissatisfaction with the outcome of the budget negotiations for the country’s defense budget. A coalition deal on next year’s domestic budget provides less for the armed forces in 2025 than Pistorius had demanded as Germany seeks to beef up its armed forces. However, while the budget may not have met Pistorius’s hopes, it still keeps German defense spending above the NATO target of 2% of gross domestic product. Meanwhile, German military high officers have warned that additional funds are needed immediately for Germany to be combat-ready in five years. Source: dw

NEWS FROM BERLIN

Street renamed and inaugurated after black lesbian feminist

In Berlin-Kreuzberg, part of Manteuffelstraße was renamed Audre-Lorde-Straße back in September 2023, causing confusion among residents, parcel deliverers and authorities, since the official inauguration only took place recently. At the inauguration, district mayor Clara Herrmann (Greens) apologised for the fact that the renaming had “taken longer.” The reason given by the administration for not putting up new street signs for months was that the renaming process had led to unforeseeable problems. The new street name brings more diversity to Berin. It honours the black lesbian feminist Audre Lorde, who taught at the FU Berlin in the 1980s and 1990s. Source: freilich

NEWS FROM GERMANY

New citizenship law comes into force

On Thursday, 27 June 2024, the Act on the Modernisation of the Citizenship Law comes into force. With it, the Federal Ministry of the Interior is implementing a key reform. People who work in Germany and are well integrated can become German citizens after just five years instead of eight. Moreover, they no longer need to give up their previous citizenship. Under strict conditions, naturalisation will also be possible in the future after three years. At the same time, the requirements for commitment to the free democratic basic order will become stricter: naturalization will be ruled out when racism or antisemitism is identified. Source: bmi

Hundreds of right-wing extremists in the police

Within one and a half years, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has dealt with a total of 739 cases of employees of security authorities with indications of possible right-wing extremist attitudes. The current report covers the period from 1 July 2021 to 31 December 2022 and looks at both state and federal authorities. According to the report, state authorities accounted for 189 cases. However, the Federal Ministry of the Interior points out that more than half of the suspected cases and the cases in which actual indications were found had already been reported in the previous status report. Source: taz

AfD party conference in Essen: football and federal cooperation

Before the party conference in Essen, there was much speculation about how the AfD leadership would deal with the turbulence of recent months. Neither Alice Weidel nor Tino Chrupalla cut a good figure in the affairs surrounding Maximilian Krah and Petr Bystron. Things turned out quite differently in Essen. Weidel opened the party conference with a welcoming speech, speaking about her party using football metaphors, saying that the “team” has to make a “tactical change”, even if a “talented player” (Krah) must leave. Churupalla cited the cooperation within the federal executive and with the state chairmen as an important point in his work review. Source: nd

Nothing new for the East

First in Saxony and Thuringia, then a few weeks later in Brandenburg: in all three states, the AfD threatens to become the strongest force. This would be a fiasco for the CDU in the states, but also for the party chairman Friedrich Merz. So what to do? Last weekend, Merz invited the party presidium, i.e., the inner circle of leadership, to Berlin. An important campaigner was not present, though: Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer. Officially, there were scheduling problems, but one can also speculate that the Kretschmer did not really wish to participate in the meeting. Source: tagesschau

Euro 2024: the AfD and a debate over ‘woke’ national team

During Euro 2024, many German politicians are supporting the host team, but this is not the case of several members of the far-right AfD party. According to them, the German team is not German enough. They do not share the sense of pride in the country’s role as host or the hope for another victory like that during the Germany-hosted 2006 World Cup. AfD leaders such as Maximilian Krah and Björn Höcke complain instead about Germany having become “woke,” “politically correct,” and “the rainbow team.” Source: dw

German weapons exports on the way to a new record

Arms exports from Germany rose 30% in the first semester of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, as shown by data from the Ministry for the Economy. If the trend continues for the remainder of the year, the total value of arms sales is set to reach a new record. Between January 1 and June 18, the government approved total weapons exports worth at least €7.48 billion. The surge in exports comes despite the governing coalition of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) promising to curb arms deliveries when it took office in December 2021, especially to non-European Union and NATO members. Source: dw

Millions on the sideline

“Every seventh child in Germany is at risk of poverty,” the Federal Statistical Office announced on Monday. According to the Office, children and young people of parents with “lower” educational qualifications are disproportionately affected. Meanwhile, the traffic light coalition is allowing its “‘central social policy project’ – basic child benefit – to wither away,” Christoph Butterwegge, a political scientist from the University of Köln, commented. Since the beginning of the debate, it has been “a tactical stalemate within the traffic light coalition,” continued the inequality researcher, who says that the basic child benefit to be launched only in 2025 is “a waste of time.” Source: jW

NEWS FROM BERLIN

Görlitzer Park: preparations for “Day Z”

The battle lines are clearly drawn – and they continue to harden. Görlitzer Park in Kreuzberg has been a real hotspot for years. Various politicians have been trying to make the park safer, so far without success. Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) is now trying to build up a fence. Although it is not yet clear on which day the construction work will start, the Senate is already preparing for “Day Z,” i.e. the day the fence is built. A demonstration at Spreewaldplatz is also already planned for the day the fence arrives. Source: berlin-live

Student expulsions in Berlin: repression instead of victim protection

Criticism of the reintroduction of regulatory law at universities continues. In an open letter, student representatives have spoken out against the plan, which would also allow violent students to be expelled again. “The draft law opens the door to the control of students’ attitudes and political sanctions,” the letter states. The letter was signed by the student representatives of Freie Universität, Humboldt-Universität, Technische Universität and the Berlin University of Applied Sciences. For Tobias Schulze (Die Linke), the draft law does nothing to protect victims. However, the bill passed another hurdle: the Science Committee voted in favour of the project. Source: nd

NEWS FROM GERMANY

Education minister wants to sack state secretary

Federal Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) wants to have her State Secretary Sabine Döring temporarily retire. This follows a request to investigate possible consequences for university lecturers who had signed an open letter on how to deal with pro-Palestinian protests at Berlin universities, reported by the ARD magazine Panorama . The report, based on internal emails, triggered significant criticism. In a “Statement by Lecturers at Berlin Universities,” more than 100 lecturers criticised the eviction of a protest camp of pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the Freie Universität Berlin in May. Source: tagesschau

Dancing against the AfD

Mobilisation is underway throughout Germany against the national party conference that the AfD, which has been classified as a suspected right-wing extremist party by the Münster Higher Administrative Court, plans to hold in Essen at the end of June. “We are expecting 70,000 to 100,000 people to demonstrate against the AfD in Essen,” says Katharina Schwabedissen, spokesperson for the “Widersetzen” initiative. It is plain that “no violence and no escalation” will come from the protesters – instead, the initiative is calling for creative actions: “People can dance, make music, draw on the street with chalk. Maybe even clowns will come,” says Schwabedissen. Source: taz

Grevesmühlen: officials decry racist attack on young girls

Police said that an 8-year-old Ghanaian girl and her 10-year-old sister were attacked by a group of around 20 teenagers and young adults late last Friday. The attack occurred in the town of Grevesmühlen in the northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Police mentioned the attackers kicked the younger girl in the face, after which the girl’s parents intervened. The 8-year-old girl and her father sustained mild injuries and were hospitalized. According to police reports, one of the suspected attackers continued to direct racist insults at the victims after officers arrived at the scene. Source: dw

German education system is “at the limit”

Many young people in Germany continue to leave school without any qualifications. In 2022, the number was 52,300, according to the National Education Report, presented in Berlin on Monday. According to the report, the proportion of young people in an age cohort who did not graduate from school rose to 6.9%. The number of actual dropouts is likely to be even higher, as young people who leave school during an ongoing school year are not counted. The Education Report, which runs to several hundred pages, is compiled every two years. According to the authors, the education system is working at the limit. Source: focus

“Ende Gelände” classified as a suspected left-wing extremist organisation

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has categorised the climate protection movement “Ende Gelände” as a suspected case of left-wing extremism. This means that the domestic intelligence service can now also use intelligence services, such as surveillance or informants, to assess the movement’s activities. The constitution protection report for the year 2023, which was published on Tuesday, speaks of an “intensification of forms of action up to and including sabotage.” According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, policy papers from “Ende Gelände” also “clearly indicate a radicalisation with regard to the group’s prevailing ideological positions.” Source: rbb24