Merz urges CDU discipline as pressure grows

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius will order compulsory troop deployments in Lithuania.

According to the Defense Ministry, this is intended to fill gaps in the German armoured brigade’s complement.

Several hundred military personnel would be affected, with the shortages in logisticians and IT specialists being the main reason for the move.

The ministry said that 80% of the Lithuanian brigade’s positions are filled with volunteers.

“The principle of voluntariness remains unchanged as our guiding principle,” the ministry said. 
 

German Finance MinisterLars Klingbeilheld a meeting with the CEO of UniCredit to discuss the future of Commerzbank.

This comes as the German bank’s takeover by Italian lender UniCredit edges closer.

After the meeting, Klingbeil said it is “paramount” for the German government that Commerzbank continues to “fulfil its vital role in financing the German economy.”

“We expect Commerzbank to remain a listed company headquartered in Frankfurt and to continue its strong focus on financing small and medium-sized businesses,” the Social Democratic politician said in a statement.

UniCredit is close to sealing one of Europe’s biggest mergers of banks in recent years with it increasing its stake in Commerzbank to nearly 50 percent.
 

A Catholic priest from North Rhine-Westphalia has received a suspended 14-month jail sentence after being found guilty of possessing of some 24,000 data files containing images and footage of sexual abuse of children and youths. 

The district court in Waldbröl, a rural area to the east of Cologne and Bonn in the Westerwald forest, found the man guilty on Monday. 

The verdict is subject to appeal.

The defendant had pleaded guilty to all charges, leading to a comparatively quick court process. 

As well as the suspended sentence, the man was ordered to pay €10,000 (roughly $11,500) to a local facility providing advice and counsel to those affected by sexualized, psychological and physical abuse. 

He was also ordered to complete a therapy course that he had already begun. 

The Cologne diocese, of which Waldbröl is a part, had already suspended the priest from various activities after the allegations became public knowledge. Among other things he was stopped from working with minors. 

He’s also subject to church disciplinary proceedings. These had been put on hold pending the outcome of the court case. 

Police on duty in Kaiserslautern had a more colorful callout than they might have bargained for over the weekend. 

Police said on Monday that early on Saturday evening, they had received calls from residents displeased by a man painting a facade in his driveway. 

They took exception to the fact that their neighbor was “wearing just his shoes,” as police put it, during his travails. 

“After officers brought to his attention that he was creating a disturbance in the community with his actions, the 64-year-old became intransigent,” police said.

“Only after an explicit order did he put some trousers on. He was told that his behavior constituted a breach of the peace and that he should reckon with a criminal complaint.” 

Prices for drivers at German filling stations hit the highest levels on record for gasoline on Sunday, while diesel was just shy of April’s record prices. 

The nationwide average for the cheapest E10 unleaded variant hit €2.27 per liter on Sunday. That equates to roughly $9.92 per US gallon. 

Diesel was slightly shy of its record level but still rose to €2.40 per liter, or $10.48 per US gallon. 

Germany’s largest motoring club the ADAC said that “given the still-rising oil prices it can be assumed that slight increases in the daily average prices for Super E10 and diesel will emerge” on Monday.  

Prices for gasoline and diesel have risen quite sharply in September, and more generally since the German government’s temporary tax relief introduced in response to the war in Iran expired at the end of June.

Developments in the Gulf have been driving the price upwards, despite claims to the contrary from under-fire US President Donald Trump on Monday. 

The ADAC, which is frequently critical of the country’s fuel providers and their pricing policies, argued that geopolitics alone still did not explain the latest hikes.

“In the view of the ADAC, the oil price and the euro-dollar exchange rate only partly explain the current price levels at the petrol pumps,” the ADAC wrote. “What’s particularly noticeable is how Super E10 keeps hitting new record highs, even though crude oil prices are far adrift of their previous highs. For consumers this development is difficult to explain.” 

The ADAC called on refining and fuel selling companies to be more transparent in their pricing practices. 

A light aircraft crashed in a field in Erkelenz in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia on Monday. 

Police in nearby Heinsberg said three people were killed in the crash; nobody on board the small Cessna survived. 

Police said the crash happened before noon in a rural area south of Mönchengladbach and that they were still working to identify the victims. 

Firefighters and police were at the scene on Monday. The German body responsible to investigating air traffic accidents had started an invesigation, which police said was liable to take some time. 

Senior figures in the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) have expressed growing concern about the turmoil inside Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

They also made clear that their party’s participation in the coalition is not dependent on Merz’s remaining chancellor.

SPD parliamentary manager Dirk Wiese said there was an impression that “nerves are a little frayed within the CDU” and urged the coalition partner to regain its focus and move ahead with reforms agreed by the government.

Asked whether those reforms necessarily had to be implemented with Merz as chancellor, Wiese declined to commit himself, saying instead that Merz needed to adopt a different tone.

SPD parliamentary deputy leader Siemtje Möller was more explicit. She said her party’s participation in the governing coalition was not tied to Merz personally.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has urged his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) to remain disciplined as criticism of his leadership grows following the party’s election defeat in Saxony-Anhalt.

Speaking at an international Arctic policy meeting in Rovaniemi, Finland, Merz said Germany was playing an important role in determining “the fate of the European continent,” particularly on security policy.

He said he was therefore trying to convince “my colleagues, my friends, my party, my parliamentary group that this is much more important than some of the domestic political debates we are currently having.”

“I understand this domestic political debate,” Merz said.

Merz has faced mounting criticism within the CDU since the party’s poor performance in the Saxony-Anhalt state election, with some members openly discussing whether he should be replaced.

Several prominent CDU politicians nevertheless backed the chancellor on Monday.

“I still believe in Friedrich Merz,” CDU budget policy spokesman Matthias Middelberg told the broadcaster Deutschlandfunk, calling the leadership debate “unnecessary.”

Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Merz could “always rely on the support of the governing parliamentary groups and his Cabinet,” describing the government as “really very stable.”

Green Party co-leader Felix Banaszak has told Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government to “get your s— together” amid growing speculation over a possible change of chancellor.

“I am extremely irritated by all the speculation that is coming from everywhere,” Banaszak said in Berlin on Monday. “And my expectation is very clear: Get your s— together. We are living in such dramatic times.”

Banaszak said that, though he had not voted for Merz, the chancellor and his coalition had been elected and had a responsibility to govern the country.

The Green politician pointed to discussions about minority governments, the possible dismissal of ministers from the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and scenarios involving an early replacement of Merz.

He said the debates suggested that Merz and the leadership of his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) were losing control both of the coalition and of discussions within their own party.

“That is not a good sign,” Banaszak said.

The German union IG Metall is calling for demonstrations in more than 200 locations across the country on September 21. The demonstrations will be held to protest job cuts and other demands being made of workers in the auto industry. 

Christiane Benner, leader of IG Metall, said most of the sector’s crisis is falling on employees. “We are currently witnessing an unprecedented attack on workers in the auto industry,” she said, adding that the union’s main concern is the risk of losing the 35-hour workweek, a standard in the German auto sector. 

Employers’ demands in times of crisis 

Due to the current challenges facing the sector, automakers are proposing an increase to a 40-hour workweek with no wage adjustments. 

Jens Schäfer, chairman of the ZF Automotive Works Council in Hanover, said this would mean five additional hours of work without extra pay. 

“That’s driving colleagues crazy,” he said, adding that it would also lead to more job losses. 

Benner said workers have already made sacrifices, including concessions in collective bargaining agreements and pay concessions worth billions of euros, while companies continue to pay dividends and management has faced no consequences for past mistakes. 

IG Metall’s goal is to mobilize more than 100,000 people on September 21. 

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has congratulated Alexander Zverev on winning the US Open, his second Grand Slam title of the season.

The German defeated Ben Shelton 6-3, 7-6 (7-2), 5-7, 6-2 in Sunday’s final in New York.

“First Paris, now New York: Heartfelt congratulations, dear Alex Zverev, on the well-deserved US Open victory and your second Grand Slam title in a season. Stellar performance!” Merz wrote on X.

Zverev also won the French Open in June. Merz called him after that victory to offer his congratulations.

Almost half of schoolchildren in Germany say they regularly have problems sleeping, according to a new survey published by health insurer DAK-Gesundheit.

The survey found that 46% of pupils in grades 5 to 10 experience sleep problems at least once a week, up from 36% in the 2019/2020 school year.

At the same time, 69% said they felt drained or exhausted at least once a week. Three years ago, the figure was 52%.

Michael Hubmann, president of Germany’s professional association of pediatricians, pointed to excessive media use as one factor behind the increase in sleep and exhaustion problems.

“Children and adolescents who use social media until late in the evening or consume disturbing videos triggered by algorithms are being kept from healthy sleep,” he said.

DAK chief executive Andreas Storm warned that persistent exhaustion and sleep problems could make it harder for children to learn successfully.

“Anyone who is already exhausted at a young age or even suffers from sleep disorders and does not know how to deal with such pressures has worse conditions for successful learning,” he said.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has announced that Germany will acquire a fourth signals intelligence ship. 

“These ships can hear and see what others cannot. They are our eyes and ears at sea. They perceive and analyze a vast range of signals and sounds,” the minister said during a keel-laying ceremony for the third ship of this type to be built by the German company Rheinmetall.

The acquisition is part of a budget proposal that is pending parliamentary approval, he added.

Pistorius also said the ships were essential for providing situational awareness and enabling precise maneuvering in times of increasing insecurity.

The new class of ships are expected to be delivered to the German Navy from 2029.

The German Ministry of Economy says the country is experiencing an economic slowdown at the beginning of the third quarter.

“The economic boom in energy-intensive industries, which was driven by increased foreign demand in the wake of the conflict in the Middle East, appears to be slowing down,” the ministry said in its monthly report.

High energy costs have caused domestic consumption to decline considerably, a trend also driven by the conflict, the report said.

German federal prosecutors have charged a 57-year-old Berlin businesswoman with carrying out intelligence activities for Russia.

Ilona W., who holds German and Ukrainian citizenship, is accused of working for the intelligence service of a foreign power, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office said.

She was arrested on January 21 and remains in pre-trial detention.

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