Germany

‘The world’s changed quite a bit,’ was Domic Raab’s fitting, if somewhat understated, opening remark at the G7 meeting of foreign secretaries this week. The first in-person meeting of the alliance in two years saw masked dignitaries, elbow bumps and distanced discussions behind plexiglass screens. But two members of the Indian delegation still ended up testing positive for Covid. Beyond the immediate challenges of the current crisis, Raab’s words seemed prescient. Quite a bit has changed since the G7 last met in France in 2019. Britain has left the EU and is no longer paralysed by parliamentary deadlock. President Biden has replaced Donald Trump in the White House.

‘What follows plague?’ I asked a medieval historian at the start of the pandemic. ‘War,’ he replied. In recent days, this remark has seemed worryingly prescient: 120,000 Russian troops are massing on the border with Ukraine, China is aggressively increasing military activity across the Taiwan Strait and Iran has responded to Israel’s successful sabotage of its nuclear facility by declaring it will enrich uranium to close to the level required for a nuclear bomb. The West — and specifically the new US President — is being tested. Those who want an end to the western-led rules-based system are pushing to see what they can get away with.

In search of wisdom about how an officious government reluctantly relaxes its grip after an emergency, I stumbled on a 1948 newsreel clip of Harold Wilson when he was president of the Board of Trade. It’s a glimpse of long-forgotten and brain-boggling complexity in the rationing system. ‘We have taken some clothing off the ration altogether,’ he boasts, posing as a munificent liberator. ‘From shoes to bathing costumes, and from oilskins to body belts and children’s raincoats. Then we’ve reduced the points on such things as women’s coats and woollen garments generally and... on men’s suits.’ Does this remind you of anything?

In its flailing response to the Covid crisis, the German government appears to have finally given up on federalism. Angela Merkel's latest idea is to introduce nationwide ‘emergency brake’ measures to combat rising case numbers, replacing a patchwork system across the 16 federal states. But will it help bring Germany's third wave under control? Legal changes to grant the federal government unprecedented power to enforce coronavirus regulations in all states have been backed by ministers. The final obstacle for the German Infection Protection Act is parliament. If Merkel's plan is approved, it will mark a big change in the way Germany is governed. It will also make it clear that Merkel is increasingly desperate for answers.

Washington, D.C. is universally known as a town divided, a place where compromise and dialogue are often sacrificed at the altar of competing agendas. But on one issue, at least, there is consensus: the 764-mile Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will pump Russian natural gas into Germany is a project that must be stopped. And the United States needs to use all of the economic and diplomatic tools at its disposal to do it. In both congressional testimony and in meetings with Nato allies, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reiterated the official U.S. view that Nord Stream 2 is 'a bad deal' for Europe, a potential cash windfall for Russia, and a potential geopolitical coup for Vladimir Putin.

A year on from the onset of the Covid crisis, Angela Merkel had grim news for Germans this morning: our country is in the midst of a 'new pandemic'. 'The British mutation has become dominant,' she warned, as she announced a strict new lockdown, which will shut almost all shops and churches over Easter.  The new lockdown rules were thrashed out in a tetchy 12-hour meeting between the chancellor and Germany’s state premiers. It used to be EU summits that prevented Merkel from catching some sleep. Not any longer. The leaders struggled to find common ground on an approach to contain the spread of coronavirus, amidst a worrying spike in infections which has seen cases climb to 7,500 a day.

Germany's decision to stop using the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine has been condemned internationally. It has also gone down badly with Germans. Once again, the country's health minister Jens Spahn is under fire.  A year into the pandemic, Germans are fed up with what they see as a government which is too cautious to use its only weapon out of this crisis. Even before the suspension of the vaccine this week, the rollout was painfully slow. While Britain has issued 22million doses, Germany is lagging way behind: only 9.3million of its people have received their vaccinations. This latest hold-up will only further slow down the vaccine programme. And Germans fear that this means the anticipated end of most corona-related restrictions by summer is now more and more unlikely.

In Germany, masks have been one of the least controversial elements of this pandemic. Most people have accepted that they have to be worn in the supermarket or on public transportation. But now these items of PPE are at the centre of a full-throttle political scandal that risks badly damaging Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats in this important election year. The Christian Democrats Georg Nüßlein and Nikolas Löbel are accused of profiting from government deals to purchase face masks. Löbel is alleged to have received £200,000 in payments as part of a state purchase of masks, while Nüßlein is accused of making £500,000 through a consultancy firm.