Free Republic

Pressure was mounting on Germany to up its game over the war in Ukraine on Tuesday as Kyiv snubbed the country's president and Chancellor Olaf Scholz was accused of a weak response to the crisis. On a visit to Poland, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier admitted he had offered to visit Ukraine with other EU leaders, but Kyiv had told him he was not welcome right now. "I was prepared to do this, but apparently, and I must take note of this, this was not wanted in Kyiv," Steinmeier told reporters. Steinmeier, a former foreign minister, has faced growing criticism since Russia...

A member of the European Parliament suggested to the European Central Bank (ECB) on Sunday that BioNTech founders Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci be depicted on one of the notes. German Free Democrat (FDP) politician Moritz Körner was the first one to make the suggestion. “Important European figures like the BioNTech founding couple Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci should be printed on the new euro notes,” said Körner, as quoted by German newspaper Welt am Sonntag. “Their work has saved the lives of millions of Europeans. The trajectory of their life is an impressive story about integration, progress, entrepreneurship, scientific...

BERLIN — Millions of Germans will head to the polls in a federal election on Sunday that will determine who will succeed Angela Merkel after 16 years as Germany's chancellor. According to the latest polls, Germany's center-left Social Democratic Party is narrowly ahead of Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian partner, the Christian Social Union. They're closely followed by the Greens, the far-right Alternative for Germany and the libertarian Free Democratic Party, all holding onto double-digit poll numbers going into Sunday's election. Josef Janning, a senior associate fellow with the German Council on Foreign Relations, says the...

The Deutsche Post subsidiary Deutsche Post Direkt has rejected claims that it “flogged” client microtargeting data to clients, including German political parties such as the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Free Democrats (FDP). The Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported that the two parties had bought “more than a billion” details of personal data about potential voters from the subsidiary, which offers targeted-mailing concepts to its clients. Deutsche Post insists that it never sells details of addresses or individual households, and that the data it offers to clients — which it calls microcells — is based on “a standard of 6.6...

“It is better not to rule than to rule falsely. Goodbye!” Those were the words of Christian Lindner, leader of the Free Democrats (FDP) party in Germany as he walked out of talks with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). This was effectively the last shot that Merkel had at forming a ruling coalition with a safe majority in the Bundestag. This leaves Merkel in perilous territory and no one is certain what happens next. But one thing seems certain, and that’s the new reality of a Germany which is no longer in the untouchable grasp of Merkel’s former CDU...

With Germany raking in more taxes due to strong economic performance, the leader of its liberal party has suggested state officials are enriching themselves at the cost of the taxpayer. “The greed of the state has taken on kleptocratic characteristics,” Christian Lindner, head of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) told Handelsblatt on Wednesday. A kleptocracy is a form of government in which officials corruptly use public funds for personal gain. “The yearly tax intake of the state is set to be €100 billion higher in 2020 than this year, if we don’t act. For the FDP, it is clear that...

According to pollsters, the FDP's demise was at least partly due to the rise of a new anti-euro party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD). But Lindner warned against resorting to euroscepticism in order to stage a revival. "If we went even a centimetre in the direction of the euro-haters, we would lose our economic competence and, above all, our soul," he said, noting the FDP favoured "more Europe" in sectors such as energy, data protection and market regulation.

Voting began in Germany's closely fought election today with millions of undecided voters holding the key to a result that will have major implications for economic reform in Europe. Angela Merkel, a Christian Democrat (CDU) chancellor, is expected to emerge as Germany's first woman chancellor, displacing Gerhard Schroeder who has led Germany for the past seven years at the head of a centre-left government of Social Democrats and Greens. A provisional result is expected to be announced in the early hours of Monday morning. The final opinion polls published on Friday gave Merkel's centre-right coalition with the liberal Free Democrats...

Germany's liberal Free Democrats are ready to weaken the power of the influential trade unions in order to push through economic reforms were the party to enter government in next month's election, FDP leader Guido Westerwelle said on Tuesday. “I won't be looking for conflict, but I won't avoid it if it's necessary in order to create a new beginning for Germany,” he said in an interview in Berlin. In comments likely to fuel debate over which economic reform path Germany should take after the election, he accused the trade unions of being responsible for “blocking the reduction in mass...

TALLAHASSEE -- The Florida Democratic Party has started 2005 with its worst fund-raising quarter in recent history, raising about $270,000 in the first three months of this year, compared with nearly $3 million by the Republican Party of Florida. FDP chairman Scott Maddox was unavailable for comment Wednesday because of a family emergency. Party spokesman Allie Merzer said the downturn was expected after a campaign season in which the party raised millions. "There's always a lull in fund raising because all the sources are tapped out," Merzer said. "The fund-raising goal for those first few months (after an election) is...

Of course it is a............PASS IT ON .... LET's GO FLORIDA !!! I got an idea, I'm gonna send Scott Maddox, (Florida Democratic Party)[214 South Bronough Street Tallahassee, FL 32301 ] a check for $20.00,(Made out to the Republican Party of Florida) along with a letter stating that I heard that they are in need of FUNDS, so I have decided to help, I will tell him to forward my check to the Republic Party of Florida, [420 E. Jefferson Street, PO Box 311, Tallahassee, FL 32301] and after I recieve confirmation that my check has cleared, I will send...

Michel Friedman, a respected German-Jewish community leader and prominent television talk show host, is being investigated on suspicion that he offered cocaine to prostitutes, state prosecutors disclosed yesterday. The latest evidence suggests that Mr Friedman's alleged dealings with a Ukrainian prostitution racket prompted police to investigate him for possession of drugs. Two Ukrainian men and a Pole are currently under arrest on charges of running the call-girl service, which smuggled Ukrainian prostitutes into Germany to cater for well-heeled clients. The Berlin state prosecutor's office said three Ukrainian prostitutes had testified independently that Mr Friedman, 47, had snorted cocaine during a...

Germany's opposition Christian Democrats and the CSU, their ally in Bavaria, decided yesterday to demand a parliamentary investigation into whether Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's government suppressed embarrassing information on the economy prior to winning Sep-tember's general election. The call, by the parties' national executive committees, was expected to be ratified by their parliamentary groups last night. That would make establishing an investigative committee almost certain, given such a move only requires support from 25 per cent of members of parliament. The government, led by Mr Schröder's Social Democrats (SPD) in coalition with the Greens, which scraped back to power with a...

When Guido Westerwelle arrives in Israel, he hopes he can shake off accusations of anti-Semitism and concentrate on foreign policy. But his chances are slim given the state of affairs in his party back home. The head of Germany's Free Democrats (FDP), Guido Westerwelle, begins a four-day trip to the Middle East Sunday, where he'll meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Westerwelle's visit, however, comes in the midst of a dispute between his party's deputy leader, Jürgen Möllemann, and representatives of Germany's Jewish community over what many perceive as growing anti-Semitism in the FDP....