Germany’s domestic security agency is on the verge of announcing whether the far-right AfD will be placed under surveillance for posing a threat to democracy, dealing a potential blow to the anti-immigration party in a key election year.

After a two-year investigation and a report totalling over 1,000 pages, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) is to decide in the coming days if the Alternative for Germany (AfD) will be classed as a “suspected case” over its ties to right-wing extremism.

The classification would allow intelligence agents to shadow the party, tap its communications and possibly use undercover informants.

The anti-Islam, anti-immigration AfD has often courted controversy by calling for Germany to stop atoning for its World War II crimes. Senior figure Alexander Gauland once described the Nazi era as just “a speck of bird poo” on German history.

The BfV’s decision comes at a sensitive time for the AfD. While it is the largest opposition party in parliament, it has seen its ratings fall as the pandemic has kept the spotlight firmly on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition parties.

AfD leader Joerg Meuthen has vowed to take legal action if the BfV decides to begin surveillance, accusing the government-run agency of playing politics in what pundits have dubbed a “super election year” in Germany.

The AfD faces six regional elections this year and a general election on September 26, the first in over 15 years that won’t feature Merkel.

The first regional test will come with state polls in Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate on March 14, where support for the AfD is hovering around 10 percent.

– Radical ‘Wing’ –

The AfD started out at as an anti-euro outfit in 2013 before capitalising on public anger over Merkel’s 2015 decision to allow in a wave of asylum seekers from conflict-torn countries like Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The AfD took nearly 13 percent of the vote in the 2017 general election, allowing it to make its debut in the German Bundestag.

But the party has long been locked in an internal battle between an extremist faction and populist, conservative members who are wary of scaring off mainstream voters.

Germany’s domestic intelligence service already placed a radical fringe of the party, known as The Wing, under surveillance last year over its association with known neo-Nazis and on suspicion of violating the constitution.

The faction, led by firebrand Bjoern Hoecke, dissolved itself last March but many of its 7,000 members remain active in the AfD.

“This gives rise to doubts about whether they really lost influence,” Der Spiegel weekly said.

Hoecke, the AfD’s leader in Thuringia state, famously referred to Germany’s Holocaust Memorial in Berlin as “a monument of shame” and has called for a “180 degree reversal” in the country’s remembrance culture.

The AfD’s Thuringia branch and another one in Brandenburg have also been designated as “suspected cases” of right-wing extremism by the BfV.

The authorities’ concern about the AfD has grown after the country suffered a string of right-wing, anti-Semitic attacks in recent years. The risk of violence from Germany’s far-right scene is now considered the country’s top threat.

AfD chief Meuthen has struggled to rein in the party’s more radical figures, telling a congress in November that they would not win over voters by being “increasingly crude, aggressive”.

He also rubbished comparisons of the current coronavirus restrictions with a “dictatorship”, as AfD lawmaker Gauland had done.

Nevertheless, more than a few of the AfD’s 35,000 members are believed to harbour extremist sympathies.

One of them, Andreas Kalbitz, was the head of the AfD in Brandenburg before he was kicked out for hiding his past membership in a neo-Nazi youth group.

“The AfD could be declared a suspected case because it is dominated by the radical wing of the party, whose influence has only grown in recent months,” Hajo Funke, a political scientist at Berlin’s Free University, told AFP.

As for the party’s chances at the ballot box in 2021, Funke said “endless” infighting had left the AfD without clear policies, settling instead on “simply saying the opposite of whatever the government proposes”.

Source: AFP

As the French President Emmanuel Macron faces accusations that he is moving to curtail the civic rights in his country and reduce transparency, the recent state visit of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi underscored France’s longstanding willingness to turn a blind eye to systemic oppression in the countries it sells weapons to.

When Sisi came to France for a state visit this week, less than a month after prominent human rights workers in Egypt were arrested and slapped with terrorism-related charges following a meeting with French and other European diplomats, Human Rights Watch called for arms sales to Egypt to stop and activists were looking to French President Emmanuel Macron to make a strong statement.

They had, perhaps, reason to be hopeful. After the November arrests, the French Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing its “deep concern” about developments in the Arab nation. “France maintains a frank, exacting dialogue with Egypt on human rights issues, including individual cases,” the statement said.

In the end, not only were activists disappointed by Macron’s reception of Sisi, they were outraged by it. Far from taking a firm line on abuses and demanding that Egypt do better if it hoped to continue receiving military aid, Macron went out of his way to disassociate the purchase of arms with the respect of human rights.

“I will not condition matters of defence and economic cooperation on these disagreements [over human rights],” Macron said in a press conference. “It is more effective to have a policy of demanding dialogue than a boycott that would only reduce the effectiveness of one of our partners in the fight against terrorism.”

“The whole way he framed the human rights debate in the press conference was horrific,” said Timothy Kaldas, Nonresident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. “Arresting human rights workers and oppressing Egyptians is not fighting terrorism. Quite the contrary.”

A double standard

Macron’s stance was particularly salient given that his own government has been under fire over a proposed security law that critics charge would limit civic liberties in France. At the same time that he has defended France’s commitment to freedom of speech in the wake of the killing of a teacher who showed his class caricatures of the prophet Mohammed. Macron called the teacher, Samuel Paty, a “quiet hero” dedicated to preserving French values.

Macron’s position with Sisi this week was notably softer than the one he took in January 2019, when he told his Egyptian counterpart that security could not be considered separately from human rights, noting that oppression jeopardises stability rather than enhance it.

“It’s a double standard,” said Rim-Sarah Alouane, a Researcher in Public Law, University Toulouse Capitole. “We are in the middle of this hypocrisy about how we are supposed to be the country of the enlightenment, of human rights – we are supposed to have basically created human rights – and yet we have no problem making deals with the devil and closing our eyes to what should be the most important thing: the protection of the human.”

Kaldas agreed: “[Macron] will be adamant about how much France cherishes its values in one context and then be completely unwilling to prioritise those values in his relations with authoritarians.”

Marcon has shown himself similarly willing to ignore abuses in other parts of the region as well. When several European countries, including Germany, called for the suspension of arms sales to Saudi Arabia after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Macron dismissed those concerns as “demagoguery”, saying the weapons had nothing to do with the murder. “I understand the connection with what’s happening in Yemen, but there is no link with Mister Khashoggi,” he said.

Saudi Arabia leads a coalition that has been engaged in a war in Yemen that has had devastating effects on the humanitarian situation there. “The only reason [Macron] cites Yemen is to dismiss the other argument, but then he continues to provide the arms that fuel the war in Yemen,” Kaldas said.

Key to sovereignty

France has a vested interest in batting away the issue of rights abuses. Arms sales are big business for the country, which is third in global military exports, coming behind the United States and Russia. The defence sector in France employs 200,000 people, roughly 13 percent of the total industrial workforce, according to a report by the country’s parliament.

France is one of the few countries in the world capable of independently producing advanced military systems, and arms sales are key to the survival of the defence sector.

“It’s important for France to maintain its own arms industry,” both to be a significant player on the world stage and to be self-sufficient, said Pieter D. Wezeman, Senior Researcher in the Arms and Military Expenditure Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. “To be able to do that, you need to have export clients, because otherwise you won’t be able to afford it.”

As Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly put it in 2018: “Arms exports are the business model of our sovereignty.”

And the industry is growing. Arms sales can vary widely from year to year, so researchers look at extended periods of time. Comparing the years 2015-2019 with 2010-2014, French arms exports grew 72 percent, representing 7.9 percent of the global arms market. Over the past decade, the Middle East has accounted for roughly 48 percent of French exports, said Guy Anderson, Associate Director of the Industry and Markets division at Jane’s, publisher of Jane’s Defence Weekly.

“France has been very prolific in providing weapons to a wide range of people,” Wezeman said.

France has been known to ignore arms embargos as well. In his autobiography “No Room for Small Dreams,” the late Israeli politician Shimon Perez said that France secretly sold weapons to Israel back in the 1950s, when few nations would. And it was the French who gave Israel its nuclear capacities, Perez wrote.

The illicit arms sales have continued. The French found ways to supply weapons to the apartheid regime in South Africa despite restrictions on such exports and press reports said that military material found in Libya in 2019 indicated that France had violated the arms embargo there.

“France is one of the least scrupulous arms sellers on earth,” said Kaldas. “Even the US is a little more restrictive about their arms sales.”

Culled from France 24

European diplomats warned Thursday they have made all the concessions they can in trade talks with Britain, as Downing Street vowed to press ahead with a UK law that could undermine Brussels’ remaining trust in London.

The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier has been in London for six days, trying to carve out a difficult compromise with his UK counterpart David Frost and draw up a trade pact that can be ratified within weeks.

“We are at the end of a marathon, probably past the 40 kilometre (25-mile) mark. But there’s still a little way to go,” Barnier adviser Stefaan de Rynck said, during a debate at the European Policy Centre.

As the finish line nears, tempers were fraying in Brussels, with some of the EU’s 27 member states — led by France and the Netherlands — worried that Barnier would shake hands on something that in their view gives up too much ground to a country quitting the club.

An EU diplomat insisted the Europeans remain united, but warned that it was clear that Barnier “was millimetres away from the red lines” he had been given.

“I think it’s quite clear that at this moment in time that we’ve reached a point where we are so close to the limits of our mandate, that we need a movement on the side of the UK if we want to strike a deal,” he said.

“I do not have the impression that we are hours away from a deal… what has to be bridged is still quite substantial,” the diplomat added.

Negotiators are working day and night to agree on a deal in time to be ratified before December 31, when Britain will no longer be bound by EU single market rules under the terms of a post-Brexit transition.

A European source with close knowledge of the negotiations said the talks would continue on Thursday “and no doubt on Friday.”

“Everything could change at any moment,” the source said, adding that the sense of urgency was “now understood in London”.

A British government source said the EU had brought “new elements” into the negotiations. “A breakthrough is still possible in the next few days but that prospect is receding,” the source said late Thursday.

Barnier could brief EU members Friday afternoon but the meeting has yet to be confirmed, a European source said.

In London, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman earlier said the negotiating teams were “continuing to work hard to resolve the differences that remain.”

“Our focus remains, and will continue to be, on trying to secure a free trade agreement.”

But Number 10 also confirmed that it would go ahead next week with a plan to push through the Internal Market Bill, a draft law to govern UK business after it leaves the EU single market.

Johnson admits that clauses in the bill would breach the withdrawal treaty he signed with Brussels, and EU officials have warned that it could be impossible to ratify a trade deal if he persists.

‘Hold our nerve’

The House of Lords, Britain’s upper parliamentary chamber, stripped the offending measures — which Brussels fears breach a promise to establish a customs border in the Irish Sea — from the bill.

But the spokesman said: “Our position remains unchanged. We will overturn the Lords defeat and reinsert those clauses.”

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, on a visit to Paris, said a deal would be possible in the coming days as long as European nations “hold our nerve”.

Negotiations to determine the future trading relationship starting on January 1 are currently stalled on three key issues — fisheries, regulatory issues and governance of a future pact.

Coveney said he hoped a deal would be reached but that there would be “no further extensions” and “no extra time” beyond January 1.

But both EU member states and the European Parliament would have to ratify any accord struck between Frost and Barnier and their bosses Johnson and EU president Ursula von der Leyen.

French Prime Minister Jean Castex was in the Channel port of Boulogne on Thursday to promise French fishermen they would not be abandoned if they lose access to UK waters.

Source: AFP

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has called for a second independence referendum to be held as soon as next year, in a major challenge to the United Kingdom (UK), which is is still struggling with difficulties of Brexit.

Sturgeon said she anticipates that a vote will take place “in the earlier part” of the next Scottish parliament, which begins next year.

“The referendum for a whole variety of reasons should be in the earlier part of the next parliament,” she said.

Her Scottish National Party (SNP), which has formed the government since 2007, is expected to perform strongly in elections to the Scottish parliament in May.

This would give her government a mandate to hold another referendum on independence.

Scots voted 55-45 percent against independence in a 2014 referendum.

His government has said there should not be another independence referendum in the near future.

If Sturgeon wins the election in May, Johnson will have to make a decision whether to refuse a referendum and thus allow Scottish discontent to simmer or allow a referendum which could break apart the union.

The UK and Northern Ireland includes England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Britain voted 52-48 to leave the European Union in a 2016 referendum. Scots voted 62% to 38% in favor of remaining in the EU.

The issue of Scotland’s independence was then thrust back into the limelight. Sturgeon said the day after the vote that the situation was a “democratic outrage” and that another independence vote was “highly likely.”

Recent polls show support for the independence of Scotland has been rising lately.

An Ipsos Mori poll indicated last month that 58% of Scots would vote to quit the UK, if a referendum were held this year.

Source: Presstv

The German government on Wednesday agreed on September 26 next year for the general election to choose a successor to Chancellor Angela Merkel, a government spokeswoman said.

Merkel has said she will not stand for a fifth term and will retire from politics next year after 16 years at the helm of Europe’s top economic power and the EU’s most populous country.

Her departure will mark a new, less certain phase in German politics and at the heart of the European Union, whose rotating presidency Merkel currently holds.

The government “proposes to the federal president the date of Sunday, September 26, 2021 for the election of the 20th Bundestag (lower house of parliament),” spokeswoman Martina Fietz told reporters.

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier must still give his official approval.

The race to fill Merkel’s shoes still looks wide open, as her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party remains embroiled in an increasingly bitter leadership battle that has been extended by the pandemic.

There are currently three hopefuls for the top job in Germany’s biggest party, with a twice-delayed election for a new chief now scheduled for mid-January.

North Rhine-Westphalia state premier Armin Laschet, corporate lawyer Friedrich Merz and foreign affairs expert Norbert Rottgen are vying for the post.

The candidates have proposed an online congress if meeting in person were to be impossible because of restrictions to curb coronavirus transmission.

– Pandemic uncertainty –

The chief of the CDU traditionally leads it and its smaller Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union to the polls.

However given the failure of any of the Christian Democrat candidates to create real momentum at this early stage, CSU chief and Bavarian premier Markus Soeder has been the focus of ardent speculation about a possible run.

Bavaria has been among the states hardest hit by coronavirus infections and Soeder’s robust response to the outbreak has won praise and given him an intense national spotlight.

He leads opinion polls against all three CDU candidates when Germans are asked who they would like to see as their next chancellor.

Yet Germany’s complex coalition maths, the uncertainty created by the pandemic and the absence of Merkel as a foregone conclusion in a German general election could well throw up other surprises.

The Social Democrats (SPD), the country’s oldest party and junior partners in the “grand coalition” government, have haemorrhaged support as the centrist Merkel occupied and helped define the middle ground of Germany’s consensus-oriented politics during her long tenure.

However pollsters say a more conservative CDU leader could drive some Merkel voters into the arms of the SPD, or the ecologist Greens, in opposition since 2005.

The Greens have benefited from growing concern about the climate, particularly among young voters, while making lasting inroads among urban, affluent Germans.

Polls show increasing openness to a CDU-Greens coalition, which would be a first at the national level in Germany.

The pro-business Free Democrats, frequent kingmakers in German post-war politics, are currently polling in the single digits, as is the far-left Linke.

Meanwhile the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has about 10-percent support and is currently the biggest opposition force in the Bundestag lower house of parliament.

But the mainstream parties have ruled out joining forces with it in government.

Source:  AFP

Never before in the European Parliament has a British Prime Minister attracted so much criticism. In a debate on Wednesday, MEP after MEP lambasted Boris Johnson over his handling of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.

Boris Johnson has been lying to the people in the UK. The Brexit transition period ends on the 31st of December. If the EU and UK fail to reach a trade deal before then, chaos will ensue, many argue.

Johnson says there will be no further face-to-face negotiations with the EU until such time as the bloc takes the UK’s position seriously. However, almost every lawmaker in the Brussels chamber is blaming him for the impasse.  A no trade deal scenario could lead to mayhem at borders between the EU and UK. Experts warn disruption to major trading corridors will have wide-ranging economic consequences.

Although very much in the minority, some eurosceptics in the European Parliament blame Brussels’ bureaucracy for the breakdown in EU-UK relations.  But there are warnings that millions of jobs are at risk, and the livelihoods of fishermen and farmers hang in the balance. Most MEPs say no agreement on a future EU-UK relationship would be disastrous.

During the debate one lawmakers suggested there are now a maximum of two weeks to reach a deal, so as to allow time for parliaments to scrutinise and endorse any accord that might be agreed.

Source: Presstv

Poland’s state electoral commission said Monday that conservative President Andrzej Duda has won 51.21% of the vote with almost all votes counted in the country’s weekend election.

The nearly complete results, based on a count of votes from 99.97% districts, shows liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski just behind with 48.79% of the vote.

The final results could vary somewhat, however.

If the result is born out, it would be one of closest elections in Poland’s history, reflecting the deep divisions in this European Union nation.

Sunday’s vote was originally planned for May but was delayed amid bitter political wrangling.

Source: AP

Left-leaning lawmakers defected Tuesday to rob President Emmanuel Macron’s party of its outright majority in France’s National Assembly in a symbolic but non-paralyzing setback for the embattled reformist leader.

Seventeen members of Macron’s La Republique En Marche (LREM) party said they had formed a new political grouping named “Ecology, Democracy, Solidarity” (EDS) to pursue greener policies, “modernize” the political system, and reduce social inequalities.

“After COVID-19, nothing will be like before,” they said in a statement. “We can do more and better in the National Assembly.”

The 577-member assembly is the lower house of parliament, but has the final say on most legislation over the upper house or Senate.

Macron’s then-brand-new LREM took 308 seats in 2017 elections that saw the centrist leader sweep to power from relative obscurity.

Lawmakers have quit the party at a trickle since then, and it was finally left with 288 seats on Tuesday — one fewer than the 289 required for an outright majority.

The governing party insisted that Tuesday’s loss was not “cataclysmic,” as it could continue to rely on smaller, allied parties for a voting majority in the assembly.

Macron’s popularity has zigzagged as he has fought a succession of political battles starting with the so-called “yellow vest” rebellion of 2018-2019 that was sparked by widespread anger against a leader seen by critics as the president of the rich and out of touch with ordinary people.

That was followed early this year by France’s longest continuous transport strike over the former investment banker’s plans to reform the country’s pension system.

This month, an opinion poll showed only about a third of French people had confidence in Macron to manage the country’s problems.

This came as the country looked to Macron to spearhead the fight against the coronavirus outbreak that has seen the economy tank in spite of several billions of euros in government interventions to prop up businesses and save jobs.

One of the vice-presidents of the new EDS grouping is Cedric Villani, who opted to stand as an independent candidate for Paris mayor in the March local elections after Macron chose someone else to represent the party.

Villani denied Tuesday that any “rebellion” was at play.

In its declaration, the EDS listed 15 priorities that included “industrializing” the economy, seeking “real transparency” in politics, and boosting a public health system caught ill-prepared for the coronavirus crisis.

Two-thirds of the group’s members are women.

(Source: AFP)

Germany has banned Iran-backed Hezbollah activity on its soil and designated it a terrorist organisation, the Interior Ministry said on Thursday.

Police conducted early morning raids in Germany to detain suspected members of the group. Security officials believe up to 1,050 people in Germany are part of Hezbollah’s extremist wing.

“Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has banned the Shiite terrorist organisation Hezbollah in Germany,” tweeted a ministry spokesman.

“Even in times of crisis, the rule of law is capable of acting,” he added.

Germany had previously distinguished between Hezbollah’s political arm and its military units, which have fought alongside President Bashar al-Assad’s army in Syria.

Israel and the United States had been pushing Germany to ban the organisation.

German parliament had also urged ban

Last December, Germany’s parliament approved a motion urging Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to ban all activities by Hezbollah on German soil, citing its “terrorist activities” especially in Syria.

A heavily armed Shiite Islamist group already designated a terrorist organisation by the United States, Hezbollah is also a significant backer of the government of Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab, which took office in January.

On a trip to Berlin last year, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he hoped Germany would follow Britain in banning Hezbollah. Britain introduced legislation in February of last year that classified Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation.

Officials raided four mosque associations in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Bremen and Berlin which they believe are close to Hezbollah.

(REUTERS)

Britain’s main opposition Labour Party named Keir Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions who opposed the country’s exit from the European Union, as its leader on Saturday.

Starmer, who has tried to carry the socialist supporters of outgoing leader Jeremy Corbyn while also keeping more centrist Labour members on board, beat Rebecca Long-Bailey, an ally of Corbyn, and Lisa Nandy in the contest.

He won with 56.2% of the vote by party members and supporters.

“It’s the honour and privilege of my life to be elected as leader of the Labour Party. It comes at a moment like no other in our lifetime,” he said in a pre-recorded statement, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Under my leadership we will engage constructively with the government, not opposition for opposition’s sake. Not scoring party political points or making impossible demands. But with the courage to support where that’s the right thing to do.

“But we will test the arguments that are put forward. We will shine a torch on critical issues and where we see mistakes or faltering government or things not happening as quickly as they should, we’ll challenge that and call that out.”

The leadership contest, under way since Corbyn led Labour to a crushing defeat in the December election, has been overshadowed by the coronavirus outbreak, which all but silenced the three candidates’ campaigns.

(REUTERS)