This month’s European crisis has without a doubt been the waves of refugees trekking their way from Turkey, through Greece and then northwesterly up the Balkans, whose eventual desired destination has generally been Germany. Germany itself has changed before our very eyes: first taken aback by developments, then taking a welcoming attitude, but now dialing that greeting back somewhat, with border controls and other restrictions, as the full reality hits of what that welcoming attitude has wrought.

Here are a couple of “under-the-radar” articles from the German press on how that country has been trying to deal with circumstances. First: gut gedacht, schlecht gemacht (“good intentions, terrible execution”).

The goal was a noble one, if perhaps also serving as good PR for reBuy.de, a German site that functions as an on-line marketplace for used goods of all types. But what better company to launch an effort to solicit and coordinate used clothing donations for the refugees, right? So it made an arrangement with the German Red Cross; donors could send in their used clothing for free, using labels provided by reBuy.de, via the Hermes package-deliver service.

There was a major misunderstanding, however. For the German Red Cross, this was supposed to be a local action confined to its Berlin Wedding/Prenzlauer Berg affiliate. But reBuy.de understood it to be nationwide – and improperly used the nationwide German Red Cross logo on its website announcing the action. The result was the rest of the German Red Cross’ branches throughout the length and breadth of Germany being inundated with clothes they never expected, before the whole national organization abruptly withdrew from the effort. reBuy.de employees all over Germany gamely tried to push on anyway, accepting, sorting and distributing the clothing themselves, but things soon broke down entirely, with many recriminations.

Then there is this other interesting development in Berlin.

Even beyond clothing, a major concern for the German authorities in dealing with all the refugees has been finding them sufficient acceptable shelter, particularly in view of the oncoming colder weather. Already Berlin officials have taken some decisive measures to achieve this. Last month they pressed into action an old town hall, that of the city quarter Wilmersdorf (capacity: 500), for housing refugees, and the Berliner Morgenpost piece also reports they recently confiscated a former bank in the same area for the same use.

But now those authorities are ready to take things up another notch. Specifically, another Berlin quarter, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg (known for decades for its many immigrants and left-wing politics) now wants to make use of the many apartments standing empty within its boundaries. These are generally higher-quality residences, and the reason they are not being actively used is either because they are being withheld by their owners for speculation or because they function as second homes for well-off people who usually live elsewhere. They are estimated to number up to 5,000.

It does look like those apartments are going to be pressed into service. Will it be confiscation, or some sort of money paid to the owners as compensation? Likely the former. Here we encounter the age-old conflict between private property on the one hand and taking care of people’s urgent needs, in an emergency situation, on the other hand. Those owning those apartments really should not be surprised; the squatting movement has been particularly active in Berlin and Hamburg for decades, way before any refugee crisis.

Here, let me ask you this (answers and/or commentary as usual welcome at the €S e-mail address): Does Turkey currently face a military threat across the Syrian border? At least through the air?

Those are the important questions now before the German parliament, or Bundestag:

Luftabwehr für Türkei: Patriots-Debatte zwischen Skepsis und Fremdscham http://t.co/RSZflivE

November 19, 2012 5:09 am via twitterfeedReplyRetweetFavorite

@BMOnline

Berliner Morgenpost

Or rather: they are supposed to be before the Bundestag, as we learn in the Berliner Morgenpost article. Rather incredibly, though, it actually seems that the German government was ready to deploy Patriot anti-aircraft missile units to Turkey just on its own authority.

But Homey don’t play that, as opposition politicians are now reminding the German public. Indeed, as a spokesman for the opposition Socialist Party (SPD), Rainer Arnold, maintained in a separate newspaper interview, the German “Supreme Court” (Bundesverfassungsgericht) has made it clear in its decisions that such a deployment outside the country must be approved by the Bundestag.

If you ask Arnold’s boss, the SPD’s faction-leader in the Bundestag, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, it’s not clear-cut that Turkey lies under any threat. And his Green Party counterpart, Jürgen Trittin, will be glad to tell you – you don’t need to ask – that in fact a UN mandate (presumably from the Security Council) is also necessary for such a deployment. (That’s his own opinion, though, not that of the Bundesverfassungsgericht.)

On the other hand, the article also says that Turkey had asked for – or was very close to asking for – NATO assistance of that kind, so that this can easily be viewed as a case of providing solidarity to another NATO ally. That’s certainly the line that the governing coalition has taken up; some leading spokespersons profess to be ashamed that there is even any doubt that Germany is willing to come help.

Then again – is there really a threat? German deployments outside Germany for decades (after the mega-deployment known as WWII) never happened at all, but in any event are very sensitive matters domestically – and the latest one that is just winding down, to Afghanistan, did little to inspire confidence. Anyway, the nature of the Turkish situation is not decided in Berlin, yet, and so neither is the whole issue of Patriot deployment.

So the European Union has finally hit Bashar al-Assad’s Syria regime where it hurts, with an embargo on the oil that country sells. But the Berliner Morgenpost warns us not to get too carried away:

Syrien: EU hat es mit dem Ölembargo nicht eilig http://t.co/NOKM6Jq

September 3, 2011 7:33 am via twitterfeedReplyRetweetFavorite

@BMOnline

Morgenpost / BERLIN

You see, these sanctions take effect only on November 15! Yes, no new contracts for oil delivery can be concluded effective immediately, but the old ones must be adhered to until then.

The villain here is Italy, which demanded this delay citing “a technical requirement.” Meanwhile, Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja had it right with his observation: “If we really mean it, we should act immediately.” Sure, in the same announcement the EU added 54 further members of the Al-Assad regime’s inner circle to the “no-travel” and “assets frozen” lists. But the embargo is the truly meaningful blow to Assad, and there are Syrian protesters still being killed daily – at least 17 yesterday, according to opposition reports. How long can they hold out? How long can those many thousands continue to take to the streets, knowing they are likely to encounter gunfire from the authorities, as their national economy collapses around them?

Nobel Peace Prizes are awarded not in Stockholm but in Oslo, and so that is where this past Friday the 2004 winner, the Kenyan vice-minister for the environment Wangari Maathai, was the honored guest of the Norwegian royal family for her awards ceremony. Naturally, she was given the floor in Oslo’s City Hall, and made use of it to deliver various remarks, reported by among others Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Maathi [sic]: Africans Must Resolve Conflicts Themselves). The first African woman ever to win the prize, and at the same time the first environmentalist, whose organization is credited with planting more than 30 million trees on that continent, asserted in her remarks the tight relationship between conservation of the environment and conservation of peace. But ultimately, solutions for Africa’s many conflicts, and for its poverty, must come out of Africa itself. She also expressed her hope that her accomplishment inspire other African women and girls to fulfill their own potential.

The Berliner Morgenpost account (Nobel Prize for Peace to African Woman) added further interesting details. For the first time the awards ceremony there in Oslo featured African rhythms and dances. The 64-year-old Mrs. Maathai declared that “Industry and international institutions must understand that economic justice and ecological soundness are worth more than profit at any price,” and that “much still remains to leave a world full of beauty and wonder to our children.” (Oh, words of absolute music to the left-wing German audience to which the Berliner Morgenpost caters!)

I’m glad to see this coverage, as it offers me another chance that I missed back in October when all the Nobel prize-winners were announced – namely the chance to pronounce my own judgment on the Peace Prize search committee’s work, which is: “Not bad – but.” (more…)

Everyone knows you can find anything on eBay. Heck, for the right auction-winning price you can pick up Britney Spear’s used chewing-gum. And remember back when that guy tried to use this forum to auction off his kidney for transplant?

Presumably the functioning of eBay Deutschland is a bit more decorous (but maybe I simply don’t want to initiate some Google searches to try to find out). Still, there’s one thing that eBay Deutschland doesn’t offer (nor, as far as I now, the original American variety), and that is jobs. Paid work happens to be what a lot of Germans are looking for these days. That very real fact, and the possible connection to an eBay-like facility to address the problem, are what went through the head of German medical doctor and entrepreneur Alexander Stillfeldt about nine months ago. The result was JobBerlin.com, precisely an on-line forum for seeking and winning all kinds of work, for now just in the Berlin/Brandenburg area of Germany. So reports Nikolaus Doll today in the “Economy” section of the Berliner Morgenpost (He Who Demands the Least, Wins). (more…)

Ronald Reagan died late last Saturday, just in time for reactions in all the big Sunday editions of American newspapers. But Sunday editions of European newspapers are rare (let alone – to temporarily borrow a term from McDonalds – “super-sized” editions; those appear on Saturdays, if at all). Rather, reactions and assessments of the meaning of Ronald Reagan’s presidency appeared on Monday, meaning that today, Tuesday, it’s time for EuroSavant to step in and give you a flavor of those.

From the other usual-suspect sources you can get briefed, scattered reaction from English, Arabic, French, and Spanish sources. (But really: only a brief mention from Libération for the French press? No Le Figaro, no Le Monde? We wouldn’t stand for that here at this web-site!) So let’s give the EuroSavant treatment to German coverage. That’s very appropriate, as Reagan’s relations with that country during his eight-year presidency were extremely interesting, with wild highs and lows. (more…)

As you all well know, almost-simultaneous bombs set off in several Madrid commuter trains during the morning rush-hour last Thursday killed over 200 people, and wounded many, many more. Then Spanish general elections followed on Sunday; in a result that took many observers by surprise, the Spanish Socialist and Workers’ Party, i.e. the opposition, emerged as the winner, with that party’s leader, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, posed to take over as prime minister instead of the hand-picked successor (Mariano Rajoy) to José Maria Aznar of the ruling (right-wing) Partido Popular.

Aznar of course had been one of US President George W. Bush’s stoutest allies when it came to the War in Iraq, and 1,300 Spanish troops are still stationed in the Polish sector there. Mounting evidence suggests that last Thursday’s massacres on the rail-lines of Madrid were the work of some sort of Arab-linked terrorist organization; so that the thought has come to not-a-few that Spain was being punished for that support for the US with these attacks, and that the Spanish electorate reacted to them drastically by removing the regime that would bring this sort of punishment down on them.

So: Is Aznar’s loss a victory for terrorists? That question is posed in an on-line article by Kathleen Knox from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. It is answered in the affirmative in today’s New York Times by regular columnist David Brooks – he asks in his column Al Qaeda’s Wish List “What is the Spanish word for appeasement?”, although he also claims to be resisting the conclusion that “swing Spanish voters are shamefully trying to seek a separate peace in the war on terror.” That’s basically the same answer given by Edward Luttwak, on the very same NYT Op-Ed page, in Rewarding Terror in Spain, which starts out “It must be said: Spanish voters have allowed a small band of terrorists to dictate the outcome of their national elections.” (But the NYT editorial board disagrees.)

But that’s all English-language; you already know about all that. Let’s check what the German press has to say. (more…)

Today we finish up our look at the Euro 2004 Group D (“Group of Death”) reactions, this time out of the German press. And there’s certainly plenty there – aided by the fact that the German on-line newspapers, helpfully, don’t follow the practice of enclosing their articles behind for-pay barriers once they get the least bit old.

Die Welt probably has the most complete coverage, headed by an article eloquently entitled Ausgerechnet Holland, or “Of All Teams – Holland!”, complete with a photo at the top of German national team coach Rudi Völler looking very anxious. (more…)

Perhaps a solution to the Italo-German tiff that has been the subject of recent €S entries was there all along, in Bundeskanzler Schröder’s very backyard – if he could have only thought of it in time. But it’s too late now: the Love Parade, that yearly festival in honor of techno-music and “Love” generally held in Berlin’s Tiergarten kicked off on schedule yesterday despite past threats to its very existence from the Berlin municipal authorities. An emergency (federal German) government allocation for flying Italian opinion-leaders up to the German capital to take part might have worked wonders for relations between the two countries. As the on-line photographs accompanying German press coverage make clear, instead of “blonde beasts” they would have encountered quite a few “blonde beauties,” ready to party (or, indeed, even “blond breasts”), with no other thought than to “invade” their own city park, and to a techno beat. (more…)

Non-German speakers, it’s not what you think: faul not as in the English “foul” (so that you might envision “environmentally polluted,” or “cheaters at football,” or even “morally decrepit”), but as in “lazy.” This issue has been raised lately by no less than the Federal German Labor and Economy “super” Minister Wolfgang Clement – “super,” because Clement has been put in charge of what were formerly two separate ministries and granted extra authority within Gerhard Schröder’s cabinet, and extra say over economic policy, in exchange for coming up with something ingenious – anything! please! – to ease the rampant unemployment and general economic stagnation that has afflicted Europe’s economic “powerhouse” for several years now. (more…)

Today I’m on enforced exile from my reporting and commentary upon parochial Netherlands concerns. Still, not all the important things that are happening have to do with Iraq. An important case in point is the EU Athens summit, at which the fifteen current EU member-states and all ten candidate states yesterday signed the Accession Treaty. (Recall that only three of those states – Malta, Slovenia, and Hungary, in that order – have yet held the national referenda authorizing actually joining the EU in a year’s time. And Cyprus, due to its special circumstances, will hold no referendum at all.) (more…)