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.

For all of the 60+ years since 1945, diplomatic relations between Germany and the State of Israel have been very ticklish, and they will no doubt continue to be that way for at least another 60 years – and if you don’t immediately realize why, then you are simply unaware of some rather basic history, involving figures like “6 million.” (OK, actually up until 1990 it was West German – Israeli relations that were ticklish, not East German, because the latter Soviet client-state had no patience with any concept of guilt from the Nazi-times, preferring to view itself as a victim of the fascists, and never established diplomatic relations with the Jewish State.)

That hardly means that German government officials are not welcome to conduct official visits to Israel, of course, and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier did that earlier this week on Monday. Because Steinmeier is at the same time SPD candidate for Chancellor in the upcoming September elections, this was probably the last time he is to visit Israel (and Syria, and Lebanon) in that capacity. Still, in retrospect, the timing for the visit seems most unfortunate: on the one hand the topics for discussion could not help but include Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank, which the US and Europe want Israel to put a much-tighter leash on (and that for starters), while on the other Netanyahu has lately been acting like the pressure is really getting to be too much for him – for example, as recounted in a report picked up on Andrew Sullivan’s The Daily Dish, calling both Rahm Emanuel (President Obama’s chief-of-staff) and David Axelrod (his senior political adviser) “self-hating Jews.”

Sure enough, as we learn in an account in Der Spiegel by Yassin Musharbash (How Netanyahu startled Steinmeyer with a Nazi concept), the explosion duly arrived. (more…)

Just in case it might be of interest, here is the article on the Obamas’ choice of a White House dog from the Financial Times Deutschland. Yes, that’s right: the article in the Financial Times Deutschland about the Obamas’ dog. (It’s entitled “There will always be more dogs”.)

Actually, if you’re willing to concede that a serious business newspaper like this is supposed to be reporting about dogs in the first place, the article (by Anja Rützel) is faintly amusing. As we all know by now, the First Pet is to be a Portuguese water dog, but Ms. Rützel lightly casts doubt upon what she clearly regards as a somewhat weird choice: “A properly-trimmed water dog looks like he has wrapped a bed-side rug around himself and is wearing to the rear some very tight stockings.” Then again, such dogs apparently have webbed feet and have been known to save drowning people – is the White House planning to cut payroll by doing without a lifeguard for the swimming pool?

Ms. Rützel also briefly examines the names for the dog brought forth so far (and immediately rejected) by Michele Obama. She claims “Frank” has been hailed by the election committee of Germany’s governing SPD party (whose candidate for Chancellor in the elections this year will be Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier – get it?), but could ultimately prove problematic during international negotiation sessions at the White House. (“Heel, Frank!” the President might brusquely command.) As for “Moose,” she comes up with the (not-so-original) thought that this name might just tempt Sarah Palin to shoot the dog out of a helicopter.

I wrote in this space almost a week ago about economic policy chaos in the German government, and a new piece in Berlin’s Der Tagesspiegel confirms that that bunch has become little more familiar with actual economic reality in the interval. Steinmeier warns EU-partners about turning away from the Stability Pact is the headline; the lede: “Germany’s Foreign Minister is worried about finances. Not in connection with the current crisis, but the stable euro. He takes the other EU-lands to task – they need to follow the euro-rules again soon.”

Don’t recall the Stability Pact (more properly, the EU Stability and Growth Pact)? That’s too bad, since it was a favorite topic of this weblog back in the day, especially in 2003. It’s the agreement that underpins the euro, and in fact preceded the formal establishment of the euro, by which all EU states (but especially those using the euro as their currency) pledge to keep their budget deficits to 3% of their GDP or less, and to either keep their national debt below 60% of GDP or – if it already is above that level – to make steady progress in getting it so that it’s below. The idea is to prevent euro-using states from taking advantage of the euro’s benefits (e.g. lower interest rates for their government debt) while at the same time undermining its stability through profligate government spending. All that commentary back in 2003 mostly had to do with the revelation of the ugly political reality that Germany and France – the Union’s heavyweight countries – could violate the Pact whenever they wanted, without facing adverse consequences, all while lesser states (Portugal, the Netherlands) were still forced to take it seriously. Ironically enough, this was a German initiative in the first place, required in exchange for their willingness to give up the deutsche mark, to keep those profligate Latin countries (like the Italians) from ruining the common euro-project. (more…)

Presidential or Parliamentary? The question of which system makes for a more effective and truly representative government has engaged political scientists for many years, but make no mistake: it also has some serious real-world consequences. Right now, with the Bush administration headed towards the history books stained by torture, illegal wiretapping, Katrina, Iraq, financial collapse, a corrupt Dept. of Justice, etc., etc., the presidential model is most assuredly under some disfavor. (Oh, and the presidential system also results in excruciatingly-long lame-duck periods waiting for the new chief executive to take power that are really inconsistent with the speed of events in the modern day. See this recent New York Times article for a solution to that that was contemplated in the past, but which Bush has nowhere near the intelligence nor love-of-country to implement now.) But a recent article in the authoritative German daily Die Welt by Jan Dams (Financial crisis: Glos provokes Merkel and Steinbrück) reminds us of many of the defects of the parliamentary system, especially during economically perilous times. (more…)

German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück is currently in Washington, attending that “G20” summit that is supposed to restructure the international financial system – i.e. to bring about a “Bretton Woods II” – to deal with the current world-wide economic troubles. But after this weekend he’ll not be back at his Berlin office long before he’ll face yet another economic summit, reports the German business newspaper Handelsblatt: Steinbrück calls Opel-Summit.

That’s “Opel” as in “Adam Opel GmbH,” the German-based daughter auto-making concern of General Motors. As you can imagine, it’s currently in financial trouble; this past week it directed its own appeal for help to the German government (actually governments, see below). And so, in more-or-less mirror-image to the issue the US government is now having to confront, Germany is also now taking up the same dilemma: should its auto-makers be bailed out to save the many thousands of jobs dependent on them? Or would that be throwing only the first installment of massive monies to an industry that is anyway doomed with no future? (more…)

Some EuroSavant entries virtually write themselves. What’s the hottest thing going on now on the American scene – or, put another way, where can you find all of America’s top TV anchor-persons?

Super Star!

Traveling with Obama, of course! And while the itinerary to the first part of his overseas trip – to the Middle East and South Asia – is somewhat unclear, deliberately for security reasons, we can be more sure about where he is going to be in Europe during the second half, and when. Everyone knows already that the high point – the only public address he is scheduled to give – will occur in Berlin next Thursday evening, 24 July. There’s already been somewhat of a controversy over where he is to be allowed to give that speech. That has now been resolved, but let’s take a look at what further details are available from local Berlin sources. (more…)