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Brexit? Oh hello again!
At first some dry political bread to wake you up. Crown crisis or not, Brexit will stay with us. And the story seems the same forever: The EU and the UK fight each other, they are disappointed, but then they are saved through the goal.
Somehow.
Today there is, drum roll, a new round of negotiations. It is no longer about Brexit as such, the British left the EU on January 31. Instead, future relationships should be resolved before the end of the year, mostly about TLC. An agreement should be reached in October.
But it’s that easy, of course! – No. the current nuisance is the Northern Ireland issue. British Prime Minister Boris johnson he apparently wants to undermine his previous commitments to Northern Ireland’s status.
And they went like this: There should be no strict border between the Republic of Ireland and the north of the island, which belongs to the United Kingdom. In return, the border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain is supposed to get a bit tougher, for example when Northern Irish products crossing the Irish Sea are to be declared as exports. In short, the customs border does not actually extend between the Republic and the North, but between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.
They don’t like that in London. Well Will Johnson be able to change that?
Let me think for a moment.
No, hardly.
Putin’s buffer zone
In the 1920s, the West created a “sanitary cordon” from paved states against the supposed Bolshevik danger: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania were supposed to protect Soviet Russia.
Today the Russian president continues Wladimir putin also to that concept of buffer zone, only the other way around.
Putin is trying to destabilize Russia’s direct neighbors so that they cannot set a good, much less democratic, example for the Russian people. This is what happened in Ukraine.
And soon in Belarus?
There people continue to take to the streets, demonstrating against the dictator Lukashenko. He uses increasingly brutal methods. Yesterday he had the most prominent remaining leader of the protesters arrested: Marija Kolesnikowa he was dragged into a car in the center of Minsk. Since then, there has been no trace of him.
Now it will be up to Putin how things continue in Minsk. My Moscow colleague Christian Esch writes: “In a television interview, Putin promised Lukashenko his support; Russia has already provided a ‘reserve of law enforcement officials’ for this.” However, Putin also said that Belarusians have the right to take to the streets. Lukashenko’s visit to Putin is scheduled.
In any case, we must assume that Putin will do things in Belarus. don’t follow their democratic course come on – whatever I do with Lukashenko.
The Navalny case: all options on the table
All these years the Chancellor did not move Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project. The annexation of Crimea, the war in eastern Ukraine, the warmongering in Syria, the assassination in the Kleiner Tiergarten, the cyber attack on the Bundestag – the actions of Putin’s system could not damage the almost finished second tube between Russia and Germany.
But in the case of Poisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny sent the SPD Foreign Ministers for the first time over the weekend Heiko maas a warning to Putin (“Don’t expect the Russians to force us to change our stance on Nord Stream 2”) now Angela Merkel filled in.
She says “it is wrong to exclude something,” her spokesperson said. Steffen seibert. At the moment, it is still too early to answer the question about the consequences. Merkel is working “on this important issue” with the chancellor and agrees with her statements.
Yes, Merkel had already tried this sound last week during a press conference with the Swedish prime minister and said that a lot “depends on the respective reactions of the Russian government.” But the chancellor did now the volume went up.
That doesn’t have to mean anything specifically. It’s mainly about building pressure. Moscow and Berlin look at each other. And so Merkel and Maas buy time to focus on one common position of the EU work to achieve it. However, make no mistake about Merkel. In the past, she suddenly took advantage of the political opportunity to say goodbye to a project that she had always championed before, but was heavily polluted in public: atomic energy.
The defenders of the gas pipeline are on guard. In today’s SPIEGEL interview, which is worth reading, says the SPD Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Manuela Schwesig: Supports the federal government’s demand for a full investigation into the poisoning of Alexej Navalny. “Now it is Russia’s turn,” Schwesig said: “But this crime should not be used to question Nord Stream 2.”
Anti-Corona-Pakt
Today the federal, state and local governments celebrate theirs “Pact for the Public Health Service”. In a virtual conference, the Chancellor will discuss the fight against the coronavirus with heads of health authorities, district administrators and mayors, as well as representatives of the countries.
The approximately 400 health authorities in Germany, then the “pact” should received more than 4,000 new jobs, the federal government provides around three billion euros available.
It is one of the lessons of this crisis, after the exhausting era of market liberalism: The strong state protects human life.
Loser of the day …
… are the Cyclist. In Berlin, the administrative court granted an urgent request from an AfD MP against the so-called emerging bike lanes in the capital.
These were created during the corona crisis at the expense of car lanes in order to create more space for cyclists and thus reduce the risk of infection on local public transport. According to the court, the pandemic cannot be used as an occasion to issue orders, because it is not about “traffic-related considerations.”
So is. Because behind the number of emerging bike lanes, which are not only found in Berlin, is the political will to change traffic. Because the temporary cycle lanes, at least those responsible in Berlin left no doubt about it, they are here to stay.
Nothing has been lost yet. The matter will probably go to the Superior Administrative Court. In addition, Berlin has a “Mobility Law”, which gives priority to bicycles in traffic planning. In other words: in the end, all that matters is the correct justification for the new bike lanes.
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You have a good day.
Your Sebastian Fischer
