Paris and Berlin are working on a better relationship

Good morning dear readers,

if discord has crept into a relationship, you should quickly seek dialogue with your partner. Otherwise the bad mood grows into a rift, the rift into a rift and before you know it, you’re sitting alone on the sofa in the evening and setting up a Tinder account.

After the recent irritations between Germany and France, nobody wants to let it get that far. People are currently flying back and forth between the two capitals, as if the award miles were threatening to expire. After the visits by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Economics Minister Robert Habeck at the beginning of the week, Finance Minister Christian Lindner is expected in Paris today. French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne is traveling to Berlin to see Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz tomorrow.

According to information from Paris, the meeting between Lindner and his counterpart Bruno Le Maire will also deal with the future debt rules in the EU: Germany is opposed to the fact that the rules for reducing deficits and national debt in the euro zone are being relaxed too much .

According to government information from Paris and Berlin, the conclusion of an agreement between the armaments division of the European Airbus Group and the French aircraft manufacturer Dassault is imminent so that the project of the joint combat aircraft system FCAS can enter the next development phase. Apparently, not all hurdles have been cleared: Dassault boss Éric Trappier spoke on the radio station RTL of a “political pseudo-announcement”.

In an interview with the Handelsblatt and other European newspapers in Paris, Habeck compared the Franco-German friendship with the traffic light coalition: “We know that we come from different points of view and have different economic traditions, but this is always the starting point for solutions. We have the same dynamic in our coalition in Berlin: FDP and Greens often start from different positions, but we find common ground. It’s not always an act of political beauty, but it works.”

“But it works” – is that a sentence that gives new magic to frozen relationships? If there was a Handelsblatt editorial office for psychology and partnership, I would ask there.

As expected, the mediation committee between the Bundestag and the Bundesrat cleared the way for the Hartz IV successor, citizen income, last night. The Union and the traffic light coalition had already agreed on a compromise in the run-up to the committee meeting.

The law is expected to be passed in the Bundestag and Bundesrat this week. It could therefore come into force as planned on January 1st. The high pace is important because the new law is also intended to increase the standard rates for future recipients of citizen income.

My opinion: Citizens’ income is primarily about helping the needy. In fact, it is at least as much about the largely irrational fears of the German middle class about exploitation and social decline.

The time for really big interest rate hikes in the USA could be over. The US Federal Reserve raised hopes of a more cautious pace in the evening. “A clear majority of participants believed that a slowdown in rate hikes would probably be appropriate soon,” read the minutes of the November 2 rate decision released yesterday. One now wants to see how the previous interest rate hikes have affected price stability and employment. At the meeting in early November, the Fed raised its key interest rate sharply by 0.75 percentage points for the fourth time in a row.

The central bank minutes promptly ensured a good mood on the US stock exchanges. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index advanced one percent to 11,285 points. The broad S&P 500 gained 0.6 percent to 4027 points.

Anyone who has expressed cautious doubts in recent years that public broadcasting in Germany really has to operate 73 radio channels, 23 TV programs, nine media libraries and two audio libraries saw themselves in the role of a democratic and cultural despisers booed.

But in view of the many scandals, some fixed stars seem to be moving in the cosmos of ARD and ZDF. That is what my predecessor in this morning briefing, Hans-Jürgen Jakobs, states: “In this situation, more and more political leaders are developing the idea of ​​merging ARD and ZDF. Years ago, even the hierarchs of public law announced in the background that one day there would be a public law holding company, like the BBC.”

A first step should be a reform commission, which Jakobs says can hardly be avoided: “Names like ex-Federal President Horst Köhler or ex-Interior Minister Gerhart Baum (FDP) are traded as members, as well as former federal constitutional judges like Paul Kirchhof.”

At the age of 31, Alexander Falk was one of the 100 richest Germans. Yesterday, the now 53-year-old heir to Hamburg’s city map and former internet entrepreneur was sentenced to imprisonment for the second time. The first time it was about attempted fraud and accounting falsification. Crimes that are not entirely alien to Hanseatic merchant circles.

The Federal Court of Justice rejected the entrepreneur’s appeal against a judgment by the Frankfurt Regional Court, which sentenced Falk to four and a half years in prison in the summer of 2020 for inciting dangerous bodily harm. According to the court, in 2010 the multi-millionaire commissioned criminals from the red-light district to attack a lawyer in revenge. At the time, the Frankfurt commercial lawyer was preparing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Falk and was seriously injured by a shot in the leg in February 2010. Falk denies the allegations to this day. But the legal process has now been exhausted.

The court based its sentencing on, among other things, an SMS that Falk received shortly before the lawyer was shot. It said that Falk shouldn’t worry: “Grandma” will get her “deserved spa stay”.

I wish you a day that you can get through without going to a spa.

Best regards

Her

Christian Rickens

Editor-in-Chief Handelsblatt

hp: What do you think are the best books of the year? Which ones did you particularly enjoy reading? Write to us about your favorite book [email protected] The Handelsblatt publishes a selection of your favorites in December.