Annalena Baerbock on Mission Moscow – Handelsblatt Morning Briefing

In fact, according to our cover story, Europe and the USA are no longer pursuing the plan to cut off Russian banks from the payment service provider Swift and thus from global financial markets. The situation is “serious, very serious,” says Chancellor Olaf Scholz – and calls for de-escalation from Russia without mentioning “Nord Stream 2”.

Transport Minister Volker Wissing had a message at the Handelsblatt energy summit for which he wants to give a lot of money. It is: as many fast charging stations as possible through decentralized charging options and via all payment methods. It didn’t get any more specific, even after persistent inquiries from editor-in-chief Sebastian Matthes. However, the FDP politician told how he received news from a country not in love with electromobility.

A source reported that a multi-storey car park and 300 parking spaces with only three loading points were being built in a municipality – “obviously a message didn’t get through,” notes Wissing. He quickly moderated the question from the Morning Briefing reader friends when the speed limit would come on the freeways: “A very small topic, even if it’s an emotional one.”

Speaking of charging stations: you can only find one of these at the unserviced, state-owned rest areas on the Autobahn. You know, these are the places you quickly leave with a roaring engine.

200 charging options are now to be created there – but e-car drivers will have to spend the 40 minutes charging time without shops or restaurants. That’s not attractive, but it is a protection for the service station monopolist Tank & Rast, which has a license to siphon off customer money in 90 percent of the market.

Incidentally, there is no tender for the further expansion of charging stations there, which is also a help for the company, which is controlled by Allianz, among others. A statement by Tank & Rast makes it clear that the two-class world with massive disadvantages for drivers of e-cars will not change for the time being: “There is a good reason for the legislator to make a fundamental, systematic distinction between managed and unmanaged vehicles Rest areas.” The reason is money and is called “Monopoly Profit”.

While we’re on the subject of the enemies of competition, let’s turn to the internet giants born in the USA. Up until four years ago, Google said: “Don’t be evil”. In the meantime, the parent company Alphabet announces a simplified categorical imperative: “Do the right thing”. Nor was any monopoly always particularly creative and generous when it came to not appearing as a monopoly.

For example, the Google subsidiary YouTube is financing sentimental ads everywhere in the USA – where tough antitrust proceedings are now threatening – that allegedly prove how socially useful the video slingshot is.

Google and Facebook are also hammering out the message spot after spot: Yes, we are the good guys. And the tech association Netchoice donated more than a million dollars for image advertising in the service of the digital superstar companies. If all that doesn’t help, there’s still the political pressure services of lobbying: Amazon and Facebook each spent around 15 million dollars and Alphabet almost nine million dollars on this in 2021.

As publicist Vance Packard so beautifully wrote: “Advertising is the art of aiming for the head and hitting the wallet.”

Sporting competitions are just as fair these days as drawing the lottery numbers: You need a lot of luck to get ahead – which means staying spared from Corona.

The German handball players, however, are unlucky at the European Championships in Slovakia and Hungary. For the game against Poland on Tuesday evening, no less than seven players have been ruled out, all of whom have tested positive. Among others, the regular backcourt players Kai Häfner and Julius Kühn as well as the successful goalscorer Timo Kastening are affected.

All seven have gone into isolation in their single rooms in the team hotel. The association talks to players, Bundesliga clubs and the European Handball Federation about which players will be nominated.

Next week, the Bundestag will start the major orientation debate on general compulsory vaccination. We would like to know your opinion: What is your opinion on the general obligation to vaccinate – and why? Does the question divide society or does the obligation to vaccinate get out of trouble? Write us your opinion in five sentences. We will publish selected articles with attribution on Thursday in print and online.

And then there’s the BBC the British broadcaster, which will be 100 years old in October, may be able to plan its own funeral on the day of honor. Party prime minister Boris Johnson, currently on the lookout for narrative material that he finds popular, has his own ideas about the “reeducation” of the far too cheeky public broadcaster chain. His three-step plan:

• Freeze the fee of the equivalent of 190 euros per year until 2024,
• from 2024 to 2027, the BBC citizen’s allowance will rise very moderately at best
• and then there should really be an end to the license fee – and the BBC will make money through partial privatization and subscription models. Thousands of jobs and a number of programs and niche channels would be up for grabs.

Gone are the days “when elderly people face jail sentences and bailiffs knock on doors,” he says Culture Minister Nadine Dorries: “We just can’t justify putting extra strain on the wallets of hard-working households.”

In the UK, the lady has a certain reputation to lose as a short-term actor in the TV “jungle camp”. We shout out a warning from Walt Disney’s “Jungle Book” to her: “No party without vultures!”

I wish you a happy day.

Best regards
Her

Hans Jürgen Jakobs

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