on these days of taunts between the Greens and the FDP, one would like to call out to them like the federal singer Udo Lindenberg to his former lover in the song “Cello”: “Come on, unpack the thing again / And play as beautifully as before.” So you remember the beautiful four-person selfies from the pre-soundings of the traffic light coalition, the charm of the political start-up and the sayings about the “historically special situation” (Robert Habeck) and the “new beginning” (Christian Lindner). All this, mind you, was before Vladimir Putin’s declaration of war.
Instead of giving the strongest possible answer, one loses oneself in the purgatory of vanity. The head of the FDP is currently calling on the former head of the Greens to finally stop generating electricity from gas and to let nuclear reactors run longer, while Habeck’s Ministry of Economic Affairs counters that completely doing without gas in the electricity sector will lead to the electricity crisis and blackouts.
It’s like this almost every day. Incidentally, completely abandoning the art of government in political emergencies can also lead to blackouts, for example in relation to voters.
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Gas and electricity prices are at record highs, so high that some companies in this market would like a nice special deal in this special situation. Excess profits can be made not only by selling products, but by selling the entire company. That’s what the municipal utilities of the Ruhr communities Dortmund, Duisburg, Bochum, Essen, Oberhausen and Dinslaken say and offer their property to Steag, as we found out exclusively.
It is the fifth largest energy company in the country, but has to shoulder almost half a billion euros in net debt and 1.23 billion euros in pension provisions. For the green sector – wind and solar parks, biogas, geothermal energy, waste-to-energy plants – there seems to be a number of interested parties, at least more than for the “black” part, the coal business. In the fall, the investment bank Morgan Stanley, and perhaps Macquarie, will oversee a deal. The municipal utilities are to become financial powerhouses.
The greatest interest of the Germans was not the gas chaos last night, but the national soccer players, who lost 2-1 after extra time to England after a brilliant performance in the final of the European Championship. It was a carelessness that decided the match of two equally good teams that deservedly got to the final at Wembley.
What can one say: Impressive to experience a team-related, fair, extremely positive game and discussion culture among the Germans, which clearly contrasted with the arrogant behavior of some male colleagues, for whom the fee inflation of a deformed football capitalism has clearly gone to their heads. This afternoon, the team coached by Martina Voss-Tecklenburg should get a loud welcome at the Römer in Frankfurt.
The corona crisis has been overcome on the labor market, but not in employment administration. The Federal Employment Agency in Nuremberg spent at least 52 billion euros to deal with the pandemic. The 157 million once planned for short-time work in one year were temporarily gone in one day in 2020. Empty coffers are the main problem for Andrea Nahles, who takes over as CEO this Monday and replaces Detlef Scheele.
The former Federal Minister of Labor knows the agency well. In the new job, she would have to push for more money for qualification and further training of workers, where conflicts with Finance Minister Lindner, who is building on savings effects, are emerging. “I have nothing against becoming chancellor,” the social democrat once said – now she shouldn’t have anything against hoping for money from the chancellor.
Tax attorney Hanno Berger, 71, is something like the key figure in the Cum-Ex affair. The former civil servant, who was once Hesse’s highest bank auditor, was instrumental in promoting a system in which the profiteers apparently had the state reimburse them for capital gains taxes that they had not paid at all. After nine years on the run, the man has been in the dock for three months – and now wants to end the phase of stubborn rebelliousness in favor of a partial confession and an admission of guilt.
According to our information, there was a first appointment in a small group in the past few days apart from the main hearing. At the same time, Berger’s main defense attorney said a “confessional admission” and an apology for the behavior after the crimes could be considered. Mr. Cum-Ex had slandered prosecutors as “ass fiddles in Cologne”, a judge as a “pig judge” and other officials as “idiots, weaklings and socialist gangs”. No one knows how high Berger’s fortune still is – only that he is said to have once earned at least 13.6 million euros in transactions involving the Hamburg bank MM Warburg, which is well established in SPD circles. The violins sob and all the “ass violins” wonder.
And then there is Boris Johnson, 58, British prime minister on call, who theoretically could have celebrated his third wedding at his official country estate, Checkers, but chose the country house Daylesford House after heavy criticism. The property in the picturesque Cotswolds is owned by entrepreneur Anthony Bamford, whose large donations are always appreciated by the groom’s Conservative party.
A total of 16.7 million euros have flowed since 2001 and there has also been non-material help of a brute nature. Johnson symbolically broke through a styrofoam wall with an excavator from Bamford’s construction machinery shop JCB, and “Get Brexit Done” was written on the shovel. The Bigspender is also said to have paid for part of the politician’s marriage to Carrie, 34. What is certain is that the 200 guests were served this menu: grass-fed British beef braai boerewors rolls, masa corn tortilla tacos, smoked barbacoa lamb, grain salad.
As a wedding speaker, William Shakespeare would have been so lovely: “The higher you go up / your view becomes more and more general / always a larger part / you will see the whole / but everything individual becomes smaller and smaller.”
I wish you a successful start with perspective in this summer holiday week.
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor