far away was the ignominious flight of Americans from Afghanistan last night when Joe Biden gave his State of the Union address. The US President wanted something that was “amazing” and “awesome” at the same time and listed the successes of his policy like the Vorwerk representative listed the benefits of a vacuum cleaner. Domestically: six million jobs created, social reform plans submitted. Foreign policy: trying to unite the people behind his Ukraine policy.
The country stands by the sanctions against Russia, nothing unites them more than external threats. And so Biden presented himself that night as the forge of a global alliance against Vladimir Putin, against the man who is raging in Kyiv and Kharkiv with his bombs, hitting a radio tower and destroying residential buildings. “If dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos,” Biden said. That’s why NATO was founded. The Russian President thought he could split the West. “Putin is more isolated today than ever before,” the US President summed up.
Conclusion: The President as a boy scout, a nice story for the scared.
Provincial notes are also news to the world. Let’s just take the spa complex in Rottach-Egern am Tegernsee, today at 5 p.m.: There, at the invitation of the Greens, locals are protesting against Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine – and also against the deals that the “Tal” has done with rich Russians, for example with Alisher Usmanov. “Our oligarch,” they say to the 68-year-old billionaire of Uzbek origin, who owns three villas near the “Malerwinkel” and – also for fun – rents suites in the Seehotel “Überfahrt”. A cohort of bodyguards is always present.
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Now the Putin intimate, meanwhile the target of EU sanctions, is resigning from his position as President of the World Fencing Federation – not without criticizing “false and defamatory allegations”. CSU member of the Bundestag Alexander Radwan has something radical in mind: one must check whether expropriations are also possible in the case of oligarchs who are dependent on Putin. Our grandparents used to fear that Russians would expropriate their house, now it’s the other way around.
(Photo: imago/localpic)
It’s getting lonely around Gerhard Schröder, who certainly understands Putin even better than multi-entrepreneur Usmanov. And who, above all, wants to remain on the supervisory board of the Russian state-owned company Rosneft and even become a member of the sister company Gazprom, especially during his senior “Schröder Roadshow”. But otherwise? Everywhere Exodus because he does not distance himself from the Russian raid command.
- All four employees in his Bundestag office took to their heels, including Albrecht Funk, office manager after 20 years.
- The SPD leadership is so charged that those responsible would immediately change sides of the street if they only saw the once so deserving former chancellor.
- The left wing of the party, in turn, immediately demands Schröder’s exclusion.
- A few jewel titles are in danger: honorary membership in the German Football Association and Borussia Dortmund, as well as honorary citizenship in the SPD city of Hanover.
- At the Lahr tunnel builder Martin Herrenknecht, on the other hand, the social democrat has to resign as vice chairman of the supervisory board because of his loyalty to Putin.
- And the liberal, honorable Swiss publisher Michael Ringier no longer likes the “door opener” from Germany, sorry, consultant.
Schröder doesn’t have to worry about his supervisory job at Nord Stream 2: it’s simply dropped. The Baltic Sea gas pipeline project goes bankrupt. The ex-chancellor would probably like a quote from Heinrich Heine: “The dog that is muzzled barks with its butt.”
The demanded distancing from his friend Putin’s war of aggression against his twin city of Kyiv did not come from world-class conductor Valery Gergiev either. So the city of Munich put an abrupt end to his work with the Munich Philharmonic. “In the current situation, a clear signal for the orchestra, its audience, the public and city politics would have been essential in order to be able to continue working together,” explains Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD). She finds it strange “to demand political commitments, in this case it was necessary,” says second mayor Katrin habenharm (Greens). Internationally, Gergiev concerts were canceled everywhere: at La Scala in Milan, in Rotterdam, Baden-Baden, Edinburgh, Paris.
The opera singer Anna Netrebko, on the other hand, who celebrated her 50th birthday with Putin, canceled all concerts on her own initiative. An interim post disappeared again: “I have already said that I am against this senseless war. I call on Russia to end this war now to save us all! We need peace!” Her buddy from the Kremlin could easily have misunderstood these sentences.
Should I stay or should I go now? Just like in the song by the band The Clash many German company bosses are puzzled as to whether they will keep their branch in the country of the belligerent President Putin and continue to do business as if nothing had happened. Very few desert: BP, Shell, Daimler Truck. The majority says “Stay”: Mercedes, Volkswagen, Bayer, Henkel, Claas, Metro. However, as my colleagues found out, Putinism applies to them too.
The Russian central bank wants local German companies to exchange 80 percent of their export earnings in rubles, retrospectively from the beginning of the year. Reason: “Special economic measures in connection with unfriendly actions by the West.” The clash song rhythmically sums up the dilemma of the German countries bordering Russia: “If I go there will be trouble, if I stay it will be double.”
In times of war, schedules cannot be kept. The Federal Minister of Finance, Christian Lindner, also experienced this, and he still gives the Handelsblatt an extensive interview. In detail, the FDP leader says about…
- …the German U-turn in the Foreign and Security Policy: “The strengthening of the Bundeswehr serves as a deterrent. This country can no longer duck and collect a peace dividend. The war in Ukraine is a wake-up call.”
- … sanctions: “We have to take much stronger action against Putin’s supporters – oligarchs who send their children to English private schools, have villas on the Cote d’Azur and shop on Kurfürstendamm. Their assets and capital flows need to be identified and drained.”
- …the Kremlin: “Putin has undertaken a war of aggression in violation of international law. He must end it and restore Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty and integrity. The power structures of the Kremlin and the Putin system are hardly transparent. Nobody knows who has what influence on whom.”
Conclusion: This conversation deserves to be read in southern France as well.
And then there is the French IT service provider Atos: Paris’ great hope of becoming European champion in an industry dominated by Americans. Such spring dreams are currently opposed to a record net loss of around three billion euros for 2021.
Apparently, high depreciation is to blame for the bad situation. After current share price losses of 20 percent, the company is tumbling towards the status of a takeover candidate. Siemens also has a ten percent stake in the problem company, which recently even had accounting problems. But Thierry Breton, the CEO who was in office for eleven years and was promoted to EU Internal Market Commissioner in 2020, also missed out on important developments such as the cloud boom. The old proverb already knows: “Sleep is the biggest thief, it steals half your life.”
I wish you a successful day with profit.
It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
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