sometimes “bad” turns into “good” very quickly when the danger of something worse is imminent. A moment ago Qatar was the country of the many human rights violations, where football should only be played after verbal protest before the field was chosen – also a state that finances the Taliban and Hamas and is close to Iran.
But now the emirate of the al-Thani family, which has already bought its way deep into the German economy, is a premium partner when it comes to purchasing liquefied natural gas (LNG). From the three-day trip to Doha, the traveling salesman Robert Habeck did not bring any delivery promises (Qatar has sold 90 to 95 percent of production in the long term), but he does have the somehow shared hope of an energy partnership.
The business delegation accompanying him praised Habeck for his commitment to soon replacing Russian gas imports – to ensure “that the apartments don’t get cold,” as the minister explains. And, who knows, maybe Iran will be supplying oil again soon. In any case, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was in Berlin last Wednesday, my colleagues learned.
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Because, contrary to all protestations, renewable energies in Germany have not been developed sufficiently, because there is a defiant insistence that nuclear and coal-fired power plants are no longer allowed to run, because the “value-based” foreign policy of the Greens is in fact a “present-value-based” one, the country search for gas and oil supply is similar to the well-known choice between Scylla and Charybdis. A monster is always lurking. In simpler terms, fuel comes first, then morale.
Hardly anyone remembers Armin Laschet. But when the name “Tesla” is mentioned, the contemporary realizes that the CDU candidate for chancellor himself made a PR appointment with Elon Musk in the sand of the Brandenburg region.
That will be different tomorrow, Tuesday, at Musk’s new showtime at his Grünheide plant, when the first Tesla car produced in Germany rolls off the assembly line. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz does not want to miss this premiere, two years after the start of construction.
The Social Democrat will successfully refrain from a petty debate about whether hydrogen cars are better than electric vehicles. He will think about the job prospects: The number of employees in Grünheide is to increase from 2000 to 12,000 once the estimated battery plant is up and running. Then Elon Musk, a billionaire with Mars plans, would be the largest private employer in the state of Brandenburg ahead of the lignite operator LEAG (7,000 employees).
Incidentally, when searching for the Tesla success factor, we read from Theodor Fontane, Brandenburg’s Goethe: “Courage is good. endurance is better. Endurance, that’s the main thing.”
(Photo: AP)
The whole horror of the Ukraine war is expressed in an ultimatum from the Russian army. After that, the defending Ukrainian soldiers of the encircled, starved, bombed-out port of Mariupol were supposed to declare their surrender by three o’clock this morning – and then get safe conduct in the morning.
Otherwise there is a risk of complete destruction of the city, of which little is left anyway, according to the Russian side. The Ukrainian leadership categorically rejected this ultimatum. “There will be no surrender, no laying down of arms,” Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk told Ukrayinska Pravda early Monday morning. Instead, she called on the Russian military to open a humanitarian corridor.
In this case, with Mariupol, Russia would have a direct connection via the Sea of Azov to the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed in 2014. “We’ll remember this terror for centuries,” said Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Putin’s attack on the global economy as we know it leads directly to two reactions:
- upgrade: Every country looks to better guarantee the public good “external security” to the frightened citizens. Chancellor Scholz will meet with Inspector General Eberhard Zorn on Monday to discuss the Bundeswehr’s wish list. The defense budget is to be increased by a total of up to 100 billion euros. Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht is also there, but probably not in the “driver’s seat” – which is why the first media are speculating about a loss of power.
- friend search: Countries are reuniting in agreements and alliances in order to have more mass against political and economic aggressors. The West is suspicious of what is happening between China and Russia – which is why Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) is now calling for a new edition of TTIP, the trade agreement between the European Union and the USA that failed in 2016. “Right now, in the crisis, it shows how important free trade with partners in the world who share our values is,” he tells our editorial team. “We should learn from the experiences of the TTIP talks.”
I mean: Lindner’s TTIP proposal is, from a market point of view, a lot more convincing than his recent idea of a “tank discount”. The biggest risk of such a deal is that the next US President could be Donald Trump.
Investment bankers also like to talk about a pipeline. But neither gas nor oil flows here, the pipeline is well filled with money in this industry. There is no lack of that in the Ukraine bear market either, private equity funds alone have 670 billion euros available for deals. But the question is always asked whether transactions have a Russia component, then there is a discount.
Currently, 350 planned deals with Russian participation worth $10.7 billion are up in the air, reports our financial desk. And so the boom in mergers and acquisitions is slowing down for the time being, which is also indicated by the banks’ falling income from investment banking fees. Market leader JP Morgan, for example, reports minus 33 percent, the industry second Deutsche Bank even minus 52 percent.
And then there is Pope Francis, so to speak still a halfway recognized CEO of a badly hit global company, who will announce a small sensation to the public today.
It’s about a new basic law with which the head of the Catholic Church wants to reform the cumbersome administrative apparatus of the Vatican – where St. Bureaucratius was the patron saint so far. The work, entitled “Preach the Gospel,” will go into effect on June 5th.
The reform should promote a more effective spread of the faith and stimulate a more constructive dialogue, writes Francis. Several authorities are merged into the new “Dicastery for Evangelization”.
It is also stipulated that women will be able to manage institutions in the future. Most recently, Francis had repeatedly promoted women to higher positions. So let’s encourage this Roman plan with Victor Hugo: “It is hard to believe, impossible not to believe.”
I wish you a good start into the week, believe in yourself.
It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs