just before the holiday comes to mind that there will be a lot of “photo ops” on this occasion – those at home want to be served. The word “photo shoot” is used in newspaper articles today because Olaf Scholz didn’t want it for his trip to the Ukraine. However, many editors were busy measuring how much “photo opportunity” was included in his visit to Kyiv with Mario Draghi and Emmanuel Macron. There is no clear answer.
The promised aid for the intended EU accession leaves open how big the national territory will be that would then join and whether it will still exist at all. The weapons in Eastern Europe are still deciding politics, and Russia is superior there. Tanks from Germany, so one has to understand the statements, should not roll in the Ukraine. But Scholz said “Slava Ukraini” (Glory to Ukraine), showed sympathy in the bombed Irpin and declared: “Ukraine belongs to the European family”. That liked in Kyiv. So we look at the photo with Scholz, Macron and Draghi on the train and see something positive: a united Europe at the moment.
In the Russian economic war against the liberal West, which accompanies the cannon war against liberal Ukraine, the monopoly Gazprom is taking on the role that “Big Bertha” once played. The Russian state-owned company cut gas deliveries to Germany by 60 percent in two tranches, allegedly for technical reasons, which caused prices to rise from 80 to almost 120 euros. One delivers less and yet redeems more, these are the calculations of the monopoly.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
Overall, Gazprom’s gas exports to countries that are not part of the ex-Soviet Union have fallen by 29 percent since the beginning of the year – but this has been offset by massive price increases. “Our product, our rules,” announces Gazprom boss Alexej Miller: “We don’t play by rules that we didn’t make.” Said it and suggested that the pipeline Nord Stream 2, which has been put on hold, could simply be activated. With so much chutzpah, we say to Mr. Miller: “Unfortunately we don’t have a photo for you today!”
The European Central Bank (ECB) with its fire-fighting trains against inflation was not really in the picture so far, which is why it was looking for orientation in a special meeting on Wednesday. Events rushed. In the fight against inflation, the US Federal Reserve first raised the key interest rate by 0.75 points to 1.5 to 1.75 percent on Wednesday evening – the largest jump in interest rates since 1994. The next morning, the Swiss National Bank announced a surprising interest rate hike of 0.50 percentage points. And during the course of the day, the Bank of England followed: Here it went up again by 0.25 points to 1.25 percent.
With the plus of 0.25 points announced for July, the ECB seems like a loafer. And it has the problem of having to prevent the euro zone from drifting apart because, for example, the debt-ridden country of Italy will only get rid of its bonds if interest rates are too high. The “euro crisis” is back, says Ifo boss Clemens Fuest – and that’s probably why Christine Lagarde and the ECB are working on the “secret plan for Europe”.
You can imagine the stock exchanges’ response to the capricious interest rate hikes: the big downturn was sounded. The leading German index lost 3.33 percent at the end and with 13,038 points just defended the 13,000 mark. In the USA, on the other hand, the Dow Jones Industrial was unable to hold the symbolic limit of 30,000 points and ended up down 2.42 percent at 29,927.07 points. One fears the recession that could follow the interest rate hike. The course of the superstar company Tesla even lost 4.5 percent – investors resent the electric car manufacturer for raising its US vehicle prices.
The fact that CEO Elon Musk wants to increase the number of users from 229 million to one billion in his possible sideline business Twitter, but want to significantly reduce the number of employees, registered with a tear in his eye. Musk also announced in his recent PR heist that he would vote for Republican presidential nominee Ron DeSantis, Florida’s conservative governor, in 2024.
The Handelsblatt Research Institute (HRI) is certain of what the many symptoms of the crisis mean for Germany: lean times. The German economy will only grow by 1.6 percent in 2022 and for 2023 a modest 0.8 percent plus is on the forecast sheet. “The macroeconomic pre-Corona level was reached at the end of the year, but then Germany is still missing three years of trend growth of almost 1.5 percent annually,” explains HRI President Bert Rürup.
The upward drift in interest rates is raising the blood pressure of home builders across the country. They ask: is it still worth it or should one rather invest the money in “dolce vita” while it is still possible? Our big weekend report describes why the real estate markets have tilted and dreams of buying a house have turned into nightmares.
The experts are certain that prices will not continue to rise, such as Jochen Möbert from Deutsche Bank Research: “We are pretty sure that the real estate boom in Germany will end in this decade – and sooner rather than later.” There are a number of negative factors for investors, such as the fact that mortgage rates have recently risen to 2.79 percent. That costs money, but by historical comparison the level is still low.
In her Handelsblatt guest commentary, Bélen Garijo deals with the dwindling productivity of international scientific research. The CEO of the Dax group Merck finds this “worrying” and calls for a “restart”. She advises four measures:
- Breaking down research silos, for example tying together biology, software and engineering in innovations.
- Change structures, for example with incubators in which scientists and companies network.
- Reconsider key figures for research, in particular to value a high number of publications as a quality feature of researchers.
- Stimulate investment in basic research. New business models are needed because the share of government research funding has been shrinking for decades.
And what does the state think? In the Handelsblatt interview, Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) emphasizes that we have to build innovation bridges across the entire spectrum of research and speed up the transfer. In the transfer departments of the universities there should be people who know the world of companies: “We need many more courses that teach the entrepreneurial spirit – that shouldn’t only be available at the Technical University of Munich.”
My cultural tip for the weekend: “Paul McCartney – a Beatles legend” , a documentary in the excellent Arte media library about the musician who left his mark as a bass player, singer and composer in the most famous music band of the 1960s. From the “Yesterday” of the Beatles time he made an “Another Day” of his further career – for example with the Wings, where his wife Linda Eastman also played. The late Eastman-Kodak clan photographer left volumes of photographs that suggest daily photo ops in the household. In any case, Paul McCartney is celebrating his 80th birthday this Saturday. So you listen to eyewitnesses like Klaus Voormann in the documentary and put black discs on the record player, everything is somehow up to date: “Back in the USSR”.
And then there is Gerhard Schröder, who will soon have more time because he is leaving the supervisory board of the Russian state-owned company Rosneft and is not even taking up the prospect of a supervisory position at Gazprom. So released in the system of his friend Vladimir Putin, he wanted back his old office in the Bundestag, which the budget committee had canceled for him. Schröder’s lawyer considers the decision illegal and requested an official decision so that Schröder could sue if necessary. But, according to a letter, they want to reach a good solution in a conversation with Helge Braun (CDU), the chairman of the budget committee.
But Braun rejects a conversation with ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder: “I find the whole process undignified.” The decisions of the budget committee were made with a large majority. I don’t need to talk about these “objectively required requirements”, Braun added, “especially not with people who communicate with me via letters from a lawyer”. CDU colleague Günter Krings even wants to abolish Schröder’s pension: he told my colleague that anyone who is supported by the system of Russian President Putin cannot be “supported” by German taxpayers at the same time.
For Schröder, the insight of another former chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, applies: “All human organs get tired at some point, just not the tongue.”
I wish you a sunny and cheerful weekend and say goodbye for two weeks on vacation. My colleague Christian Rickens, who has often proven himself at this point, takes over the wake-up service.
Best regards
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor