many things in Italy are familiar to us. The evening life on the Piazza del Popolo, the quality coffee in every bar, pasta fresca, wineries around Castelli, hospitality, “La Grande Bellezza”. But the government crisis is also part of the rhythm of Italian life.
Now the time has come again: Prime Minister Mario Draghi offers to resign, President Sergio Mattarella declines and calls on Draghi to report to Parliament and assess the situation. Call it drama! It’s not Romeo and Juliet. One can assume that the former Goldman Sachs manager and central banker is shrewd enough to use a little political magic to get rid of the unloved cooperation partner “Five Stars”, who is not exactly bursting with competence, even if it is through new elections.
Because one thing is certain: Italy needs Draghi, the man who can lead his country out of Vladimir Putin’s energy dependency better than his colleague Olaf Scholz.
Successful blackmail always takes two, but Vladimir Putin is likely to be left alone in the latest twist on his Russian game of cat-and-mouse. Now the Russian Foreign Ministry says, of course, that the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline can function again after the maintenance work is completed, but the Western sanctions are an obstacle. “As for the future work of the gas pipeline, much will depend on the demand of our partners and illegitimate sanctions,” said spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
In plain language: The gas flows when sanctions are rolled back. There are offers that you can simply refuse.
Investors recently had a bad opinion of BMW because of an alleged lack of an electric strategy. The bad word about the “Blackberry of the automotive industry” was already circulating, accompanied by a slump in stock prices. And that despite the fact that the white-blue group made money with its combustion engines at the speed of the left lane of the motorway.
In reality everything is very different. If you read our weekend title, you will learn that there is a “restart” in the four-cylinder house, meanwhile a third attempt to conquer electromobility. It’s about the “N-Car”, the “New Car”, the “New Class”. A meeting room here is sometimes called “Bonecrusher”, and CEO Oliver Zipse explains: “We will make a big leap with the new class. The new class defines what the BMW Group will stand for in the future.”
The message: Forget about the “Blackberry”, don’t look at the fact that there is not a single BMW among the top ten electric cars in Germany – in 26 months the game will start all over again with the first pre-series production in the specially built plant in Hungary.
Discreetly, without an invitation and without an agenda, the Finnish Minister for European Affairs, Tytti Tuppurainen, came to Berlin on Thursday. Apparently, she also asked Chancellor Wolfgang Schmidt to rescue the fluctuating energy supplier Uniper. 78 percent is owned by the Finnish group Fortum, in which the state of Finland holds the majority. “Negotiations are at a hot and sensitive stage,” said the visitor from Helsinki.
The federal government faces the dilemma that if Uniper went bankrupt, many municipal utilities and industrial companies would collapse. On the other hand, Fortum operates a nuclear power plant in Sweden and has interests in coal-fired power plants in Russia. So the trick is to find a solution that doesn’t end up with state funds in the wrong coffers – as is so often the case in the energy industry.
At the end of August, the end of the nine-euro ticket, which did not bring the feared chaos in local public transport, but on the contrary cheerful mood – and it was good for dampening inflation, too. That is why the Association of German Transport Companies (VDV) has now come out in favor of a permanent 69-euro ticket. It should appeal to motorists and be available nationwide, second class, for 69 euros per month. “Climate ticket”, says VDV general manager Oliver Wolff. The politicians will have to talk about the two billion euros in costs per year.
(Photo: AP)
“Sloppy Steve” Donald Trump once called his companion, he was sloppy. But the ex-president’s relationship with his former chief strategist Steve Bannon remained intact. On Monday, the somewhat dingy communication genius is to give information in court about his “criminal behavior”. He had simply ignored subpoenas from Congress to testify about the events of January 6, 2021.
Records show that “Sloppy Steve” pretty much knew the script for the riot three days before the US presidential election in November 2020. “What Trump will do is claim victory on election night. Not true? He’ll just declare victory… But that doesn’t mean he’s really the winner. He’s just saying he’s a winner.” Trump planned to tweet at an early stage, “I’m the winner. game over Suck on that.”
In the language of football radio conferences, which is slightly above Trump’s babble, it means: “The drop is sucked.”
My cultural tip for the weekend: “One second”, the new feature film by director Zhang Yimou, who became known for opulent works such as “Red Lantern” or “Hero”. Here the master tells a story from the Chinese cultural revolution in a solemn, classic style, which left deep trauma in society. The focus is on a convict who escaped because he wants to see his daughter in a propaganda film in the cinema. The film strips are stolen and damaged, but the father still sees them… This homage to the old traveling cinema that came to the provinces was withdrawn from the competition in 2019 during the Berlinale for reasons that remain unexplained to this day.
(Photo: AP)
And then there is the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), who left posterity a previously unknown self-portrait. It was discovered by accident in a Scottish museum when Van Gogh’s Head of a Peasant Woman in a White Cap (1885) was being examined with X-rays before an exhibition. The image shows a bearded man with a scarf and hat and is on the back of the canvas – pasted over with layers of glue and cardboard. Since the left ear, which the painter cut off in 1888, can be seen, the work must have been created before.
Experts believe the discovery is one of a series of experimental self-portraits, five of which are similar examples in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Curator Frances Fowle speaks of an incredible gift for Scotland and “another little treasure that brings us a little closer to this incredible artist”.
This brings you close to Sören Kierkegaard: “One should not only possess the art of giving, but also the ability to receive and accept.”
I wish you a relaxed and gift-filled weekend.
I wish you a successful day with heart.
It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor
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