The scarce commodity of the PCR tests – Handelsblatt Morning Briefing

Do you remember a radio interview given by Federal President Horst Köhler in May 2010? He had explained that for a “country of our size with this foreign trade orientation” military action would also be necessary in an emergency to protect interests in order to secure free trade routes. It could be seen as a reference to Afghanistan, where mineral resources such as iron, copper, rare earths, cobalt and lithium are worth trillions.

A statement by German Navy chief Kay-Achim Schönbach on Friday is of course more present to us than Köhler’s geopolitics. At a security conference in India regarding the Ukraine-Russia conflict, he denied that there was a concrete threat of invasion and said: “Crimea is gone, it will not come back.”

Köhler’s and Schönbach’s remarks have something in common: Some of them came close to reality, but were politically completely inopportune and therefore a reason for his immediate resignation. Ludwig Börne comes to mind: “The princes could have spared themselves and their people a great deal of misfortune if they had not abolished the court jesters. Since the truth is no longer allowed to speak, it acts.”

It is the voters’ flood reckoning with the major parties in the Rhineland-Palatinate district of Ahrweiler: In the district election, CDU candidate Horst Gies failed with only 28.2 percent. His party friend Jürgen Pföhler, the previous incumbent, had been retired – allegedly due to illness, but in fact probably because of his miserable management of the flood crisis, which cost 134 lives in the Ahr Valley.

The SPD’s Christoph Schmitt, who appeared as an independent, only managed 19.3 percent. On the other hand, the voters placed more trust in Cornelia Weigand, 50, non-party mayor of the municipality of Altenahr. The biologist, a veritable political critic on the subject of the flood, was elected at the first attempt with 50.2 percent of the votes.

Finland is the showcase for nuclear power in Europe. It is intended to be energy-neutral by 2035, with a share of 60 percent in the energy mix. Four reactors are to be supplemented by two new ones. That explains why the head of the central bank, Olli Rehn, criticized Germany’s nuclear phase-out in an interview with the Handelsblatt: It increases dependence on Russia and, in general, rising energy prices are the strongest driver of inflation in the euro zone. Specifically, the 59-year-old says about…

• Energy prices: “Predicting oil prices is always difficult and especially now. The US has contributed to price stability through its shale gas and oil production for about 15 years, but the effect is now fading due to a preference for green investments. And the decisions about energy policy in Germany affect price fluctuations and thus the uncertainty about inflation.”
• the monetary policy of the European Central Bank: “The so-called second-round effects are decisive. So the question is whether the high prices result in correspondingly high wage increases. In any case, we haven’t seen that on a broad scale yet.”
• the braking effects of a strong austerity policy: “To avoid this, a countercyclical factor must be built into the system. However, the half-Keynesians must not prevail – these are politicians who want more debt in a recession but don’t want to deleverage in an upturn.”

The man from Finland does not do things by halves, he is a full-fledged politician from his career.

When we come to nuclear power – the allegedly clean energy with all the very unclean waste – the view falls on a statement that the Federal Government has now sent to the EU Commission. This is about the “taxonomy”, the classification of energies according to their importance for sustainability. The Scholz cabinet makes it clear that it is completely opposed to the classification of nuclear energy as sustainable proposed by Brussels. At the same time, according to our information, it supports a corresponding classification of gas as a bridge solution.

To the delight of the FDP, the Greens have moved away from the hard “No”. The previous egg dance leads to wording in the letter to the EU that is as hard to digest as Eggs Benedict: “However, for the federal government, the fuel is fossil gas in ultra-modern and efficient gas-fired power plants for a limited transitional period – until the switch to one based on renewable energies Energy sector – a bridge.”

Let’s use the great physicist Isaac Newton as an encourager: “People build too many walls and too few bridges.”

Local farmers leave a fit impression when it comes to cannabis. In the expectation that cultivation and sales will soon be legalized, the president of the farmers’ association, Joachim Rukwied, is already talking about a “hip culture” in the “Tagesspiegel”. The farmers are “quite open and are thinking about getting on board.”

When asked whether the fields had to be specially guarded, he said: “Oh, corn, cabbage and fruit are also harvested from time to time. That’s not all that rare.” Rukwied then praises the existing innovative strength: “Once the farmers have the seeds, they can get started.”
Conclusion: He didn’t just say that into the bag.

And then there is Friedrich Merz, 66, with around 95 percent elected CDU leader in the third attempt. Unity is everything to him, which is why cell phones are now banned at the conference table. No more internals should be pierced live. Merz: “In the future, we will hold board meetings and executive committee meetings without cellphones. That has already proven itself today, that works.” The ex-chairman of the supervisory board of Blackrock Germany is a man from business for business, writes our head of politics Thomas Sigmund in his editorial: But he has to deliver and is “the last patron of the CDU”. . Merz cannot (and does not want) to do without the post of parliamentary group leader and thus leader of the opposition in the Bundestag, and certainly not after this election result,” comments Berthold Kohler in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine”.
Since Ralph Brinkhaus has not yet cleared the field, we will all see in the next few weeks how he changes to a jewelry post with a nice tattoo and makes a nice face at the same time.

I wish you a good start into the week, leave your mobile phone in your pocket for once.

Best regards
Her

Hans Jürgen Jakobs

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