Germany: Merz urges stronger European role in global affairs

Since Wednesday, September 3, at least 30 Afghans have been arrested, and eight have been deported to Afghanistan, according to the Kabul Luftbrücke association, which supports Afghans in Pakistan waiting for German resettlement programs for years. 

Those affected and their supporters are increasingly concerned that even more people will be deported from Pakistan to Afghanistan.

"We don't see the federal government getting everyone out as quickly as possible," says Eva Beyer, a spokesperson for the Kabul Luftbrücke. 

The German Foreign Office had said no more people would be detained in Pakistan and deported before the end of the year. 

But a spokesperson for the Foreign Office confirmed on Friday that "a low double-digit number" of people had been arrested in Pakistan this week.

Berlin is in contact with the Pakistani government "to resolve this situation in such a way that these people are not deported to Afghanistan," the spokesperson added.  

A spokesperson from Germany's Interior Ministry commented briefly on the current developments at the federal press conference on Friday. He said the reviews are ongoing, and for that purpose personnel are in Islamabad.

 "We are in contact with the Pakistani government through various channels – including at a high level. However, this is being handled mainly by the Federal Foreign Office," the spokesperson added.

Lawyer Matthias Lehnert said admission approvals that have already been granted, and even confirmed by the courts, are being revoked by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, a subordinate of the German Interior Ministry. 

"The sudden increase in these unprecedented events suggests that this is a strategy by the federal government to prevent admissions by any means necessary, despite court rulings," Kabul Luftbrücke has said.

This could mean that those affected will have to start a new procedure and be evicted from safe accommodation onto the streets. 

Some 1,700 children, pregnant women, and older women of the 2,300 Afghans waiting for resettlement are at risk, as traveling without a male escort could put them at risk of prosecution, Beyer noted.

The children of a late former heavyweight German politician have denied reports that he had offered to act as an informant to the US in the 1980s.

German magazine Der Spiegel cited US State Department files as revealing that Franz Josef Strauß, a former leader of the conservative Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) party and a long-year Bavarian premier, called a national security adviser of then-President Jimmy Carter, saying he could offer information about "political events in France and Germany."

"Some of them might be of value to you. I would like to send them to you without any request except one: that my name be kept
out," Strauß reportedly said, with the advisor reportedly accepting the offer.

Strauß also added he has a "special network of information," adding that "some things worry" him.

In the 1980 West German election, Strauß lost to Social Democratic candidate Helmut Schmidt.

Monika Hohlmeier, a CSU member of the European parliament and Strauß's daughter, rejected the description of her father as an informant.

"The difference between the legitimate and important exchange of information between allies and informants is being deliberately misinterpreted," she said in a joint statement with her brother Franz Georg Strauß.

Franz Josef Strauß is considered one of Bavaria's most iconic politicians ever. He died in October 1988.

Germany's Foreign Ministry said no German nationals had been killed in the funicular railway crash in Lisbon.

It had first been assumed a German national was among the victims, before it later turned out he was injured in the crash and was receiving treatment in hospital.

The Foreign Ministry did not rule out the existence of other German victims it was not aware of, saying some may have been lightly injured and therefore never reported their injuries.

Local police said three Britons, two South Koreans, two Canadians and one from each of France, Switzerland, Ukraine and the United States are among the 16 victims.
 

Chancellor Friedrich Merz visited the western German town of Jülich in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia to inaugurate Europe's fastest supercomputer.

Speaking at the event — which he attended alongside Research Minister Dorothee Bär — Merz said Germany and Europe "have every opportunity" to catch up with the United States and China in the artificial intelligence industry. 

He listed German based AI startups DeepL (in translation), Black Forest Labs (in image generation) and Helsing (in security and defense) as examples of existing steps toward AI competitiveness.

The supercomputer, called Jupiter, is meant to be able to perform at least one quintillion (a billion of a billion) calculations per second.

Germany will provide €2.1 million ($2.5 million) to support people affected by the deadly quakes in Afghanistan, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said.

A magnitude-5.6 earthquake struck Afghanistan's remote south-eastern region on Thursday night, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

It was the third quake since Sunday's magnitude-6.0 earthquake, one of the deadliest in Afghanistan in decades, and followed Tuesday's magnitude-5.2 tremor.

The Taliban government estimated the first two quakes and aftershocks caused at least 2,205 deaths and injured 3,640 more people.

Foreign aid to Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, has been slashed since the Taliban seized power in 2021, further weakening its ability to respond to disasters.

As Germany's government presses ahead with a program of reforms, one in focus is the country’s complex welfare system. Chancellor Friedrich Merz is pushing for a tougher approach to social spending. That has caused tensions within his coalition.

A suspect has been taken into custody following a knife attack on a teacher at a school in Essen, police said.

During the arrest, officers used firearms, injuring the suspect, who is now receiving medical treatment, according to police.

Police in the western German city of Essen are searching for a suspect after a teacher was stabbed at a local school.

Special SEK police units, akin to a SWAT team in the US, were deployed to the scene.

Police said the wounded teacher was rushed to a hospital but did not immediately release further details. 

Authorities did not rule out the possibility of more injured people.

The Bild newspaper reported the attacker was a student at the school.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said Europe is failing to assert itself on the global stage.

"What worries me, and I have to admit weighs on me, is that we Europeans are not currently taking the role in the world that we want and should play to properly protect our interests," Merz told CDU.TV, the official media channel of his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party.

He pointed to the war in Ukraine as one example, saying Europe lacks the leverage to pressure Russia.

"We are currently unable to exert sufficient pressure on [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to end this war," he said. "We are dependent on American help." 

At a meeting of the "coalition of the willing" on Thursday, Germany stopped short of pledging military commitment for Ukraine if peace between Kyiv and Moscow is reached. 

Meanwhile, countries like China, India and Brazil are deepening ties with Russia, he added.

Despite this, Merz welcomed signs of renewed European unity, stressing Germany's role in driving that effort.

He said Berlin must meet its global responsibility, saying that doing so also serves the country's own interests.

Germany is unveiling Europe's most powerful supercomputer to date on Friday.

Jupiter, based at a research center in the western German town of Jülich, is the continent's first exascale machine, capable of performing one quintillion calculations per second — that a 1 followed by 18 zeros.

Funded jointly by Germany and the European Union, the €500 million ($583 million) system is housed at the Jülich Supercomputing Center and powered by 24,000 Nvidia chips.

"Jupiter will be the world’s most advanced and versatile exascale system for high-precision simulations and the training of the largest AI models." Thomas Lippert, head of the Jülich center, said in a statement.

Researchers hope Jupiter will help Europe close the gap in artificial intelligence, where it trails behind the United States and China.

"It is the biggest artificial intelligence machine in Europe," said Emmanuel Le Roux, head of advanced computing at Eviden, a subsidiary of French tech giant Atos. A consortium consisting of Eviden and the German group ParTec built Jupiter. 

The system will also support long-term climate forecasts, simulate processes in the brain and energy innovation.

The Budget Committee in the lower house of the German parliament, the Bundestag,  finalized the budget for 2025 late on Thursday. 

The budget, with total spending of €502.5 billion ($588.28 billion), includes  €62.7 billion in investments and almost €82 billion in new debt. 

Additional loans from special funds for the Bundeswehr, Germany's military, and infrastructure, mean that total new borrowing could exceed €140 billion.

It was largely unchanged from the draft budget passed by the Cabinet before the summer recess.

Ministries have been operating under a temporary budget since the beginning of the year, due to the early elections in February and the formation of a new government. 

The full Bundestag is expected to vote on the 2025 budget during its session starting September 16.

Guten tag, from the DW's online newsroom in Bonn.

We're nine months into 2025, and Germany's federal budget has just cleared one of its final hurdles. 

The Bundestag's Budget Committee has signed off on it, and lawmakers are expected to vote in just over a week.

Today, we might start to see signals from the political parties about how they plan to vote. 

For updates on this and other news from Germany, follow this blog.