Germany updates: Police commissioner slams migrant pushbacks

Whenever the budget is debated in the Bundestag, it is the opposition's moment to shine.

This is its opportunity to catalog everything it dislikes about the government's policies.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz has now led the coalition of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU) parties and the left-leaning Social Democrats (SPD) for 65 days. What have they been able to accomplish so far?

Read the full story here. 

The Volkswagen Group reported Wednesday that in the first half of 2025, 465,000 electric vehicles (EVs)were sold — amounting to a 47% increase when compared to the same time period last year. 

The German auto giant also reported a slight increase in overall global deliveries at 1.3%.

The Volkswagen Group, which owns brands including VW, Audi, and SEAT, said that deliveries totaled 4.4 million in the first 6 months of 2025.

However, performance differences were reported across regions.

"Gains in South America and Europe more than compensated for the expected declines in China and North America," said Marco Schubert, member of the extended VW Group Management Board.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has paid tribute to Holocaust survivor Margot Friedländer, calling her memory a reminder to fight for tolerance, democracy and humanity.

Speaking at a memorial service in Berlin's Philharmonie concert hall on Wednesday, two months after Friedländer died at 103, Steinmeier recalled his "very special" encounters with her.

"It was a privilege to speak with her. She had a radiance that filled every room," he said, praising her warmth and kindness that inspired people of all ages.

After surviving the Theresienstadt concentration camp, Friedländer spent years in the US before returning to Berlin at 88. She became widely known for her tireless work urging Germans never to forget the Holocaust.

Friedländer died on May 9, just days after speaking at an event marking 80 years since the end of World War II. Her institute, founded in 2023, organized Wednesday’s service, which was broadcast live.

"She wanted to protect us from allowing such a crime against humanity to happen again," Steinmeier said. "We will never forget her words: 'Be human.' You live on in our hearts. Forever."

Marking 70 years since Germany joined NATO, Chancellor Friedrich Merz has underlined the importance of Germany's massive new defense spending.

"We will build the Bundeswehr into an army that is a model within the alliance," he said, stressing that rearmament must happen in close coordination with European partners.

Speaking at a press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Berlin, Merz pointed to the need for "standardization and economies of scale" so countries can buy equipment in larger numbers and at lower costs.

Rutte praised Germany's defense course, telling Merz, "I know I can rely on Germany, I can rely on you personally." He said the aim of sharply higher spending by European NATO members is to end the debate over fair burden-sharing, an issue Washington has often raised in recent years.

Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, who also spoke, said Germany must be ready to "drastically adjust our defense spending."
"It’s about our security, our freedom our prosperity," he said.

Germany is hoping to buy more drones from Taiwan as an alternative to China. But many financial and political hurdles are slowing down Berlin's trade ties with Taipei.

DW takes a closer look at drones' supply chain in Germany and Europe here.

Federal police commissioner Uli Grötsch has criticized the German government's policy of turning back migrants, including asylum-seekers, at the border, saying its dubious legality under EU law was causing some confusion among those entrusted with carrying it out.

Grötsch, a member of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), said it went against his understanding of the rule of law that the directive could remain in place even though it had been found incompatible with European law by a German court.

He said he rejected the argument put forward by Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt that the June ruling applied only to one specific case, saying Dobrindt must "find a regulation that complies with European law."  

Grötsch also said the intensified border controls had meant much more overtime for German police, although working conditions had improved in recent weeks. 

The enormous workload at the borders also has a "noticeable impact on regular police work," as many of the officers deployed are "absent from their regular duties elsewhere," warned the commissioner.

Grötsch said around 14,000 police officers are deployed at Germany's borders. 

The new German conservative-led coalition government introduced the measure, along with tighter border checks, shortly after taking office in May.

Poland responded this week with border checks of its own. 
The federal commissioner for the police is a position created in 2024 that aims to give officers and citizens a place to report misconduct or structural shortcomings within the federal police force.

Beijing has rejected an allegation by the German government, repeated on Wednesday, that a Chinese vessel had aimed a laser at a German military jet over the Red Sea.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Wednesday in Beijing
that the information provided by Germany did not correspond with the facts as known to China.

She said Chinese naval vessels had been carrying out escort duties in the Gulf of Aden and Somali waters, "contributing to the safety of international shipping lanes."

The German Foreign Ministry summoned the Chinese ambassador over the alleged incident, which occurred on July 2, according to the mass-circulation Bild daily.

Berlin said the reconnaissance aircraft targeted had been flying over the Red Sea as part of the EU's ASPIDES military operation to help protect merchant ships from attacks by Yemen's Houthi militia.

It said the aircraft had been forced to abandon its mission and returned to a base in Djibouti.

German supermarket chain Lidl has been ordered by a Paris appeals court to pay €43 million to French rival Intermarche for deceptive advertising that constituted unfair competitive practices.  

The court found that many television spots that Lidl ran between 2017 and 2023 were likely to deceive consumers, as the discount retailer had not ensured that the promoted items were available in all of its shops at the advertised price for a period of 15 weeks.

The court ruled that small print and brief off-screen information in the ads telling viewers to consult the Lidl website to find participating stores were "likely to go unnoticed by the consumer or at the very least be misunderstood."

According to the court, the fact that Lidl knew that the products were not available at all branches for a sufficient period elevated the chain's actions from mere deceptive practices to unfair competition, justifying the payment of compensation to its rival.   

On day 64 in office, German  Chancellor Friedrich Merz may still be well within the 100-day grace period — but budget week in Germany is known for offering no grace.

It’s the moment the opposition gets to tear into the government's performance so far. And on Wednesday, that got ugly, fast.

As leader of the largest opposition party, far-right AfD leader Alice Weidel got to fire the opening shots, accusing Merz of lying to voters by taking on record debt against his own election promise and touring the world instead of taking care of business back home. 

In response, Merz boldly stated that he had already delivered on the leadership he vowed for Europe, tearing into Weidel for not even mentioning Ukraine, where he sees the "diplomatic means" exhausted. Germany will triple defense spending by 2029, a move that he claims saved NATO. 

On migration, he warned AfD leader Weidel that he "will solve this problem" and take away the AfD‘s political "ammunition."

Crucially, on trade, he appeared hopeful to find a compromise trade deal with the US by August, the new deadline to avoid punishing 25% tariffs on the German car industry.

Remarkably, the big crisis facing humankind — climate change — wasn’t mentioned by Merz at all.  

The aim of climate neutrality had previously been labeled as a "delusional idea" by Weidel.

This saw the Green parliamentary group leader Katharine Dröge — who helped Merz get the billions in extra debt he can now spend on defense and infrastructure — thrown into a state of exasperation. 

Merz‘ priority list of solving crises is clearly defense and the economy, with migration a close second.

Climate is part of the rest — unless it becomes a security threat, that is.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has given an upbeat assessment of his government's performance in the some two months since it took power, while saying more needed to be done.

"We have taken on a lot, we have achieved some things, but there is still very much to do," he said in his speech to parliament during a budget debate.

Noting that some people in Germany were still worried about their futures, Merz said, "We want to convey to all people in Germany the courage and confidence that is is worthwhile working in our country, that it is a pleasure to live in Germany and that we, above all, are very lucky to live in a country in liberty and in peace."

In a veiled reference to the far-right AfD, whose parliamentary group leader, Alice Weidel, had just delivered a blistering attack on the chancellor, Merz said his government would not be distracted by those who wanted to foment dissatisfaction.

The coalition "will continue its work with courage and confidence," he said.

Read more on Merz' speech at the Bundestag here.

The Bundestag is debating the government's budget plans for the years 2025 to 2029.

The draft budget, which was presented on Tuesday, includes record expenditures and debt, with the government hoping massive investment will set the faltering economy on a stable course.

DW has this analysis:  Defense, infrastructure: Germany plans record investment

A so-called general debate on the budget in the German Bundestag has opened, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz giving his first speech as German leader at such a parliamentary discussion.

The debate, which focuses on the draft budget put forward on Tuesday, is traditionally used by the opposition to give a critical review of the government's performance.

The debate began with a fiery speech by the leader of the parliamentary group of the anti-immigration far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Alice Weidel, who was allowed to speak first as the head of the largest opposition group.

Weidel was not sparing with personal insults directed at Merz, calling him a "paper chancellor" and "chancellor of lies" while slamming him for allegedly breaking campaign promises and for his migration policy 

In his ensuing speech, Merz responded by saying that although a government needed to face opposition criticism, "no one in a democracy had to simply accept without contradiction half-truths, defamations and personal denigrations."

More on Merz's comments to follow.

The allotment of parental allowance in Germany in 2024 differed greatly according to the gender of the recipient, figures from the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) showed on Wednesday.

In 2024, fathers received €1,337 ($1,568) per month on average, while mothers received just €830.

Destatis named two reasons for the difference, the first being that more fathers (96%) than mothers (76%) were in paid work before the birth of the child.

The second was that working fathers on average were earning more (€2,344) than working mothers (€1,789), which, as the amount of parental allowance is based on income, led to higher payments.

However, the statistics showed that mothers on average received more parental allowance overall than fathers: €11,462 as compared with €4,185.

That difference is explained, according to Destatis, by the fact that fathers tend to receive the allowance for a much shorter period (3.8 months on average) than mothers (14.8 months).

 

Germany's biggest police union has said the tighter border controls put in place two months ago are costing officers a great effort for few results, while also warning of likely traffic jams as the summer vacation period begins.

"The number of rejections of people seeking asylum and protection is really very small, but the effort put in by federal police is huge," GdP head Andreas Rosskopf told the daily Augsburger Allgemeine on Tuesday.

"Overtime is increasing dramatically," he said, saying there had been just 285 rejections at the border up to the end of June, while federal police had put in 2.8 million hours of extra work.

While conceding that the border controls were not the only factor, Rosskopf said that they had "massively accelerated the increase."

"This is putting an enormous strain on the motivation and health of workers," he said, calling for a rapid reduction in "the current intensity of the border controls."

Rosskopf also warned of likely huge disruption to holiday traffic, saying that vacationers should prepare for "massive traffic jams" caused by the controls, particularly when returning to Germany.

One man has been detained on suspicion of trying to finance a planned Islamist terror attack with fraudulent commercial activities as police carried out searches of six properties in the state of North Rhine-Wesphalia on Wednesday, officials said.

They said the raids in the cities of Essen, Dortmund, Düsseldorf and Soest were being conducted as part of a "comprehensive investigation into suspected organized commercial fraud." 

According to a joint statement from the Düsseldorf Public Prosecutor's Office and Essen police, the investigation had turned up evidence that money gained through commercial fraud was intended to go toward financing an Islamist terrorist attack.

Wednesday's raids aimed to hinder any further planning of the suspected attack and its execution, as well as clarifying the circumstances surrounding it, the statement said.

 The detainee, a 27-year-old man with Bosnian-Herzegovinian citizenship, was due to come before an investigating judge on Wednesday, officials said.

The DPA news agency cited a senior prosecutor as saying it was believed the suspect resold expensive electronic devices that he had ordered but not paid for to generate funds. 

North Rhine-Westphalia is Germany's most-populous state, with a population of some 18 million people.