What is important today
Biden wants to send troops to Eastern Europe. The US President has announced that this will happen “soon”, but he does not give any details. Because of the Ukraine crisis, 8,500 soldiers were put on standby in the United States on Monday. In talks with French head of state Macron, Russian President Putin is again demanding security guarantees. To the reports on the Ukraine conflict
How dependent is Germany on Russian gas? If Russia gets serious about Ukraine, things will get serious in Western Europe as well. There is a risk of gas bottlenecks. It was known for a long time, nothing happened. More than half of German natural gas imports come from Siberia. But the Russian state-owned company Gazprom is cutting back on deliveries and is no longer fully filling the storage facilities in this country. To the article (SZ Plus)
The balance of power in the Greens is shifting. Baerbock and Habeck step down as chairmen because they are now part of the government; but they will continue to play an important role in the party. Their successors are to be elected this Saturday: Omid Nouripour and Ricarda Lang. At the party conference on Friday, harmony and pride at finally being part of the government again prevail. Only Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Minister Kretschmann expresses criticism and warns that the mistakes in the election campaign should be addressed. Go to Article
Seventh attempt at the presidential election in Italy. Italy is struggling to elect a new head of state. There will now be a new round of voting on Saturday morning. At a meeting on Friday evening, the right and left camps discussed a possible candidate. Go to Article
The CDU does not like dual leadership. Brinkhaus also has to give up the chairmanship of the parliamentary group in favor of Merz because the CDU traditionally likes to concentrate power. In the party’s opinion, the party chair and chancellor’s office (when in government) or the party chair and parliamentary group chair (in opposition) belong in one hand. Since 1976, the CDU has not stuck to its principle for just over five years – not the best in its history. Go to Article
Other important topics of the day:
The most important thing about the corona virus
The German population is stuck in the omicron paradox. Health Minister Lauterbach expects up to 400,000 new infections a day in February and at the same time says that the consequences of Omikron are under control. Unlike the rest of Europe, however, Germany is not currently relaxing the rules – and many citizens are unsure how to behave. You ask yourself: Why do we have to be particularly careful in this pandemic phase, don’t we all get infected at some point anyway? To the article (SZ Plus)
Incidence value increases to 1128. The Robert Koch Institute counts almost 190,000 new infections in one day in Germany, but many are likely to remain undetected. Spain’s government sees itself “over the hill” as far as the Omicron variant is concerned. In France and Italy, too, the number of infections is gradually falling. To the Corona reports