Germany

FRANKFURT/HELSINKI (Reuters) - The euro zone is “probably past” the worst of the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, but the recovery will be uneven, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said on Friday.

Speaking as fears of a second wave shook investors and the general public across the world, Lagarde struck a constructive tone but urged authorities to use the truce currently offered by the virus to prepare.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - European Central Bank policymakers argued over the timing and size of their emergency stimulus programme this month but agreed that bond buys are the best tool in the circumstances and their benefits outweigh costs, accounts of the ECB’s June 4 meeting showed on Thursday.

Seen as an indirect response to the a challenge by Germany’s Constitutional Court, the ECB defended the asset buys, arguing that ample evidence has been amassed to prove that buying government bonds was the best way to revive the euro zone economy and prop up inflation.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany’s private sector recession eased further in June but coronavirus-related disruptions and uncertainty continued to weigh on demand, a survey showed on Tuesday, suggesting that Europe’s largest economy is set for a slow recovery.

IHS Markit’s flash composite Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), which tracks the manufacturing and services sectors that together account for more than two-thirds of the economy, improved to 45.8 from 32.3 in May.

BERLIN, June 22. /TASS/: Nord Stream 2 AG, the operator of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, should substantiate its appeal against the decision of the German Federal Network Agency [Bundesnetzagentur] not to exempt the Nord Stream 2 project from requirements of the revised EU gas directive, a spokesperson of the Higher Regional Court in Dusseldorf told TASS on Monday.

FRANKFURT, June 22 (Xinhua) -- German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said on Monday that there will soon be "a resolution without drama" to the recent German top court's ruling concerning the bond-buying program of the European Central Bank (ECB).

"This is not a drama without resolution, as we will soon see there will be a resolution without drama," Scholz said while giving a keynote speech to the Frankfurt Finance Summit via videolink from Berlin.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Lufthansa’s (LHAG.DE) biggest shareholder, billionaire Heinz Hermann Thiele, will meet Germany’s economics minister for talks on Monday about a 9 billion euro ($10.1 billion) bailout for the airline, a source close to the matter told Reuters.

Thiele objects to the terms of the bailout deal, which would give the German state a 20% direct stake in the company as well as two seats on its supervisory board, and has built up a stake of 15.5% in Lufthansa.

BERLIN (AP) — Preparing for her appearance before the U.N. General Assembly last fall, Greta Thunberg found herself constantly interrupted by world leaders, including U.N. chief Antonio Guterres and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had formed a queue to speak to her and take selfies.

“Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, waits in line but doesn’t quite make it before it’s time for the event to start,” Thunberg recalls.

BERLIN, June 19. /TASS/: The course of the implementation of the Minsk agreements on settling the conflict in Ukraine makes it impossible to lift the European Union’s anti-Russian sanctions, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday after a videoconference meeting of the EU heads of state and government.

"Progress [in the implementation of the Minsk agreements] is not such that we can recommend not to extend the sanctions against Russia," she said. "So, we in the European Council decided today to extend the sanctions for six more months."

BERLIN, June 19 (NNN-XINHUA) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday presented a basic outline and goals of Germany’s presidency of the EU Council starting in July, setting tackling COVID-19 as the “leitmotif” for its term.

“Europe needs us as much as we need Europe,” said Merkel in a speech to the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament. “Europe is something that we can and must create. It is a dynamic order of peace and freedom.”

BERLIN, June 18. /TASS/: The German Public Prosecutor’s Office has pressed charges against a Russian citizen suspected of murdering a Georgian man in Berlin in August 2019, the office informed on Thursday.

The suspect, Vadim S. or Vadim K., said to be a Russian national, is accused of murder and weapon trafficking. The prosecution believes that "at an unknown time, state bodies of the Russian central government gave the order to the accused to murder the Georgian national."