Germany

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) will likely delay the election of a new leader until December due to the coronavirus, current leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

The new leader will be in pole position to run as chancellor in the next federal election as Merkel has said she will not seek a fifth term at the head of Europe’s biggest economy.

BERLIN, April 12. /TASS/: The number of recoveries from coronavirus in Germany has surpassed the number of those infected for the first time since the outbreak, the Berlin-based Robert Koch Institute responsible for disease control and prevention (subordinate to the Federal Ministry of Health) reported.

According to the research institute, some 120,479 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Germany, with 60,200 recoveries. The death toll from the coronavirus has hit 2,673. Some 57,606 people are undergoing treatment for coronavirus.

BERLIN, April 9./TASS/: The pace of growth of new coronavirus cases in Germany has slowed down somewhat, but the social distancing strategy must not be relaxed, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Berlin on Thursday.

BERLIN, April 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Germany plans to take in up to 50 unaccompanied minors staying at overcrowded refugee camps in Greece, while Luxembourg has agreed to accept 12, government officials said.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer will propose to the Cabinet a plan to bring the children to Germany and recommend that “the transfer should begin in the next week, if possible,” a statement from his ministry said.

BERLIN, April 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Authorities in Germany have fallen victim to a multi-million-euro fraud involving masks much needed in the coronavirus pandemic, prosecutors said.

North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state and one of the hardest hit, paid 14.7 million euros for some 10 million masks in March only to discover they did not exist, according to prosecutors in Traunstein, Bavaria.

The German managing director of two distribution companies based in Zurich and Hamburg raised the alarm after realising he had been tricked.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Firefighters in Berlin on Wednesday quickly brought under control a blaze at a royal palace being rebuilt at great expense in the centre of the capital.

The fire service said in a Tweet that a propane gas canister had exploded and building materials and two bitumen boilers had caught fire. One person was injured and about 80 emergency services staff were on the scene.

Black smoke was seen billowing across the city centre but the fire service said it had the blaze at the Berlin Palace under control within 30 minutes.

BERLIN, April 7. /TASS/: The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany has reached 99,225, and 1,607 patients have died, according to the Berlin-based Robert Koch Institute.

A total of 3,843 cases were identified in the country in the past 24 hours.

The region of Bavaria remains the epicenter of the outbreak in Germany with 26,163 confirmed cases, followed by North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Wurttemberg (20,220 and 20,141 cases, respectively).

BERLIN, April 6 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) is facing the "biggest test since its foundation" due to the coronavirus pandemic, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday.

The pandemic has produced a "symmetrical shock" and all countries are "equally affected," Merkel said at a press conference at the Chancellery. There is a common interest in making certain that Europe "emerges strongly from this test," she said.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Export expectations in Germany’s car sector have fallen to their lowest level since March 2009, when Europe’s largest economy was in the throes of the global financial crisis, Germany’s Ifo institute said on Monday.

“The prospects for the German car sector have significantly worsened due to the coronavirus crisis,” Ifo said.

It said business expectations in the sector for the coming months had dropped to -33.7 from -19.7 in February.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Orders for German-made goods dropped 1.4% in February, data showed on Monday, as a sharp fall in orders from abroad hinted at the likely impact of the coronavirus on the exporting powerhouse’s economic prospects.

The figures published by the Statistics Office relate to the period before lockdown measures began to affect the German economy in earnest: domestic orders climbed by 1.7%, while orders from abroad shrank by 3.6%.

The overall fall was less than the 2.4% drop expected by analysts polled for Reuters.