Germany

BERLIN (AP) — The three parties negotiating to form Germany’s next government will present their coalition agreement Wednesday — a deal that will pave the way for center-left leader Olaf Scholz to replace longtime Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The center-left Social Democrats have been negotiating with the environmentalist Green party and the pro-business Free Democrats since narrowly winning a national election on Sept. 26. The latter two parties said the agreement would be unveiled on Wednesday afternoon.

ESCHWEILER, Germany (AP) — Germany is set to mark 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 this week, passing a somber milestone that several of its neighbors crossed months ago but which Western Europe’s most populous nation had hoped to avoid.

Teutonic discipline, a robust health care system and the rollout of multiple vaccines — one of them homegrown — were meant to stave off a winter surge of the kind that hit Germany last year.

BERLIN, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Germany's Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and Free Democrats, who are negotiating to form a new government, have agreed to commit to a coal phase-out by 2030 in a coalition deal, sources involved in the talks told Reuters on Tuesday.

The three parties are in the final stages of clinching a coalition agreement and hope to present the deal on Wednesday, one source close to the talks said.

Climate policy is one of the closest-watched areas for the new government as Europe's biggest economy shifts towards carbon neutrality.

BERLIN, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Berlin does not accept a Belarus proposal for Germany to take in 2,000 migrants who are currently on Belarusian territory, a government spokesperson said on Monday.

"The idea of having a humanitarian corridor to Germany for 2,000 migrants is not a solution that is acceptable to Germany or the EU," the spokesperson said.

21 Nov 2021; MEMO: Unidentified people attacked Iran's Consulate General in Hamburg, Germany, local police said on Saturday, Anadolu Agency reported.

Police in Hamburg said unidentified persons threw flammable materials at the iron gate of the consulate.

Smoke rose in the area where the consulate is located, while the fire was immediately extinguished, the statement said, noting that no one was injured in the incident.

Two people who fled the scene are being sought, it added.

BERLIN, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Germany's next cabinet is taking shape as coalition negotiations near a deal, with chancellor-in-waiting Olaf Scholz determined to deliver on his campaign pledge to have as many women as men in his team, sources said on Saturday.

Scholz's centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), who narrowly won the federal election in September by beating Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, are trying to form a three-way ruling coalition with the pro-spending Greens and the fiscally conservative Free Democrats (FDP).

FRANKFURT, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- The European Central Bank (ECB) must not rush to tighten its monetary policy since the elevated inflation rates look transitory, the bank's President, Christine Lagarde, told the Frankfurt European Banking Congress on Friday.

Speaking via video link, Lagarde stressed that the ECB's monetary policy should be kept consistent to facilitate the return of inflation to the two percent target over the medium term when interest rates remain low.

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The head of the European Central Bank warned that high oil and gas prices are hitting consumers in the 19 countries that use the euro harder than in other major economies and underlined that the bank won’t add to the squeeze by raising interest rates anytime soon.

BERLIN (AP) — Austria took what its leader called the “dramatic” step Monday of implementing a nationwide lockdown for unvaccinated people who haven’t recently had COVID-19, perhaps the most drastic of a string of measures being taken by European governments to get a massive regional resurgence of the coronavirus under control.

13 Nov 2021; MEMO: A number of German MPs have rejected the UAE's candidate to head international police body INTERPOL, Arabi21 reported on Friday.

The London-based news website disclosed that the German MPs signed a petition expressing their "deep concern" regarding the nomination of the UAE's Major General Ahmed Nasser Al-Raisi for the post of INTERPOL director.