Germany's foreign minister has said Berlin is behind Ukraine's president and will keep pressuring Russia to end its war. Meanwhile Deutsche Bank's CEO warned that political extremism is spooking investors.
Foreign Minister Wadephul said Berlin 'fully supports' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The gesture of solidarity came in response to Donald Trump's calls for new leadership in Ukraine. Friedrich Merz's CDU gathers for leadership meeting addressing electoral free fall. The German government has said it will continue working with EU partners on Russia sanctions. Ex-Chancellor Schröder faces criticism for attending Putin's birthday.
Christian Sewing, CEO of Deutsche Bank, Germany's biggest, warned that the growing strength of both the far right and the far left is spooking foreign investors. Sewing told the tabloid Bild that recent election victories for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and post-communist Left Party "pose a significant risk for Germany and should not be downplayed."
The Deutsche Bank boss said it mattered little that the elections were on the state and local level. "You can't expect a foreign investor to immediately draw a distinction between a state government and Germany as a whole," he said. "It's seen as Germany as a whole and I think that from an investor's point of view, that's understandable."
Some economists say the AfD is creating an atmosphere that will drive away much needed skilled labor as well as foreign investors. The Left Party, meanwhile, won victory in Berlin promising to expropriate residential property companies' holdings to lower housing costs in the German capital. "Whether it's Saxony-Anhalt with the AfD or what's happening here in Berlin," said Sewing, "it's anything but conducive to economic growth. And it's anything but investment-friendly."
Sewing said Chancellor Friedrich Merz must get on with carrying out reforms and reviving the economy, saying, "That is the only response we have to the far-right and far-left extremists in this country."
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul on Sunday made clear that Berlin stands with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, rejecting US President Donald Trump's calls for his replacement. Germany will "fully support the president as he carries out his difficult duties," said Wadephul at his party's two-day CDU leadership conference.
On Friday, after a long phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump announced a deal that would see sanctions on Russia eased dramatically and allow Moscow to export millions of barrels of diesel, thus pumping much needed cash into Russia's economy. On Saturday, Trump called for Zelenskyy's removal and again sought to pin blame on the Ukrainian president for high global oil prices.
Germany is the biggest EU donor to Ukraine, and an advocate for tighter sanctions and increased pressure on Russia to end its war against Ukraine. Berlin responded to Trump's oil scheme by stating that it would not be lifting any Russian sanctions. "We don't need less pressure on Putin to force him to negotiate," said the German diplomat. "We need more," he added. "That is what this moment requires and that's what this government stands for."
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) will kick off a two-day leadership meeting on Sunday to plot a path out of the electoral crisis the party finds itself in after three dismal state elections. The 25-member leadership meeting was called after the CDU failed to even clear the 5% hurdle to enter Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's state legislature. The stinging loss, which Merz himself described as "a disaster," represented the first time in the party's history that it was booted from a statehouse.
The CDU has been struggling to hold off the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and has been thrust into an identity crisis due to the rate at which it is losing voters to the party. In one of the summer's other elections — in Saxony-Anhalt — the CDU dropped nearly 20 percentage points, getting clobbered by the AfD, which racked up over 40% of the vote.
This weekend's meeting is designed to address voter dissatisfaction with the CDU-led governing coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD), as well as looking at possible long-term solutions to the party's electoral death spiral. Faced with this new electoral reality, leaders will reportedly look at the potential policy consequences of the party's losses, reconsidering whether to push on with much-needed reforms to the healthcare and retirement systems, for instance. Party leaders will also grapple with the fundamental question of how to deal with the AfD in the long run, namely, whether to maintain the party's "firewall" policy rejecting any cooperation or to work with the anti-immigrant rightwing populists in hopes of remaining relevant.
Germany swiftly rejected a proposed new budget for the European Union that was put forward on Saturday. Ireland, which holds the rotating EU presidency, put forward a budget of €1.826 trillion for the next seven years. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the budget cuts should go further. "The size of the new proposal is no basis for an agreement," Merz said. "The EU budget must be affordable for those who bear the main burden of financing," he added.
Germany is the largest net contributor to the EU budget. It and other net contributors including the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Austria and Finland all want the next budget to be slashed by hundreds of billions of euros. But the second-largest net contributor to the EU budget, France, has instead argued that the 27-member bloc needs a more generous budget in order to overcome new challenges.
The Langenscheidt publishing house on Saturday named "ragebait" as Germany's 2026 Youth Word of the Year during the Frankfurt Book Fair. Ragebait is social media content designed to draw people in by making them angry with provocative claims, lies, or outrageous opinions, thereby driving up clicks and interactions. Langenscheidt, Germany's best-selling dictionary publisher, organized an online poll with 1 million young people taking part in this year's competition. Ragebait took 36.5% of the vote.
Germany on Saturday said it would continue pursuing sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, coming a day after US President Donald Trump announced a temporary US sanctions reprieve on Russian diesel. "The federal government has taken note of the US decision relating to Russian diesel deliveries," government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said in a statement. "The federal government remains committed to the decisions on sanctions against Russia and is working with its European partners on further sanctions," the statement added. A spokesperson for Economic Affairs Minister Katherina Reiche said Saturday that "Germany stands fully behind the sanctions packages."
The appearance of Germany's Russia-friendly former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder at President Vladimir Putin's birthday party earlier this week has drawn criticism in Germany. Franziska Brantner, the co-leader of Germany's Green party, called on Schröder's Social Democrats (SPD) to revisit revoking Schröder's party membership. "Russia is now even attacking us in Germany with hybrid attacks. Schröder hasn't learned anything from this. A new approach needs to be put on the table," she told the Tagesspiegel newspaper. "Schröder is celebrating Putin's birthday with him, while civilians in Ukraine are once again dying as a result of Russian attacks. This is politically unacceptable," said Brantner. The SPD's Hubertus Heil also criticized Schröder. "The warm embrace between Schröder and Putin in Moscow deeply outrages and disturbs me," Heil told the Tagesspiegel.
