Germany, France start work on 'road map' for EU future

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Germany, France start work on 'road map' for EU future

2018-03-17 15:22 Last Updated At：15:22

The German and French leaders started working Friday toward what French President Emmanuel Macron said will be an "ambitious, clear road map" for Europe's future, months after Macron first laid out his proposals for reforming the European Union.

Macron hosted German Chancellor Angela Merkel on her first trip abroad after she was sworn in for a fourth term this week, ending months of postelection political drift in Germany.

The leaders showed solidarity with Britain after the nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter, which Western nations suspect Russia was behind. Merkel said the EU is looking for "the most appropriate response."

Germany and France have long played a key role as leading powers in the EU, which Macron wants to reform dramatically, along with the euro currency union.

Macron said a new vision for Europe is "indispensable" as the continent faces mounting populism, seen most recently in Italy's election, and the Euroskepticism highlighted by Britain's vote to leave the EU.

"We will propose an ambitious, clear roadmap" covering everything from defense to migration to education and culture, Macron said ahead of a dinner with Merkel. EU leaders are to hold their next summit next week.

Macron laid out his proposals in September at the Sorbonne University, calling Europe slow, weak and ineffective.

He proposed a joint budget for countries sharing the euro currency that would allow investment in European projects and help stabilize the eurozone in case of economic crisis. He suggested greater harmonization of EU tax policies — notably on corporate taxes, and taxing internet giants where they make money and not where they are registered.

To deal with Europe's migrant influx, Macron wants a European asylum agency and standard EU identity documents, and in defense a shared European military intervention force and defense budget.

Germany has yet to respond in detail because it had a caretaker government for several months until this week.

"We're not always of the same opinion ... but I think we can advance together," Merkel said. "It's more necessary than ever."

Prominent figure in German far-right party stands trial over alleged use of Nazi slogan

2024-04-18 18:17 Last Updated At：18:30

HALLE, Germany (AP) — One of the most prominent figures in the far-right Alternative for Germany party went on trial Thursday on charges of using a Nazi slogan, months before a regional election in which he is running to become his state's governor.

Björn Höcke, 52, is the leader of the regional branch of Alternative for Germany, or AfD, in the eastern state of Thuringia and a powerful figure on the party’s hard right.

While never formally a national leader of AfD, the former history teacher has been consistently influential as the 11-year-old party has steadily headed further right and ousted several comparatively moderate leaders.

At the trial at the state court in Halle, he is charged with using symbols of unconstitutional organizations. He is accused of ending a speech in nearby Merseburg in May 2021 with the words “Everything for Germany!”

Prosecutors contend he was aware of the origin of the phrase as a slogan of the Nazis' SA stormtroopers.

Using symbols of unconstitutional organizations can carry a fine or a prison sentence of up to three years. Four court sessions have been scheduled through May 14.

Demonstrators gathered outside the court building before the trial opened, with banners including “Björn Höcke is a Nazi” and “Stop AfD!” About 570 protesters turned out, according to police.

The court last week added a second count of using the same phrase to the Halle trial, but decided shortly before proceedings started to try that separately because Höcke’s defense lawyers recently changed, German news agency dpa reported. In that case, prosecutors allege that he repeated the offense at a party event in Gera last December, “in certain knowledge of the punishability” of the slogan.

They say that Höcke said “Everything for ...” and encouraged the audience to shout “Germany!”

Inside the courtroom, the proceedings started slowly as Höcke's defense team called for an audio recording to be made of the trial, a call that judges rejected. There are no formal pleas in the German legal system, so it wasn't clear whether he would respond to the indictment in court.

Höcke insisted in a debate with a conservative rival last week that he wasn’t aware “Everything for Germany!” was a Nazi slogan and claimed that many others have used it. “Everyone out there knows it’s an everyday saying,” he said on Welt television.

Höcke has led AfD's regional branch in Thuringia since 2013, the year the party was founded, and its group in the state legislature in Erfurt since it first won seats there in 2014.

He once called the Holocaust memorial in Berlin a “monument of shame” and called for Germany to perform a “180-degree turn” in how it remembers its past. A party tribunal in 2018 rejected a bid to have him expelled.

Höcke's regional branch of AfD is now one of three that the domestic intelligence agency has under official surveillance as a “proven right-wing extremist” group.

Wolfgang Schroeder, a political science professor at the Berlin Social Science Center, said Höcke has become an increasingly important figure in AfD and the front man of a “radicalization project” in the party. He said that people vote for the party “in part out of protest, in part out of conviction.”

AfD is particularly strong in the formerly communist east and is in first place in polls in Thuringia before a state election on Sept. 1, with recent surveys showing support of 29-to-31%.

It's unlikely that any other party will agree to work with Höcke and put him in the governor's office, but AfD's strength has made forming governing coalitions in the state enormously complicated.

Höcke also faces a second trial, for which dates haven't yet been set, on charges of incitement related to a 2022 post on Telegram about a crime in the western city of Ludwigshafen.

Geir Moulson reported from Berlin.