BERLIN: The premiers of two regions where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party made big gains in Sunday’s national election warned that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives must change course to stop the former East Germany’s rightward drift.
Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) suffered big losses across much of Germany in the election, in which the AfD, with its anti-immigration message, became the first far-right party in the national parliament in over half a century.
The calls for a rightward shift add to the challenge Merkel faces as she tries to assemble an already tricky three-party coalition including the left-wing Greens, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and her own increasingly fractious party.
The AfD’s surge prompted much soul-searching within the conservative camp, with many blaming Merkel’s 2015 decision to open the doors to over a million migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa for the far-right’s surge.
The conservative premiers of Saxony, where the AfD topped polls, and of Saxony Anhalt called for the CDU to move to the right to stem the losses.
“People want Germany to stay Germany,” said Stanislaw Tillich, premier of Saxony, in an interview with the Funke newspaper network. “They don’t want parallel societies and rising criminality.”
Rainer Haseloff, premier of Saxony-Anhalt, echoed this, telling newspaper Die Welt: “People want to know how Germany will preserve its identity.”
These calls align the two influential state leaders more closely with the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), which wants a hard immigration ceiling.
While both premiers stuck to Merkel’s line that a firm upper limit would be impractical, their calls for the state to take a firmer hand with immigrants could strengthen the CSU’s hand as the sister parties attempt to thrash out a common position ahead of coalition talks with the FDP and Greens.
Some warn that a black (CDU)-yellow (FDP)-Green “Jamaica coalition,” risks heightening a sense of alienation among voters in the former East Germany.
Given the losses all three parties had suffered in the East, “a Jamaica coalition would be seen as a West German coalition in the east,” Green MP Canan Bayram said.
But Merkel, in a podcast released on Saturday, warned against treating Germany’s poorer east as a homogenous bloc.
“We see these fears of globalization, of anonymity, about old-age care everywhere, including in the west,” she said. “We have to get people listening, to win people over by solving their problems. That’s my task.”
Merkel allies fret over former East Germany’s rightward shift
Merkel allies fret over former East Germany’s rightward shift
Hungary to release 1.8 million barrels of crude oil from strategic reserves
- Croatia’s JANAF pipeline operator, however, said there was no need for Budapest to tap its reserves
- Hungary and Slovakia have been trying to secure supply since flows were halted on January 27
BUDAPEST: Hungary’s government will release about 1.8 million barrels of crude oil from its strategic reserves after a drone attack on the Druzhba pipeline late last month stopped oil flow, according to a government decree published late on Thursday.
Croatia’s JANAF pipeline operator, however, said there was no need for Budapest to tap its reserves after Hungary’s oil company MOL said on Friday JANAF must allow transit of Russian seaborne oil to Hungary and Slovakia during the Druzhba outage.
“At this moment, a significant quantity of non-Russian crude oil is being transported via JANAF’s pipeline for MOL Group, while three additional tankers carrying non-Russian oil, also for MOL Group, are on their way to the Omisalj Terminal,” JANAF said in a statement.
“There was no need to tap into (their) reserves since oil transport via the JANAF pipeline toward MOL’s refineries is being carried out continuously and without delays.”
Hungary and Slovakia, which have the only remaining refineries in the EU using Russian oil through Druzhba, have been trying to secure supply since flows were halted on January 27 following what Ukraine said was a Russian drone attack that damaged pipeline infrastructure.
Both countries have blamed Ukraine for the delay in restarting the flows for political reasons.
SCRAMBLE FOR CRUDE SUPPLIES
MOL is entitled to priority access to released crude oil reserves, and it will have access to the freed reserves until April 15 and has to return them by August 24, the Hungarian government decree said.
At the end of January, Hungary had enough crude oil and petroleum product reserves to cover 96 days, according to data on the Hungarian Hydrocarbon Stockpiling Association’s website.
As the two countries scramble to ensure supplies, MOL ordered tankers delivering Saudi, Norwegian, Kazakh, Libyan and Russian oil to supply its Hungarian and Slovak refineries and halted diesel deliveries to Ukraine earlier this week.
MOL said that first shipments were expected to arrive at the port of Omisalj in Croatia in early March. After that, it will take a further 5-12 days for the crude oil to reach its refineries.
The Slovak government has also declared an oil emergency situation and has pledged to release 1.825 million barrels of oil following a request from Slovakia’s Slovnaft refinery, which is owned by MOL.
