Tag Archives: Chancellor Angela Merkel

Captains of German industry to accompany Merkel on Trump trip

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel briefs the media during a European Union leaders summit in Brussels, Belgium March 9, 2017.

By Georgina Prodhan

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Bosses of German companies including engineering group Siemens and car maker BMW  will travel with Chancellor Angela Merkel to meet U.S. President Donald Trump this week, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Faced with Trump’s “America First” policy and threats to impose tariffs on imported goods, the captains of industry will stress how many U.S. jobs are tied to “Deutschland AG”.

Trains-to-turbines group Siemens employs more than 50,000 people in the United States, its single biggest market, where it makes 21 percent of its total revenue, while BMW’s South Carolina plant is its largest factory anywhere in the world.

Trump will meet Merkel, Europe’s longest-serving leader, for the first time on Tuesday in Washington.

Merkel told business leaders in Munich on Monday that free trade was important for both countries, while a German government spokesman confirmed at a press conference that the two leaders would also meet with German business executives.

German chancellors have a long tradition of taking groups of business leaders along with them on trips to important countries. The other business leader accompanying Merkel will be the chief executive of ball-bearings maker Schaeffler.

The three chief executives will cross the Atlantic for a single scheduled meeting of less than an hour with Trump. They will brief the president on the German practice of training workers on the job while also sending them to classes at a vocational school to obtain formal qualifications.

Such training is traditionally offered by large German companies both at home and in their foreign operations, and is particularly prized in emerging economies, where it helps German corporations win business.

Sources of tension between Berlin and the new U.S. administration include an accusation by a senior Trump adviser that Germany profits unfairly from a weak euro, and Trump’s threat to impose 35 percent tariffs on imported vehicles.

The United States is Germany’s biggest trading partner, buying German goods and services worth 107 billion euros ($114 billion) last year while exporting just 58 billion euros’ worth in return.

“The accusations of President Donald Trump and his advisers are plucked out of thin air,” the president of Germany’s VDMA engineering industry association, Carl Martin Welcker, said in a statement on Monday.

He said 81,000 people were employed in German-owned engineering firms in the United States with almost 30 billion euros in total revenue, while German export successes were linked to the high quality of goods, not foreign-exchange effects.

As part of a bid to bring jobs to America, Trump has urged carmakers to build more cars in the United States and discouraged them from investing in Mexico, where German and other carmakers have big plants.

Trump’s order banning citizens of some majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States, and a threat to tear up the NAFTA free trade deal between the United States, Mexico and Canada, have also unnerved business leaders.

Siemens chief executive Joe Kaeser expressed concern last month about developments in the United States since Trump took office, saying: “The new American president has a style that’s different from what we’re accustomed to. It worries us, what we see.”

BMW’s Chief Executive Harald Krueger said last week that introducing protectionist measures and tariffs would not be good for the United States.

The carmaker is expanding its plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, to have a capacity of 450,000 vehicles, with 70 percent for export.

It is also building a new plant in Mexico, where it plans to invest $2.2 billion by 2019. Mexico’s lower labor costs and unique free trade position mean it now accounts for a fifth of all vehicle production in North America.

“America profits from free trade. We are supporters of free trade and not of protectionism,” Krueger told reporters at the Geneva auto show.

(Additional reporting by Irene Preisinger in Munich, Erik Kirschbaum, Andreas Cremer and Andreas Rinke in Berlin, and Edward Taylor in Frankfurt; Editing by Catherine Evans and Susan Fenton)

Merkel wants Germany to get refugees into workforce faster

Refugees show their skills in metal processing works during a media tour at a workshop for refugees organized by German industrial group Siemens in Berlin, Germany,

By Georgina Prodhan and Andreas Rinke

FRANKFURT/BERLIN (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday that Germany needed “viable solutions” to integrate refugees into the workforce faster after she met blue-chip companies that have hired just over 100 refugees since around a million arrived last year.

Merkel, her popularity undermined by her open-door policy, summoned the bosses of some of Germany’s biggest companies to Berlin on Wednesday to account for their lack of action and exchange ideas about how they can do better.

Many of the companies contend that a lack of German-language skills, the inability of most refugees to prove any qualifications and uncertainty about their permission to stay in the country mean there is little they can do in the short term.

Merkel told rbb-inforadio that if needed, special provisions could be developed to speed up the integration of refugees into the workforce, but she acknowledged this would still take time.

“Many are in integration courses or waiting to get on them. So I think we will need to show some patience, but must be ready at any time to develop viable solutions,” she said.

A participant at the meeting with Merkel said company executives from DAX firms and small businesses discussed their opinions for 2-1/2 hours and came to the conclusion: “We want to do this”. When talking about the refugee influx, Merkel frequently says: “Wir schaffen das” or “we can do this”.

The meeting spurred some firms to announce more action to help get refugees into the workforce.

Deutsche Bahn [DBN.UL] boss Ruediger Grube said IT would offer 150 extra places in qualification programs for refugees, Volkswagen said it was working with Kiron, a non-profit start-up, to help refugees start a university degree, Thyssenkrupp announced around 150 extra training positions and Daimler announced 50, the source said.

“Wir Zusammen” or “We Together”, an integration initiative of German companies, said much had been achieved to support the arrival of the newcomers but now they had to turn their attention to integrating them into the workforce.

“Now it’s about motivating those companies that are not yet active,” it said in a statement after the summit.

A survey by Reuters of the 30 companies in Germany’s stock index last week found they could point to just 63 refugee hires in total.

Of those, 50 were employed by Deutsche Post DH, which said it applied a “pragmatic approach” and deployed the refugees to sort and deliver letters and parcels.

“Given that around 80 percent of asylum seekers are not highly qualified and may not yet have a high level of German proficiency, we have primarily offered jobs that do not require technical skills or a considerable amount of interaction in German,” a company spokesman said by email.

Deutsche Post’s Chief Executive Frank Appel said on Wednesday the company had now hired more refugees, taking its total to 102.

Several of the 27 firms who responded said they considered it discriminatory to ask about applicants’ migration history, so they did not know whether they employed refugees or how many.

What is clear is that early optimism that the wave of migrants might boost economic growth and help ease a skills shortage in Germany – where the working-age population is projected to shrink by 6 million people by 2030 – is evaporating.

“The employment of refugees is no solution for the skills shortage,” industrial group Thyssenkrupp’s Chief Executive Heinrich Hiesinger said earlier this month.

APPRENTICESHIP BARRIERS

Most large German companies, especially those in manufacturing, prefer to hire through structured apprenticeship programs, in which they train young people for up to four years for highly skilled and sometimes company-specific jobs.

But the recent arrivals from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere are mainly ill-prepared for such training, they say.

The DAX-listed companies surveyed by Reuters were able to identify about 200 apprentices in this or last year’s intake. Many will have been through months of pre-training especially designed for migrants by large companies, such as engineering group Siemens, Mercedes maker Daimler, or automotive technology firm Continental.

Two Syrian interns visited by Reuters at a Siemens power-plant construction site in April applied for apprenticeships, but could not immediately be accepted because they are still in the process of proving their school-leaving qualifications. One is meantime doing temporary work in IT and the other taking German classes.

It is simply too soon to expect large numbers of refugees to have been hired yet, most German companies say.

“Our experience is that it takes a minimum of 18 months for a well-trained refugee to go through the asylum procedure and learn German at an adequate level in order to apply for a job,” said a spokeswoman for Deutsche Telekom.

(Additional reporting by Caroline Copley, Michelle Martin, Paul Carrel, Andreas Rinke and Markus Wacket in Berlin, Jan Schwartz in Hamburg, Matthias Inverardi in Duesseldorf and Harro ten Wolde, Ludwig Burger, Edward Taylor and Tina Bellon in Frankfurt; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Putin to hold high level meetings including talks with Erdogan

Russian President Putin shakes hands with Turkish President Erdogan during news conference following their meeting in St. Petersburg

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian leader Vladimir Putin will hold a number of high-level bilateral meetings on the sidelines of Sept. 4-5 summit in Hangzhou, China, a Kremlin aide told reporters on Tuesday.

Putin will hold talks with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Sept. 3 as the “process of normalization of relations between the two countries is under way”, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said.

After the Russian jet was shot down in November last year near the Syrian-Turkish border, Russia imposed trade restrictions on Ankara. However, the relations started to thaw after conciliatory moves from Ankara in July.

Both already met earlier this month in St Petersburg

On Sept.4, Putin will discuss a need for “a new impetus in bilateral relations” with British Prime Minister Theresa May and he will also meet Saudi Arabia’s powerful deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss Syrian crisis.

Ushakov also said that a previously agreed trilateral meeting of leaders from Russia, Germany and France, who were poised to discuss Ukraine’s crisis, will not take place.

Instead, Putin will meet separately with French President Francois Hollande on Sept.4 – though the date is still being discussed – and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sept. 5.

Ushakov said that the meeting was called off due to a rising tension over Crimea peninsula.

Putin is also due to talk to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sept 5.

(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin)

Germany has curbed open-door policy for migrants

German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses a news conference in Berlin, Germany

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany appears to have drastically curtailed its open-door policy for migrants in 2016, turning away 13,000 people without valid documentation in the first six months, already 4,000 more than in the whole of 2015, official data showed on Tuesday.

Around 117,500 migrants were admitted in the same period, compared to a record of more than one million migrants entering the country last year, mainly across the border from Austria.

The bulk of the rejections happened at land entry points and Afghans, Syrians and Iraqis made up the three largest groups of the total, the Interior Ministry data published at the request of the hard-left Die Linke party showed.

Chancellor Angela Merkel last month interrupted her summer break to defend her government’s migration policy after two Islamist attacks by asylum seekers, saying that those fleeing conflicts and persecution have the right to asylum in Germany.

More than 2,500 Afghans, 1,300 Syrians and 1,000 Iraqis were declined entry at border crossings in the January-June period, the ministry said. Iranians, Moroccans, Nigerians, Pakistanis, Gambians, Somalis and Algerians made up the rest of the top 10.

The number of people seeking asylum in Germany dropped drastically this year as a result of border closures in the Balkans, an EU-Turkey deal to stop sea arrivals in Greece and tougher asylum rules in Germany.

In July, 4,500 migrants arrived in Germany, less than half of the daily arrivals at the peak of the crisis in the fall of last year, German police said earlier this month, bringing the number of arrivals in the first seven months of the year to 122,000.

Migrants who arrive in Germany are first registered at reception centres where they have to wait for months before they can officially file an asylum application, creating a huge backlog and putting strain on civil servants.

The influx has dented the popularity of Merkel’s ruling conservatives and prompted the rise of an anti-immigration party.

Turkey has threatened to suspend its migrants agreement with the European Union if there is no deal to grant visa-free travel to Turks. The number of migrants reach Italy in boats from Libya has also been rising.

(Reporting by Andreas Rinke; Writing by Joseph Nasr; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

Support for Germany’s Merkel plunges after attacks

German Chancellor Merkel leaves a news conference in Berlin

BERLIN (Reuters) – Popular support for Chancellor Angela Merkel has plunged according to a poll conducted after attacks in Germany, with almost two-thirds of Germans unhappy with her refugee policy.

The survey for public broadcaster ARD showed support for Merkel down 12 points from her July rating to 47 percent. This marked her second-lowest score since she was re-elected in 2013. In April last year, before the migrant crisis erupted she enjoyed backing of 75 percent.

Merkel’s open-door refugee policy has come under attack from critics after five attacks in Germany since July 18 have left 15 people dead, including four assailants, and dozens injured.

Two of the attackers had links to Islamist militancy, officials say.

Support for one of Merkel’s fiercest critics, Bavarian Premier Horst Seehofer, who has called for restrictions on immigration to increase security, jumped 11 points to 44 percent.

Over a million migrants have entered Germany in the past year, many fleeing war in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq.

Merkel repeated her claim that Germany could manage to successfully integrate the influx of refugees last week and vowed not to change her refugee policy.

In a poll of 1,003 people conducted Aug. 1-2, just 34 percent of people said they were satisfied or very satisfied with Merkel’s refugee policy. This was the lowest level since the question was first asked last October.

Some 65 percent were dissatisfied with the policy.

The next test of support for Merkel will be state elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on Sept. 4, where her Christian Democrats (CDU) are expected to face a strong challenge from the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

A separate poll this week showed that most Germans do not blame the government’s liberal refugee policy for the two Islamist attacks last month.

(Reporting by Caroline Copley)

69,000 would be or actual German crimes linked to Migrants

Immigrants are escorted by German police to a registration centre, after crossing the Austrian-German border in Wegscheid near Passau, Germany,

BERLIN (Reuters) – Migrants in Germany committed or tried to commit some 69,000 crimes in the first quarter of 2016, according to a police report that could raise unease, especially among anti-immigrant groups, about Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal migrant policy.

There was a record influx of more than a million migrants into Germany last year and concerns are now widespread about how Europe’s largest economy will manage to integrate them and ensure security.

The report from the BKA federal police showed that migrants from northern Africa, Georgia and Serbia were disproportionately represented among the suspects.

Absolute numbers of crimes committed by Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis – the three biggest groups of asylum seekers in Germany – were high but given the proportion of migrants that they account for, their involvement in crimes was “clearly disproportionately low”, the report said.

It gave no breakdown of the number of actual crimes and of would-be crimes, nor did it state what percentage the 69,000 figure represented with respect to the total number of crimes and would-be crimes committed in the first three months of 2016.

The report stated that the vast majority of migrants did not commit any crimes.

It is the first time the BKA has published a report on crimes committed by migrants containing data from all of Germany’s 16 states, so there is no comparable data.

The report showed that 29.2 percent of the crimes migrants committed or tried to commit in the first quarter were thefts, 28.3 percent were property or forgery offences and 23 percent offences such as bodily harm, robbery and unlawful detention.

Drug-related offences accounted for 6.6 percent and sex crimes accounted for 1.1 percent.

In Cologne at New Year, hundreds of women said they were groped, assaulted and robbed, with police saying the suspects were mainly of North African and Arab appearance. Prosecutors said last week three Pakistani men seeking asylum in Germany were under investigation after dozens of women said they were sexually harassed at a music festival.

The number of crimes committed by migrants declined by more than 18 percent between January and March, however, according to the report.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Berlin tells Migrants to ‘learn German’

German Chancellor Merkel speaks next her ministers during a news conference at the Chancellery in Berlin

By Thorsten Severin and Holger Hansen

BERLIN (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government agreed on Thursday to require migrants granted residence rights to show willingness to integrate by learning German and seeking work or see their benefits cut.

Ending months of disagreement, Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), their conservative Bavarian CSU allies and the Social Democrats (SPD) hammered out a deal in the early morning hours for post-war Germany’s first law on integrating immigrants.

They also worked out new counter-terrorism measures and agreed to relax rules giving European Union citizens priority in employment so migrants can enter the job market more easily.

The deal capped months of disagreement about how to handle over a million migrants and refugees who poured into Germany last year. Those fleeing war in Syria and Iraq have the best chances of staying while economic migrants may be sent home.

Merkel said the agreement, to be approved by her cabinet on May 24, contained “an offer for everyone, but also duties for everyone”. Along with language learning, it says that migrants who break off job training courses will also lose benefits.

The chancellor said Germany faced two challenges with Europe’s migrant crisis. The first was to coordinate the influx of refugees with European partners and progress had been made on that, she said.

“The other challenge is to register and achieve the integration of the large number of people who have arrived here,” she told reporters.

“We will have a German national law on integration – this is the first time in post-war Germany that this has happened, it is an important, qualitative step.”

Tensions within Merkel’s coalition mounted towards the end of last year with all three parties espousing different priorities for coping with the migrant crisis.

Since then, the flow of migrants, many from Syria and other war-torn parts of the Middle East and Africa, has slowed and the pressure has eased. The EU has also done a deal with Turkey to enlist its help in stemming the influx.

The security measures, a response to recent attacks in France and Brussels, include increasing police powers to deploy undercover agents and empowering Germany’s intelligence agencies to exchange information with foreign partners, under clear conditions.

Last month, German authorities stepped up security measures at airports, train stations and the country’s borders with Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

While the three parties welcomed the immigration agreement, a closely-watched decision on incentives for electric cars was delayed.

Merkel said support for electric cars was in the pipeline. Auto sector leaders have pressed the government to bring in incentives to boost demand for electric cars, arguing support is needed if the sector is to retain its leading edge as an automotive market.

(Writing by Paul Carrel and Madeline Chambers; Editing by Tom Heneghan)