Tag Archives: Germany

Germany balks at Tillerson demand for more European NATO spending

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson shakes hands with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. REUTERS/Yves Herman

By Lesley Wroughton and Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Germany said on Friday that NATO’s agreed target spend of two percent of members’ yearly economic output was neither “reachable nor desirable”, countering Washington’s demands that European partners comply and quickly.

The United States provides nearly 70 percent of NATO’s budget and is demanding that all allies make clear progress toward the agreed target this year. Only four European NATO members – Estonia, Greece, Poland and Britain – have done so.

“Two percent would mean military expenses of some 70 billion euros. I don’t know any German politician who would claim that is reachable nor desirable,” Germany’s Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said at the first NATO meeting attended by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Tillerson, however, reiterated Washington’s demands and said the U.S. will push that agenda when NATO leaders meet on May 25 for the first top-level summit of the alliance. U.S. President Donald Trump will attend that meeting.

“Our goal should be to agree at the May Leaders meeting that by the end of the year all Allies will have either met the pledge guidelines or will have developed plans that clearly articulate how…the pledge will be fulfilled,” Tillerson said.

“Allies must demonstrate by their actions that they share U.S. governments commitment.”

In Berlin, German government spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said the government was committed to increasing defense spending and would continue to do so “because we know it is necessary and makes sense to further strengthen our armed forces”.

Members have until 2024 to comply with the spending target.

Tillerson did however offer assurances of Washington’s commitment to NATO, softening Trump’s stance.

Trump has criticized NATO as “obsolete” and suggested Washington’s security guarantees for European allies could be conditional on them spending more on their own defense. He has also said he wants NATO to do more to fight terrorism.

“The United States is committed to ensuring NATO has the capabilities to support our collective defense,” Tillerson said at the meeting in Brussels. “We will uphold the agreements we have made to defend our allies.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said ties between European NATO members and the United States were “rock solid”.

He said the ministers would discuss “fair burden sharing to keep the trans-atlantic bond strong” and “stepping up NATO efforts to project stability and fight terrorism”.

Stoltenberg confirmed ministers would discuss national defense spending plans on Friday as the bloc seeks to respond to the new, harsher tone from across the Atlantic, which has galvanized European NATO allies.

Though Washington has also offered reassurances, Tillerson’s initial decision to skip his first meeting with NATO foreign ministers reopened questions about the Trump administration’s commitment to the alliance.

The meeting was later rescheduled and Tillerson was attending on Friday, though has not scheduled meetings with individual countries as is customary by the secretary of state during such a meeting.

(Additional reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Louise Ireland)

German minister warns of tough Brexit talks, no discount available

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel speaks during a news conference with his Greek counterpart Nikos Kotzias (not pictured) following their meeting at the ministry in Athens, Greece, March 23, 2017. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

BERLIN (Reuters) – German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Thursday that negotiations about Britain’s exit from the European Union would be tough before getting easier.

“The Brexit negotiations with the United Kingdom that the European Union will lead for us won’t be easy – some people know the saying that … things will get difficult before they get easier again – that applies to these talks,” said Gabriel.

Gabriel also said that the EU’s remaining 27 states expected Britain to keep to its financial obligations.

“There is in no discount for Britons in the Brexit talks,” he said.

Media reports have suggested Britain may have to pay some 50 billion to 60 billion pounds ($62 billion to $74 billion) to honor existing EU budget commitments as it negotiates its departure from the bloc.

However, Britain’s Brexit minister David Davis said earlier he did not expect this to be the case and added that the time of huge sums being paid to Brussels was coming to an end.

Gabriel also said he expected Brexit negotiations to start from the end of May and reiterated that London would not be able to enjoy the benefits of the EU’s single market while imposing its own controls on immigration.

“We have always rightly stressed that the single market is not an a la carte menu – its four freedoms are inseparable and that includes the freedom of movement of people … London has understood that,” he said.

Gabriel also stressed in his speech that he wanted Germany to remain on good terms with Britain. “We must stay friends … maybe apart from when we are on the football pitch.”

(Reporting by Madeline Chambers and Michelle Martin; Editing by Toby Davis)

Germany deporting more ‘potential attackers’ after Berlin attack

Flowers and candles are pictured at the site where on December 19, 2016 a truck ploughed through a crowd at a Christmas market on Breitscheidplatz square near Kurfuerstendamm avenue in Berlin, Germany, January 19, 2017. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

By Andrea Shalal

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany has deported 10 potential attackers since January as part of a tougher approach toward failed asylum seekers after one of them killed 12 people in an attack on a Berlin Christmas market, security sources said on Thursday.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere and other top officials have been pushing for quicker deportations of those denied asylum, while working with Morocco, Tunisia and other countries to speed up the repatriation process.

Tunisian Anis Amri, a supporter of Islamic State, attacked the Berlin market in December after being denied asylum. He was shot dead by Italian police days later.

Shortly after the incident, German’s Joint Terrorism Prevention Centre (GTAZ), reviewed the open cases of all other “potential attackers” like Amri, the sources said.

“A total of 10 potential attackers have since been successfully deported in a joint effort with the affected German states,” said one of the sources.

The suspected militants were sent back to mainly North African countries, the sources said, without providing details.

The change in approach was agreed by de Maiziere and Justice Minister Heiko Maas at a meeting on Jan. 10, where both men agreed that the Amri case must not be repeated.

In Amri’s case, one of the obstacles to physically deporting him was Tunisia’s failure to issue replacement identification papers, despite the availability of finger- and handprints.

This month German Chancellor Angela Merkel secured a promise from Tunisia to take back 1,500 rejected Tunisian asylum seekers, with those who agreed to leave voluntarily eligible to receive government aid. Germany also offered Tunisia 250 million euros in development aid.

Merkel, who will seek a fourth term as chancellor in September, has come under fire for allowing more than one million refugees to enter Germany over the past two years.

De Maiziere vowed on Tuesday to continue pushing for legislative changes that would make it easier to detain and deport potential attackers following the Amri case. One proposed law also calls for use of electronic tags.

The security sources said state prosecutors in the past had sought to exhaust opportunities to prosecute potential attackers in Germany for various other infractions, but this had proven difficult and time-consuming.

The sources did not provide details on the 10 individuals deported or say whether they were related to the Amri case. German authorities have arrested at least two individuals who had contact with Amri before the December attack.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Gareth Jones)

German parliament foiled cyber attack by hackers via Israeli website

A man types on a computer keyboard in Warsaw in this February 28, 2013 illustration file picture. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Files

BERLIN (Reuters) – The German parliament was the target of fresh cyber attacks in January that attempted to piggy-back on an Israeli newspaper site to target politicians in Germany, Berlin’s cyber security watchdog said on Wednesday.

Cyber defenses installed after a 2015 hack of the parliament helped avert the attempted breaches, the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) said in a statement.

The hackers appeared to use advertising running on the Jerusalem Post website to redirect users to a malicious site, it said.

The BSI looked into unusual activity on the parliament’s network early this year and has just completed a detailed analysis of the incident, which was first reported by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper on Wednesday.

At least 10 German lawmakers from all parliamentary groups were affected by the attempted hack, the Munich daily reported.

“The technical analysis is complete. The website of the Jerusalem Post was manipulated and had been linked to a malicious third party site,” the agency said in a statement.

“BSI found no malware or infections as part of its analysis of the Bundestag networks.”

The Jerusalem Post confirmed details of the attack with Reuters, but said no malware came from its own site and that it was fully protected against such attacks in the future.

“The Jerusalem Post website was attacked in January by foreign hackers,” the publisher said in a statement. “We immediately took action and together with Israeli cyber authorities successfully neutralized the threat.

Hackers can use infected banner advertisements to attack otherwise safe or secure sites. So-called “malvertising” appeared to be served up to the site via an unidentified third-party advertising network.

There was no suggestion from the German agency of any wrongdoing by the Jerusalem Post.

“SPEAR-PHISHING”

Security expert Graham Cluley said such “spear-phishing” attacks via malicious ads is highly unusual, but possible.

In this instance, the Jerusalem Post site could have served up German language ads to visitors with German internet addresses. However, he said it was unlikely this could be used to target specific politicians in Berlin.

This latest attack comes amid growing concern in Germany about cyber security and reports that Russia is working to destabilize the German government and could seek to interfere in the upcoming Sept. 24 national elections.

The Bundestag lost 16 gigabytes of data to Russian hackers in 2015, after which it revamped its software system with the help of the BSI and private contractors.

“The BSI believes that the defenses of the German Bundestag detected and prevented links to the website. The attack was therefore averted,” BSI President Arne Schoenbohm said in a statement.

A source familiar with the incident said it did not appear to be linked to APT28, a Russian hacking group also known as “Fancy Bear” that was blamed for the 2015 Bundestag hack and the 2016 hack of the U.S. Democratic National Committee.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal in Berlin, Eric Auchard in London and Luke Baker in Jerusalem; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Germany tells Turkey not to spy on Turks living on its soil

Turkish voters living in Germany wait to cast their ballots on the constitutional referendum at the Turkish consulate in Berlin, Germany, March 27, 2017. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

By Madeline Chambers

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany will not tolerate foreign espionage on its territory, the interior minister said on Tuesday, in a robust response to media reports that Turkish secret services were spying on supporters of the Gulen movement in Germany.

Fethullah Gulen, a U.S-based Muslim cleric with a large following in Turkey, is accused by Ankara of orchestrating a failed military coup last July. Ankara has purged state institutions, schools and universities and the media of tens of thousands of suspected supporters of the cleric.

The media reports of Turkish espionage in Germany have deepened a rift between the NATO allies in the run-up to a referendum next month in Turkey that proposes to significantly expand the powers of President Tayyip Erdogan.

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and two broadcasters reported that Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency had given Germany’s foreign intelligence service a list of names of hundreds of supposed Gulen supporters living in Germany.

Interior Minster Thomas de Maiziere, speaking in Passau in southern Germany, said he was not surprised by the report and added that the lists would be looked at individually.

“We have told Turkey several times that such (activity) is not acceptable,” he said. “Regardless of what you think of the Gulen movement, German law applies here and citizens who live here won’t be spied on by foreign states,” he said.

The reports said the list included the names of more than 300 people and more than 200 associations, schools and other institutions and a German investigation indicated some of the photos may have been taken secretly.

WARNING

The northern state of Lower Saxony even said it was warning suspected Gulen movement supporters about possible reprisals if they traveled to their homeland.

“I think that is a justified and necessary measure to be able to warn people,” said state interior minister Boris Pistorius. “The intensity and ruthlessness being (used) on people living on foreign soil is remarkable.”

Concerns about Turkish spying are not confined to Germany.

Swedish public service radio broadcaster SR reported that Turkey’s ruling AK Party was putting pressure, via the Union of European Turkish Democrats, on Swedish Gulen supporters to supply information about fellow Gulen supporters in the country.

Germany is already investigating possible spying by Turkish imams in Germany.. A spokesman for the chief federal prosecutor’s office said that probe continued.

German politicians, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, are angry about Erdogan’s repeated comparisons of their country to Nazi Germany in response to cancellations of planned campaign events targeting the Turkish diaspora in Germany. Germany says the cancellations were prompted by security concerns.

The speaker of the Bundestag lower house of parliament said in a speech late on Monday that Turkey was turning into an authoritarian system and that its president was effectively staging a coup against his own country.

Norbert Lammert, a member of Merkel’s conservatives, said the referendum was about “transforming an undoubtedly fragile but democratic system into an authoritarian system – and this second coup attempt may well be successful”.

(Reporting by Madeline Chambers, Reuters TV, Andrea Shalal, Hans-Edzard Busemann and Daniel Dixon in Stockholm; Writing by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Merkel ally says Turkey’s Erdogan ‘not welcome’ in Germany

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan makes a speech during a meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, March 19, 2017. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

By Andrea Shalal

BERLIN (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has crossed a line by comparing Berlin’s government to the Nazis and he and other officials are no longer welcome in Germany, a senior ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday.

The rebuke from Volker Bouffier, vice chairman of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, reflects growing exasperation over Erdogan’s assertions that Germany and other European powers were using Nazi tactics by banning Turkish political rallies in their territories.

“Enough is enough,” said Bouffier, who is also premier of Hesse state where the financial capital Frankfurt is located. “Mr. Erdogan and his government are not welcome in our country, and that must be now be understood,” he told DLF radio.

German media have reported that Erdogan plans to visit Germany this month to rally the estimated 1.4 eligible Turkish voters living here to support a package of new presidential powers in an April 16 referendum.

Bouffier said such a visit would create security problems. “Someone who insults us in this way cannot expect that we will assemble thousands of police to protect him,” he said.

Germany’s government has said it has not received a formal request for a visit by Erdogan.

On Monday, Merkel once again called on Turkey to stop the Nazi comparisons and said Berlin reserved the right to block future appearances by Turkish officials if they did not comply with German law, which explicitly forbids malicious disparagement of the government.

Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said the diplomatic note in which Berlin approved further visits by Turkish politicians had an explicit reference to the German law against disparagement.

“If that happens, and there are violations of our laws, then will have to … revoke the note” and approvals of various visits, Gabriel told reporters after a meeting with EU Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans.

Timmermans said EU officials were united in rejecting the Nazi comparisons. “President Erdogan’s comments about Germany and the Netherlands are not allowed. We don’t want to be compared to Nazis,” he said.

Erdogan repeated his criticism of Germany and other European countries on Tuesday, saying today’s “fascist and cruel” Europe resembled the pre-World War Two era.

In Istanbul on Sunday, he said, “Merkel, now you’re applying Nazi methods. Against my brothers who live in Germany, and against my ministers and lawmakers who visit there.”

Reiner Haseloff, another member of Merkel’s CDU and premier of Saxony-Anhalt state, urged Berlin to bar such visits.

“Those who compare us to Nazis are not welcome. That is not acceptable,” he told Die Welt newspaper in an article published on Tuesday. He said Berlin should not rely on local and state governments to make decisions about visits by Turkish politicians as it has up to now.

In his speech on Tuesday, Erdogan said Turkey could no longer be pressured by considerations such as a $6 billion migrant deal under which it agreed to stop illegal migrants from crossing into Greece in exchange for financial aid and accelerated EU membership talks.

EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn told the Bild newspaper in an interview published Tuesday that Turkey’s prospects for joining the EU would be “increasingly unrealistic” unless it changed course and stopped moving away from European values.

Hahn said the EU had repeatedly voiced its concerns about the “increasingly authoritarian path of President Erdogan.”

“Threats are no way to make policies. They make a reasonable dialogue impossible,” he said.

(Reporting by Gernot Heller, Andrea Shalal and Reuters TV in Berlin, and Tuvan Gumrukcu and Ece Toksabay in Istanbul; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Year on from bombings, Brussels remains on alert

People take part in a rally called "The march against the fear, Tous Ensemble, Samen Een, All Together" in memory for the victims of bomb attacks in Brussels metro and Brussels international airport of Zaventem, in Brussels, Belgium, April 17, 2016. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

By Robert-Jan Bartunek and Alastair Macdonald

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A year after Islamic State suicide bombers killed 32 people in Brussels, Belgian authorities say much remains unclear about who ordered the attacks, even if those who staged them are either dead or in jail.

The March 22 bloodshed in Brussels hit Zaventem airport and a metro train, coming four months after bombings and shootings in Paris that killed 130 people. Both sets of attacks were carried out by related cells of young Muslims, some of whom had returned from fighting in Syria.

Since then, Belgium has remained on high alert as it tries to curtail threats both at home and from militants who may return from the Middle East.

“We will only have certainty when the situation in Syria and Iraq is resolved,” one senior official said of the inquiries into the Brussels attacks. Those two countries have attracted over 400 Belgians to join the ranks of Islamist militants, according to a study by the Hague-based International Centre for Counter-Terrorism.

That figure makes Belgium one of the biggest contributors to foreign jihadists in the Middle East in proportion to its population.

As the Belgian capital prepares to mark Wednesday’s anniversary with ceremonies timed to the moment the bombers struck, authorities are still unsure just who in the IS group organized and ordered the attacks, even though 59 people are in custody and 60 on bail.

The most recent arrest was in January, of a man suspected of providing forged identity papers to Khalid El Bakraoui, the 27-year-old suicide bomber who killed 16 people on a train at the downtown Maelbeek metro station.

With soldiers still a permanent presence around Brussels’ transportation hubs, security officials told reporters in briefings ahead of the anniversary that there was still a risk that armed militants were still at large.

For Belgian security services, some communities can remain hard to penetrate, such as the tight-knit Muslim neighborhood of Molenbeek where the prime suspect of the Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam, hid near his family home for four months. His arrest triggered his associates to strike Brussels four days later.

Despite efforts to detect and discourage the influence of violent Islamist ideas, young men who engaged in petty crime remain vulnerable to it, officials said. But surveillance over potential jihadists has intensified in the past year, they added

Only five Belgians were detected trying to leave for Syria last year, with only one succeeding, officials said, marking a contrast from the previous years.

That, however, has raised concerns, a senior security official told reporters, since Islamic State appeared to be issuing instructions to followers to “attack infidels at home”.

Some 160 Belgian citizens remain in Syria, officials estimate, but some 80 children have been born to them there, creating fears of a new risk.

“These children could be tomorrow’s danger,” the official said. “They’ve seen atrocities, they’ve been brainwashed. Some of them already received military training. We really have to work with them on their return.”

(Reporting by Alastair Macdonald and Robert-Jan Bartunek; Edited by Vin Shahrestani; @macdonaldrtr)

Trump, Germany’s Merkel to hold first face-to-face meeting at White House

German Chancellor Angela Merkel gives a statement at the Chancellery in Berlin. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

By Jeff Mason and Andreas Rinke

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump welcomes German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday for a White House meeting that could help determine the future of the transatlantic alliance and shape the working relationship between two of the world’s most powerful leaders.

The new U.S. president and the long-serving stateswoman, whose country is Europe’s largest economy, will discuss funding for NATO and relations with Russia in their first meeting since Trump took office in January.

The meeting is consequential for both sides.

Merkel, who officials say has prepared carefully for the encounter, is likely to press Trump for assurances of support for a strong European Union and a commitment to fight climate change.

Trump, who as a presidential candidate criticized Merkel for allowing hundreds of thousands of refugees into Germany, will seek her support for his demand that North Atlantic Treaty Organization nations pay more for their defense needs.

Relationship building will be a less overt but important agenda item. Merkel had close relations with Trump’s Democratic and Republican predecessors, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, and she is likely to seek a strong working relationship with Trump despite major policy differences and wariness in Germany about the former New York businessman.

“Those who know the chancellor know that she has a knack for winning over people in personal discussions. I am sure that Donald Trump will not be immune,” said Juergen Hardt, a conservative lawmaker who helps coordinate transatlantic relations for the German government.

Trump is eager to see follow-through on his demand that European countries shoulder more of the burden of paying for the NATO alliance, which he has criticized.

He will also seek counsel from Merkel on how to deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a leader Merkel has dealt with extensively and whom Trump, to the consternation of Republican and Democratic lawmakers, has praised.

“The president will be very interested in hearing the chancellor’s views on her experience interacting with Putin,” a senior administration official told reporters.

CLIMATE ACCORD

A U.S. official said the Trump administration’s position on U.S. participation in the Paris agreement to curb climate change would likely come up in the Merkel meeting and be further clarified in the weeks and months ahead. Merkel is a strong supporter of international efforts to fight global warming.

Trump has called climate change a hoax and vowed during his campaign to “cancel” the Paris agreement within 100 days, saying it would be too costly for the U.S. economy.

Since being elected, he has been mostly quiet on the issue. In a New York Times interview in November, he said he would keep an open mind about the Paris deal.

Merkel is also likely to press Trump about U.S. support for European security, despite assurances from Vice President Mike Pence about that issue on his recent trip to Europe.

“There is still lingering doubt about … how the U.S. sees European security, and whether the U.S. sees its security and Europe’s security as intrinsically linked and inseparable,” Jeffrey Rathke, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, told reporters.

(Additional reporting by Noah Barkin; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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)

German shopping mall shut on police fears of an attack

Police at the Limbecker Platz shopping mall in Essen, Germany, March 11, 2017, after it was shut due to attack threat. REUTERS/Thilo Schmuelgen

ESSEN, Germany (Reuters) – Police in the western German city of Essen sealed off a shopping center in the center of town and ordered it to remain closed on Saturday due to concrete indications of a possible attack.

Germany is on high alert following major radical Islamist attacks in France and Belgium and after a failed asylum seeker from Tunisia drove a truck into a Berlin Christmas market in December, killing 12 people.

“Yesterday we received very serious indications from security sources that a possible attack was planned here for today and would be carried out,” a spokesman for Essen police told Reuters Television. “That is why we were forced to take these measures.”

Earlier, a police spokesman told a German broadcaster that they had viewed the threat as a possible “terrorist” attack.

Armed police and vans surrounded the shopping center, one of Germany’s biggest with more than 200 retail outlets, but roads nearby were open to traffic.

Essen, in the industrial Ruhr region, has nearly 600,000 inhabitants.

(Reporting by Reuters Television; Writing by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Toby Chopra)