News Agency on Conservative Europe Report 2021. No. 2. Report on conservative and right wing Europe January 20, 2021 GERMANY 1. DW.com Germany 2021: 1. Fighting COVID and replacing Angela Merkel (translated) What will define Germany in 2021? The fight against the coronavirus pandemic? Or rather the political battles as the country faces several elections — and the task to replace Chancellor Angela Merkel. At the moment, nothing in Germany is more important than the coronavirus pandemic, and that's likely to remain so in the new year. Resistance is growing to the curbs on individual freedoms brought about by rules made to combat COVID-19. "A social movement is brewing, in which right-wing and left-wing extremists, but also esotericists and science deniers, are gathering," political scientist Florian Hartleb told DW. 2 Seven elections The balancing act between protecting public health and people's rights to freedom will also influence elections, and there are plenty of those in Germany in 2021.Citizens will head to the polls in six of Germany's 16 states. In Baden-Württemberg, popular Premier Winfried Kretschmann — the first and only state premier from the environmentalist Green party — is standing for reelection in March. April will be interesting in Thuringia, where Bodo Ramelow is currently the sole state premier from the Left party.In Saxony-Anhalt, it will be decided, at the latest, by the election in June whether the troubled coalition of the conservative Christian Democrats, center-left Social Democrats, and Greens will endure.But the most important election of the year won't be until September — the federal election, when the era of Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to come to an end. After 16 years and four terms in government, the Christian Democrat wants to step down. Merkel would then have been in office almost as long as the current record holder, Helmut Kohl. Adieu, Angie! What will the Germans miss with her departure? "Her will to persevere, the irrepressible, almost inhuman work ethic, the inner discipline and the scientific element in politics," believes Florian Hartleb. He sees as negative points of her time in office "her nebulous, cliché-ridden language" and "her stubbornly pursued refugee policy, accompanied by a naïve welcoming culture," which allowed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to grow. Merkel was also viewed abroad as a crisis chancellor, valued as a figure of stability in turbulent times, including the European sovereign debt crisis, Brexit and the US presidency of Donald Trump, and now with the coronavirus pandemic. Chancellor Söder? That's why one of the most important questions in the new year will be who will take her place. With her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) polling consistently at around 35%, far ahead of any other party, the next CDU head has a good chance of also becoming the next chancellor.There are three candidates who want to face the CDU delegates at a digital party conference to be held in mid-January: former party whip Friedrich Merz, North Rhine- Westphalia Premier Armin Laschet and Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee head Norbert Röttgen. But whether one of them will become a candidate for the chancellorship in addition to party head remains to be seen. According to opinion polls, a relative majority of Germans would rather have Bavarian Premier Markus Söder from the CDU's smaller "sister party" as chancellor. It has happened 3 before that the CSU fielded the conservative candidate for the chancellorship, but if Söder were to prevail, it would be the first time that a German chancellor would come from the regional Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU.) Building blocks in Berlin No matter who is chancellor, the union of CDU and CSU will most likely need at least one coalition partner to form a government after the election. The current partner, the Social Democrat (SPD), is not only struggling in the polls but seems tired of being in government after two terms in a grand coalition under Merkel. The up-and-coming Greens are putting themselves forward. Under popular co-leaders Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck, they have set aside some of their more fundamentalist positions and want to join in the government. Habeck told a party conference in late November: "We're working optimistically on solutions. And for these solutions, we are fighting for power."Söder, however, warns CDU/CSU supporters that they shouldn't take for granted that there will be a conservative-Green government. "Some people think that would be rather nice. But you need to be careful that in the end, you don't wake up to another scenario: namely Greens, SPD, and the Left." But according to current polling, those less conservative parties would not have the numbers to form a majority coalition. A polarized society The far-right AfD, currently the strongest opposition party in parliament, is seeing its support sink. However, the restrictions imposed because of the pandemic could drive new voters toward them. "We're experiencing a divided country," said Hartleb. "If economic decline follows the coronavirus trauma, then the social polarization will remain."In any case, the political scientist is convinced that the COVID-19 pandemic will remain the most important topic of 2021. "Coronavirus is the biggest crisis since 1945, with a significance which affects all levels of politics, from the local to the global." 2. Express (by Steven Brown) 4 Merkel faces nightmare exit with rival poised to take ‘late revenge’ and replace her Back in 2018, the German Chancellor announced she would stand down as leader of the Christian Democrat Union (CDU) at the party convention and would not seek a fifth term this year. But her long-time rival Mr Merz is preparing to stand in internal party elections and claimed he is the most “modern” of the three candidates. Mr Merz said: “There is nothing retro about me.“In fact, I would say I’m the most modern of the three candidates, even though I’m the oldest. “How come? Because all the problems Germany will face in the next decade - a rising China, the new great power rivalry, deep technological change - I have ben facing them for years.”He continued: “For the first time in our post-war history, we will have an election where the outgoing chancellor does not run as a candidate. “We cannot keep saying; have both x and y.“We cannot keep saying yes and no at the same time.”But some CDU members have claimed his leadership bid is personal. One source told Financial Times: “It’s a belated revenge on Merkel, who dropped him like a hot potato.” Mr Merz and Ms Merkel have had a turbulent relationship after the Chancellor drove him out as head of the party’s group of MPs in the Bundestag in 2002. The lawyer dismissed the accusations he has a score to settle with Ms Merkel as “absurd”.He said: “Ms Merkel and I had an arrangement, and she didn’t stick to it.“But it’s okay. That was 20 years ago.“I recovered a long time ago.” Back in February last year, Ms Merkel’s chosen successor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, resigned. Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer announced she would step down as CDU leader following a controversial election in the German state of Thuringia.The centre-right CDU voted with the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Deutschland (AFD).Sudha David-Wilp, a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund, said at the time: “A lot of political commentators have said the ‘dam has been breached, this is a turning point, we should never cooperate with the AfD’.“But they are faced with reality, on the conservative side of the aisle, that nearly a quarter of the voters in Thuringia and some other states, like Brandenburg, have voted for the AfD in state elections.”Following the outbreak of coronavirus, Mr Merz raised eyebrows for his remarks on homosexuality to the virus. When asked in September whether he had any objections to a gay person becoming chancellor, he said: “Sexual orientation is none of the public’s business.“As long as it is legal and doesn’t involve children - an absolute limit for me - it isn’t a subject for public discussion.”Andreas Rodder, a historian at the University of Mainz, said: “The Merkel wing of the CDU says you would gain fewer conservative voters than you would lose by moving away from Merkel’s centrist line.“There is a real conflict of strategy here.” 3. Junge Freiheit (translation) 5 After the storm on the Capitol Union and SPD want to pass law against „hate _nt he net” quickly BERLIN-Representatives of the grand coalition have urged that the law to combat right-wing extremism on the Internet be passed as quickly as possible. "The storming of the Capitol once again makes clear the power of impact inherent in social networks," the deputy leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Thorsten Frei (CDU), told the Rheinische Post newspaper. The events showed that words from social media were becoming deeds.On Wednesday (local time), supporters of outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump had stormed the Capitol in Washington. Five people were killed in the unrest.SPD parliamentary group vice chairman Dirk Wiese supported the plan. "The clear message to enemies of democracy and agitators can only be: We do not accept your acts and oppose your hatred at all levels - online and offline," he said, according to ARD. Thuringia's Office for the Protection of the Constitution warns against imitators The law, which had previously been passed by the Bundestag and Bundesrat, had been stopped by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier because of requirements by the Federal Constitutional Court.