{"id":10612,"date":"2025-04-11T11:15:17","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T11:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/10612\/"},"modified":"2025-04-11T11:15:17","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T11:15:17","slug":"the-time-has-come-to-punish-orban-germanys-next-government-says-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/10612\/","title":{"rendered":"The time has come to punish Orb\u00e1n, Germany\u2019s next government says \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The German vote<\/p>\n<p>More broadly, the coalition negotiators vowed to take on a more proactive role on the European stage by using the Weimar Triangle \u2014 a loose alliance of France, Germany and Poland \u2014 as a vehicle for shaping EU policy. Under the previous coalition government led by the SPD\u2019s Olaf Scholz, Germany\u2019 relationship with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/france-germany-macron-scholz-russia-defense-policy-european-union\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">France<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/tensions-rise-germany-poland-olaf-scholz-mull-border-check-migration\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Poland<\/a> deteriorated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the Weimar Triangle, we will seek close coordination on all relevant European policy issues in order to act more united in the service of the EU as a whole,\u201d reads the draft agreement, echoing previous statements made by incoming chancellor Merz, who has said he will travel to both Paris and Warsaw on his first day in office.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/GettyImages-1271947526-1-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6390903\"  \/>While Hungary wasn\u2019t mentioned by name, the draft agreement is clearly referring to the EU\u2019s worst offender. | Omar Marques\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Conservatives also vowed to address one complaint about Germany frequently heard in European capitals:\u00a0Germany\u2019s abstention in votes on important EU issues, ironically referred to as the \u201cGerman vote.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When German ministries are themselves at odds over EU policy, the country, as a rule, abstains from EU votes. Merz, however, has vowed there would be no such German abstentions when it comes to key votes in Brussels under his leadership.<\/p>\n<p>But his conservatives and the SPD disagree on how to make that happen. The conservatives want Merz to be able to have a bigger say in Germany\u2019s position when it comes to EU votes of major importance by \u201ctaking responsibility for coordination from the outset or taking charge of it during the procedure.\u201d The SPD, on the other hand, wants to adhere to \u201cthe interministerial principle,\u201d resolving disputes between ministries.<\/p>\n<p>The draft agreement on the government\u2019s positions on the EU comes from one of the 16 cross-party working groups established to develop positions on key policy areas. On Friday afternoon, key politicians entered final negotiations to stitch together a unified coalition agreement based on the working groups\u2019 drafts.<\/p>\n<p>A final coalition agreement may come as early as mid-April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The German vote More broadly, the coalition negotiators vowed to take on a more proactive role on the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[7156,2000,7335,299,36,1945,7336,1824,4582,2190,1106,809,7337,770,46,2822,48,7338,7339,2663,811,1781],"class_list":{"0":"post-10612","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-breaches","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-eu-commission","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-friedrich-merz","14":"tag-german-election-2025","15":"tag-germany","16":"tag-human-rights","17":"tag-hungary","18":"tag-judiciary","19":"tag-negotiations","20":"tag-olaf-scholz","21":"tag-poland","22":"tag-policy","23":"tag-regions-cohesion","24":"tag-rights","25":"tag-rule-of-law","26":"tag-russia-sanctions","27":"tag-sanctions","28":"tag-security","29":"tag-viktor-orban"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114319046962718718","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}