Farmers to blockade Bavarian roads
On Wednesday farmers throughout Bavaria want to protest against the government's budget plans at highway ramps. The farmers want to temporarily block numerous slip roads, and drivers can expect traffic obstructions in many places.
However, the actions are not due to start until after the morning rush hour from around 9 am, and are planned to end in the afternoon at around 3 pm.Â
The farmers want to increase the political pressure on the coalition before the budget vote in the Bundestag on February 2nd.Â
"The federal budget is to be stuffed with money from agriculture and we farmers are being left alone with the additional burdens," said the President of the Bavarian Farmers' Association, GĂĽnther FelĂźner.
READ ALSO: Why are German farmers so angry?
Far-right AfD declining in popularity
According to a Forsa survey, the far-right AfD is losing popularity and has fallen below the 20 percent mark.
Compared to the previous week, the party has lost another percentage point and now stands at 19 percent, according to the RTL/ntv "Trendbarometer" published on Tuesday.
The SPD and CDU/CSU, on the other hand, both recorded a small gain of one point and landed at 15 and 32 percent respectively. If federal elections were held on Sunday, the FDP and the Left Party would each score three percent - a drop of one percentage point for both.
As in the previous week, the Greens would remain on 14 percent, while the Free Voters and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance would each be on three percent. More than 2,500 people were surveyed by the opinion research institute Forsa from January 23rd to 29th.
German economy shrank at end of 2023
The German economy contracted at the end of 2023, official data showed Tuesday, the latest gloomy news for Europe's export powerhouse as it battles high inflation and a manufacturing slowdown.
Output shrank 0.3 percent from October to December in the eurozone's biggest economy, federal statistics agency Destatis said.
The reading confirmed an earlier estimate for the fourth quarter by the agency, and was in line with a forecast by analysts surveyed by financial data firm FactSet.
In the last three months of 2023, "there was a marked decline, in particular, in (investments) in construction and in machinery and equipment," Destatis said in a statement.
Poland's new government renews push for German war reparations
Poland's top diplomat on Tuesday urged Germany to provide "financial compensation" over losses his country sustained at the hands of Nazi troops during World War II.
The call by Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski came during his first visit to Berlin, after a new pro-EU government came to power in Poland in December.
It echoes a similar push in September 2020 by the head of Poland's populist Law and Justice party, who estimated that Germany should pay €1.3 trillion as "compensation for the deaths of more than 5.2 million Polish citizens".
Speaking on Welt TV after talks with his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock, Sikorski said "that which Germany did to Poland during the Second World War was terrible and cruel".
He said it would be helpful if Germany "were to find a creative solution for expressing this suffering, to express regret and do something good for the people who survived this period".
Germany's poised to become leader in lithium supply chain
Once a byword for environmental disaster due to its heavy industry and mining, the city of Bitterfeld-Wolfen is poised to become a key site for Germany's ambitious green transition.
It is here that the country's first large-scale lithium refinery has been set up, with an aim to play a pivotal role in a European plan to mine and refine its own supplies of raw materials needed to power a fleet of new-generation vehicles.
The white powder the plant will start pumping out from May is a key ingredient in electric car batteries and part of the European Union's recipe to reduce its dependency on foreign imports.
With reporting by AFP.
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