Bavaria overtakes Berlin as startup finance leader
After a funding crisis, German startups are once again receiving more money from investors - but the dominance of the startup capital Berlin is dwindling.
In 2024, Bavaria overtook the capital thanks to financially strong Munich, according to an analysis by auditing and consulting firm EY. Startups from Bavaria benefited especially from the boom in artificial intelligence (AI)
According to the study, startups from Bavaria raised €2.33 billion in venture capital, around €600 million more than in 2023, while growth companies from Berlin received €2.17 billion (a drop of €200 million).
According to the study, which has been published since 2014 and is based on the ‘Crunchbase’ database and reports from startups and investors, this is the first time that Bavaria has overtaken the capital.
North Rhine-Westphalia also saw a strong increase in funding to €951 million - around €620 million more than the previous year.
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German hospital strikes called off
A strike that would have affected patients at hundreds of district clinics and hospitals in Germany has been called off.Â
Doctors were set to walk out from Wednesday to Friday this week in a dispute over shift work and pay at hospitals.Â
During this time, non-urgent treatments and operations were to be cancelled.
But the Marburger Bund doctors' union said on Tuesday that a deal had been reached and the strike had been averted.Â
More than 60,000 doctors will receive an eight percent salary increase in instalments by the end of 2026.
A compromise has also been reached on the reform of the regulations on shift work, which the union had been calling for.
Europe to boost defence cooperation under Trump, German defence minister says
Europe's largest militaries have decided to increase defence cooperation in light of US President-elect Donald Trump taking office next week, Germany's defence minister said Tuesday on a visit to Kyiv.
European leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron have been pushing for greater EU defence cooperation since Trump's election win in November, amid questions over the incoming US administration's commitment to transatlantic security.
Trump has long been critical of the NATO military alliance, suggesting Washington would not come to the aid of member states that failed to meet their financial obligations to the group.
"We decided to increase our efforts to make our joint European defence better," German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said at a press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
He said this was due to the "challenges and threats" facing Europe, as well as the "change of the administration in Washington in the days to come."
READ ALSO: Germany approves record €20 billion worth of defence gear
Pistorius was speaking after meeting counterparts from France, Italy, Poland, and the UK in Warsaw on Monday, a week before Trump enters the White House.
Court rules German football clubs must pay police costs at 'high-risk' matches
Bundesliga clubs across Germany may be forced to cover the costs of police at certain 'high-risk' games, after a German court upheld a ruling in the city state of Bremen.
The federal constitutional court on Tuesday dismissed an appeal by the German Football Leagues (DFL) against the practice of asking clubs to pay additional police costs in 'high risk' games.
In 2015, the government in the state of Bremen handed club Werder Bremen a bill of around 400,000 euros ($410,100) relating to the home derby match with neighbouring Hamburg.
The DFL has waged a 10-year legal battle to have the fine overturned but suffered a series of legal defeats.
On Tuesday the Karlsruhe-based court dismissed the DFL's claim that the practice was unconstitutional.
While the ruling relates to Bremen, one of Germany's 16 federal states, the decision is likely to have wide-ranging impacts, with other state governments considering following suit.
Volkswagen deliveries fall in 2024 as electric push slows
Volkswagen's deliveries fell last year, the German carmaker said Tuesday, underlining fierce Chinese competition and faltering demand for electric vehicles.
The 10-brand group, which includes Audi, Porsche and Lamborghini, sold 9.03 million vehicles last year, down 2.3 percent from 2023.
But in China, VW's second-largest market by volume, deliveries plunged 9.5 percent.
READ ALSO: Volkswagen unveils major job cuts in Germany in cost-saving drive
Marco Schubert, responsible for sales operations at the firm, said an uptick in the last three months of the year was promising.
"In the final quarter we again approached the previous year's volume in China," Schubert said. "We have created a good starting point for this year."
However, analyst Pal Skirta from Metzler Bank said Volkswagen's troubles in the country were unlikely to pass soon.
The carmaker has been outmanoeuvred by local firms such as BYD and Xpeng, who have developed affordable EVs with the kind of entertainment software that Chinese drivers expect, he said.
"Volkswagen was still living in the old world of combustion engines and they neglected how quickly competitors like BYD were developing until recently," he said.
"Chinese manufacturers, they don't have this kind of legacy business, the combustion engine business. They could concentrate all their efforts on electric vehicles and software."
Lives of Gaza hostages must be 'top priority', says Scholz
As negotiations between Israel and Hamas seem close to a resolution, Chancellor Olaf Scholz emphasised the importance of saving Israeli hostages.
On Tuesday, the chancellor acknowledged that a potential truce with Hamas would be "painful" for Israel but that saving hostages' lives must now be the "top priority".
"After many months of agonising negotiations, an agreement now seems within reach," Scholz said as Gaza truce talks appeared to be on the verge of a breakthrough in Qatar.
"We understand how painful any agreement with the terrorist organisation Hamas is for Israel," Scholz said. "Nevertheless, the lives of the hostages must now be the top priority."
Qatar, Egypt and the United States have stepped up efforts to broker a ceasefire to enable the release of hostages held in Gaza since Hamas's October 7th, 2023 attack on Israel.
Qatar said negotiations for a Gaza truce and hostage release deal were in their "final stages" on Tuesday, adding that it was hopeful an agreement could be reached "very soon".
Scholz said he was calling for an agreement partly because "there are numerous German nationals among the hostages" and said it would "finally alleviate the suffering in Gaza".
A source from the foreign ministry told AFP in September that the hostages still in Gaza included "a low double-digit number of people with a German connection".
Hamas's October 7th, 2023 attack -- the deadliest in Israel's history -- resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
READ ALSO: Germany 'examining' ICC arrest warrant for Israel's Netanyahu
Militants also took 251 people hostage, 94 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel's retaliatory aggression in Gaza has killed 46,645 people, a majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, whose figures the UN considers reliable.
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