The German cabinet voted in favour of extending the country’s unpopular military mission in Afghanistan by one year on Wednesday, with the new plan stipulating that troop withdrawal must begin at the end of 2011.
Several of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet ministers are reportedly threatening to sink her centre-right coalition’s proposed austerity package only weeks after they agreed to make deep spending cuts.
The normally staid world of German politics has been enlivened recently by some colourful name-calling within Angela Merkel's centre-right coalition. But now she has had enough.
The government’s plan for deep spending cuts sparked fierce debate on Tuesday, with some in the coalition defending the package while social justice advocates, unions and German cities slammed the plan as unjust.
Reductions in social benefits will spearhead the deepest spending cuts in modern German history, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Monday. But education and research will be spared the axe and income and sales taxes will not be increased.
Germans are set to find out by lunchtime Monday the results of the cabinet’s brainstorming session on how to slash government spending by €51 billion over the next six years.
Chancellor Angela Merkel will be paid an extra €334 per month - or just over €4,000 a year - after the federal government approved its own pay rise, sparking anger from taxpayers, German media reported Friday.
A joint meeting in Berlin of the German and Israeli cabinets that was postponed in November will now take place on January 18, an Israeli government official said on Sunday.
A joint meeting in Berlin of the German and Israeli cabinets planned for Monday has been postponed because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a viral infection, his office said on Sunday.
The German and Israeli cabinets will hold their first joint-meeting on German soil in Berlin on Monday, signalling deeper reconciliation between the two countries 65 years after the Holocaust.
Germany’s cabinet approved a new rule on Wednesday to provide unemployment benefits to artists more quickly than other professions because the nature of their work is often based on short-term projects.
German residents who have frequent guests from outside the EU could find themselves monitored by the government if a newly proposed measure to combat visa abuse is passed, daily <i>Frankfurter Rundschau</i> reported on Wednesday.
The German cabinet has approved new national poverty figures that show the country's divide between rich and poor continues to grow, news agency DPA reported on Wednesday.
Germany on Wednesday approved a disputed plan to share more information on terror suspects with the United States in a deal that Washington hopes will be a model for cooperation with other countries.
