Insa boss Hermann Blinkert told the paper that the CDU/CSU’s victory in the federal election is almost impossible to take away: “The Union remains by far the strongest force. It will most likely lead the next federal government. It remains to be seen whether it will do so requires one or two partners.”
4:29 a.m.: According to a media report, the European Union (EU) is considering expanding its investigation into possible violations of EU rules following the conversation between Elon Musk and AfD chancellor candidate Alice Weidel on Musk’s social network X. The Commission is investigating whether the live-streamed conversation between Musk and Weidel on “Bloomberg TV” reported on Monday. “We are currently checking whether the scale is large enough,” said the EU Commission Vice President responsible for technology policy, Henna Virkkunen, to the broadcaster. Musk is an advisor to US President-elect Donald Trump. Neither X nor the European Commission responded to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency.
2:34 a.m.: According to its party leader Christian Lindner, the FDP is ready to support a possible Ukraine aid package in the Bundestag. “We already signaled our approval for additional aid to Ukraine amounting to three billion euros in November,” the Liberals’ top candidate told the Bavaria media group. “You can easily finance this amount without suspending the debt brake with an emergency resolution. This can be done, for example, as an unscheduled expense.”
Lindner accused Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) of blocking the aid. “The whole process exposes Olaf Scholz’s maneuver in November: He wanted to extort 15 billion euros in new debt from me bypassing the debt brake in order to give three billion of it to Ukraine. That’s one of the reasons why the traffic light broke.” The fact that he is now blocking aid to Ukraine shows that the Chancellor’s priorities do not lie with Ukraine. Scholz fired Lindner on November 6th. The previous traffic light coalition made up of the SPD, Greens and FDP collapsed, which ultimately initiated the process for the early federal election.
2:04 a.m.: Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) believes it makes sense to allow Syrian refugees a one-time trip to their country of origin without affecting their protection status in Germany. “It only makes voluntary return to Syria possible if people can get an idea of whether houses are still standing, whether family members are still alive, with whom they may have not had contact for a long time, and whether they are really safe in their homeland,” said Ministry spokesman Maximilian Kall in Berlin. Faeser sees this similarly to Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens).