Angela Merkel calls for national lockdown to curb Germany’s coronavirus crisis 

Angela Merkel calls for national lockdown to curb Germany’s coronavirus crisis Angela Merkel today backed regional leaders’ calls for short, sharp lockdown  Comes amid third wave with Germany battling average of 15,000 cases per day  ‘Every call for a short, uniform lockdown is right,’ Merkel’s spokeswoman said She added that the country was struggling with … Read more

Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron call Vladimir Putin to discuss getting the Sputnik jab into the EU

Germany and France were negotiating with Vladimir Putin to supply Russia’s coronavirus vaccine to the EU.   German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron were on a video call with the Russian president on Tuesday night.  The leaders discussed ‘cooperation’, which would see the Sputnik jab made used in the European Union once regulators give … Read more

Johnson, Merkel and Macron, among others, declare world needs a post-Covid treaty

Boris Johnson and other world leaders have called for a global treaty in response to Covid – similar to that agreed after the Second World War. In the face of vaccine nationalism and clashes between countries, the Prime Minister, French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Angela Merkel – among others – warned against isolationism. … Read more

Covid Germany: Angela Merkel blames ‘perfectionism’ for chaotic vaccine roll-out

Angela Merkel has blamed German ‘perfectionism’ for the country’s current coronavirus chaos with vaccine doses going unused and patchy lockdown rules failing to rein in the third wave.  The long-serving chancellor called for more ‘flexibility’ as she acknowledged flaws in a bureaucratic vaccine roll-out which has seen only 10 per cent of the population get … Read more

Angela Merkel blames German ‘perfectionism’ for virus chaos

Angela Merkel has blamed German ‘perfectionism’ for the country’s current coronavirus chaos with vaccine doses going unused and patchy lockdown rules failing to rein in the third wave.  The long-serving chancellor called for more ‘flexibility’ as she acknowledged flaws in a bureaucratic vaccine roll-out which has seen only 10 per cent of the population get … Read more

Anger at Merkel prompts calls for term limits in Germany

Dismay at Angela Merkel‘s handling of Covid-19 has prompted calls for a limit on how long German chancellors can stay in power.  Merkel has served four terms in office since 2005, working with five different UK prime ministers from Blair to Johnson and four US presidents from Bush to Biden.  But Germany‘s chaotic handling of … Read more

Angela Merkel is ‘definitively a lame duck’ after lockdown U-turn

Angela Merkel is ‘definitively a lame duck’ after she was forced to make a humiliating U-turn by scrapping plans for a strict Easter lockdown, a former German government spokesman has said.   Bela Anda, a press secretary under Merkel’s predecessor Gerhard Schroeder, said Merkel had seen her power ‘eroded’ by the fiasco – with her party’s … Read more

Coronavirus: Germany’s Angela Merkel backs Europe-first threat of Covid vaccine export ban

Germany and France waded into the EU Covid vaccine row today as Angela Merkel backed threats to block exports of the AstraZeneca jab and Paris directly targeted UK-bound supplies. The Chancellor came out in favour of an EU-first policy and the threat of a ban on exports to third countries like Britain that has been … Read more

Germany Covid: New lockdown announced as Angela Merkel cancels Easter

Germany is going back into lockdown with all non-essential shops closed over Easter and church services moved online as Chancellor Angela Merkel warned last night: ‘We are in a new pandemic’. New nationwide measures will come into force on April 1 – just weeks after some restrictions were eased – and end on April 5, … Read more

Germany’s Chancellor Merkel blames Kent variant as she cancels Easter

Germany extended its lockdown measures by another month and imposed several new restrictions, including largely shutting down public life over Easter, in an effort to drive down the rate of coronavirus infections. Chancellor Angela Merkel announced the measures early this morning after a lengthy video call with the country’s 16 state governors, nearly three weeks … Read more