Germany battles over the future of solar energy

GlobalPost, Feb. 20, 2012

BERLIN — Last year Germany produced a record amount of energy from solar panels installed on rooftops and in fields across the country.

With a total of about 25 gigawatts of installed panels, Germany now has half of the world’s entire solar energy capacity.

An unprecedented 7.5 gigawatts of panels were added to the country’s energy system in 2011, twice the government’s target.

One would think that for a country firmly committed to ambitious targets for renewable energy and emissions reductions, this would be a good thing. Instead, politicians in Berlin are furiously negotiating to find a way to slow down this rapid expansion, due to the huge costs involved in paying for solar power.

Two ministries in Berlin have been at loggerheads over their different priorities in tackling the problem. While Economics Minister Philipp Roesler, leader of the Free Democrats, wants to make the energy costs cheaper, the Environment Ministry, headed by Norbert Roettgen, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats has to balance economic interests with Germany’s climate goals.

Solar, it appears, will be the likely loser, as both ministries foresee less support for the industry in the future.

The current debate is focused on the solar subsidies that are largely paid for out of consumers’ pockets.

Critics argue that the costs have shot up, as solar expanded from just 1 percent of energy in 2009 to 3.5 percent in 2011. It’s on target to rise as much as 4.5 percent this year. This expansion is pushing up energy costs in general for the German economy.

Supporters say prices are already starting to fall, that the majority of expenses have already been invested. They say that support for the industry needs to be maintained now more than ever.

The debt brake: Germany’s most dangerous export?

GlobalPost, Feb. 13, 2012

BERLIN, Germany — In recent months, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been using the urgency posed by the euro zone’s debt crisis to reshape Europe’s economies, largely to conform with a particular quirk of German economists: disdain for government debt.

For now, Merkel appears to be getting her way. Late last month, 25 of 27 EU states obediently signed up to play by her rules when they agreed to pan-European fiscal union. If the pact is ratified by national governments, the entire EU — apart from the British and the Czechs, who opted out — will have to strive to reduce their deficits to close to zero, or face the consequences.

The plan is as controversial as it is bold. For some countries, meeting the debt goals will be a gargantuan task. And there are fears the austerity drive will choke off any hope of growth in many places. Yet it is the price to pay, it seems, to maintain Germany as Europe’s paymaster, providing the bulk of the funds for the euro zone’s bailout packages.

And at the heart of the German-designed fiscal pact is a concept known as a debt brake. Instead of the 3 percent ratio of deficit to GDP that the Maastricht Treaty rules had laid down, most of Europe has agreed to a structural debt strait-jacket of just 0.5 percent of GDP.

Can Mario Monti stave off disaster in Italy?

GlobalPost, Feb. 9, 2012

BERLIN, Germany — All eyes have been on Greece as it battled to stave off default.

But it is Italy that may well be decisive in determining the outcome of the euro crisis.

Most analysts agree that Italy’s survival is vital if the euro zone is to avoid catastrophe. “The euro zone can do, if needs be, without Greece,” said Timo Klein, senior economist at IHS Global Insight. “But it certainly cannot do without Italy.”

The man leading the rescue mission? Mario Monti, who just three months ago was an economics professor in Milan.

Now the new prime minister, Monti is firmly in the driver’s seat in Rome, tasked with steering Italy away from the precipice of insolvency, and thus protecting the euro zone from a fatal blow. And many analysts predict that if anyone can pull it off, he can.

German opposition politicians slam Merkel for backing Sarkozy

GlobalPost, Feb. 7, 2012

BERLIN, Germany — President Nicolas Sarkozy is not yet officially a candidate in the forthcoming French presidential election, but that hasn’t stopped German Chancellor Angela Merkel from backing him. After all what would become of ‘Merkozy’ and, more importantly, her crisis-driven vision for reshaping Europe, without her side-kick in Paris?

On Monday night, Merkel defended her position in the French election during a joint TV interview with Sarkozy, arguing that the two belonged to the same party family. Indeed both Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), belong to the center-right European People’s Party (EPP).

Merkel, who was in Paris for the joint Franco-German cabinet meeting, said during the interview that she would support the current occupant of the Elysee Palace “whatever he does.”

Yet her blatant favoring of Sarkozy in the contest scheduled for April 22 has raised some hackles back home.

Green parliamentary floor leader Juergen Trittin was particularly scathing. “A German government leader who campaigns for a president who has his back against the wall damages the Franco-German relationship,” he told the Ruhr Nachrichten newspaper.

Humpback whales inspire better helicopter design

GlobalPost, Feb. 4, 2012

BERLIN, Germany — The connection between humpback whales and helicopters might not seem obvious. But a group of researchers in Germany are thinking way outside-the-box, applying nature’s design to helicopters to make them faster and more maneuverable.

The team at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), in Goettingen, was eager to solve an aerodynamic conundrum: The airflow over a helicopter’s main rotor blade creates a hazard called “dynamic stall.” This causes turbulence, a loss of lift, and exerts extreme pressure on the rotors, ultimately limiting maneuverability and the speed that any helicopter can reach.

When searching for a way to thwart this stalling, they hit upon the humpback whales. The marine mammal’s speed and acrobatic prowess is largely attributed to its large pectoral fins, which have characteristic bumps along the front edge. These bumps, it turns out, significantly delay such stalling.

“This particular shape makes the humpback whale more agile,” Kai Richter, a researcher the DLR Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology, told GlobalPost.

Germany’s jobs miracle

GlobalPost, Jan. 24, 2012

BERLIN, Germany — Unemployment is rising in most European Union countries, as the effects of crippling sovereign debt crisis, and the austerity measures prescribed to tackle it, take their toll.

Yet the bloc’s biggest and richest member has seemed almost immune to the effects of the crisis, particularly when it comes to its labor market. While dole queues lengthen in Spain, France and Greece, in Germany they are rapidly dwindling.

In fact Germany has seen the number out of work decrease to its lowest level since 1991. It’s a remarkable turnaround.

While many other countries were booming before the crisis hit, Germany was dubbed the “Sick Man of Europe,” as it struggled to cope with the ongoing economic effects of reunification. In 2005 unemployment reached a peak of 12.5 percent, crucially exceeding the 5 million mark. Since then it has been almost halved, with a rate of just 6.6 percent in December 2011.

So how have German workers been left relatively unscathed by the crisis?

Experts point out that one of the most important factors is that Germany deployed a number of instruments to keep people in their jobs even during the most trying days of the financial crisis.

Auschwitz documents surface, then vanish

GlobalPost, Jan. 17, 2012

BERLIN — Before the Nazis fled Auschwitz in January 1945, they destroyed most of the incriminating documents relating to their operation of the death camp, in which over a million people perished.

Yet, it now seems a small number of surviving documents may have resurfaced — only to disappear again.

According to Polish media reports, two unidentified Germans located three crates in south-western Poland containing documents relating to the former death camp, and then smuggled them out of the country.

The news has led the Auschwitz Museum to file a criminal complaint with Polish prosecutors and the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (IPN), which is responsible for investigating crimes related to the Nazi occupation of the country.

“There are several laws regarding archives, regarding historical items, that were violated,” Auschwitz Museum spokesman Pawel Sawicki told GlobalPost. “That is why we informed the Prosecutors office and the IPN.”

The museum took the step on Monday after Polish media reported that a Pole named as Mieczyslaw Bojko had helped the Germans find the crates near Przelecz Kowarska, a village near the German border. The crates were reported to contain military service records and over 100 personnel files.

Berlin techno clubs face tax nightmare

GlobalPost, Jan. 14, 2012

BERLIN — In the small hours of the morning, during the harsh Berlin winter, clubbers from around the world brace themselves against the elements, waiting in eager anticipation to enter techno clubs like Berghain, Tresor and Cookies.

These revelers throng Germany’s capital to experience its thriving electronic music scene, regarded as among the world’s best.

The clubs are an integral part of Berlin’s culture and economy. Yet instead of nurturing and supporting them, authorities appear bent on making life more difficult for the clubs.

That, at least, is how many club owners felt after receiving letters from their local tax office, notifying them of hefty, delinquent tax bills. The tax office is arguing that the clubs had been paying the wrong rate for years.

In Germany the normal sales tax is 19 percent. However there is a lower, 7 percent tax rate for cultural events such as concerts.

In 2005, the Federal Tax Court ruled that turntables, mixing desks and CD players could be considered instruments. The court said that if a DJ didn’t just replay records, but mixed them and used these instruments for performance, then the activity could be classified as a concert.

Many clubs took that as their cue to start paying just 7 percent from the tickets for many of their club nights.

Last fall, however, tax officials said that club nights are not concerts at all. They are demanding the difference between the two tax rates, going back to 2005.

Your Kind of Music

CNBC Business Magazine, Jan. 1, 2012

Its big idea was to stream videos based on individual users’ tastes. Now Berlin’s tape.tv is making its own shows and expanding across Europe

By Siobhán Dowling

Florence + the Machine are wowing the crowd on a windswept autumn day in Berlin. Surrounded by hip young fans and media types, the British band are putting on an acoustic performance of songs from their new album on a roof overlooking the River Spree. The director pleads with the crowds not to clap until he has signalled, as the whole thing is being filmed. It is the 100th rooftop concert for tape.tv, one of Berlin’s most successful media start-ups.

The company, founded in 2008 by Conrad Fritzsch and Stephanie Renner, is an online music channel that has rapidly grown in just a few years. While it started out streaming music videos 24/7, it has increasingly broadened its remit, producing its own content. In the German-speaking world it has 3.5 million users a month and its expected turnover for 2011 was €20m. In 2012 it is expanding into new markets, launching in the UK in January, with channels to follow in France and Scandinavia.

Rapid change of Arab Spring slows in winter

The Washington Times, Dec. 27, 2011

When Mohamed Bouazizi, a young Tunisian vegetable seller, set fire to himself in protest over harassment by officials last December, he unleashed a wave of long-simmering resentment across the Arab world that swept away longtime leaders in Tunisia and Egypt over the next two months.

The Arab Spring set in with the hope that a huge democratic change finally was within reach for the region. Now, 12 months later, that initial euphoria largely has subsided.

Syria launched a brutal crackdown on dissent. Yemen is still in a suspended state of chaos, while Libya struggles to unite after overthrowing Moammar Gadhafi. Even in Egypt, the continuing role of the army has led to doubts over its revolution transforming into a representative democracy.

“The sense of disappointment comes from the fact that expectations were raised so quickly and these were impossible to fulfill,” said Christian Koch of the Gulf Research Center, a Dubai-based think tank.

“One has to be realistic that the switch over to a different type of government is something that will simply take time.”

Other analysts agree that change is going to be much slower than the rapid pace of events earlier this year may have seemed to promise at first.

“It will take the Arab world at least between 10 and 20 years to be able to transition from political authoritarianism to pluralism,” said Fawaz A. Gerges, director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics.