Gute Fahrt!
Germany, Ukraine, Russia, the US, Israel, Palestine, and the DRC.
The five things you need to know today:
GERMANY. The CDU's in the driver's seat, but the road won't be smooth.
UKRAINE. RUSSIA. Caught between Putin and Trump, Zelensky offers to quit.
UNITED STATES. Elon Musk risks going from stuntman to scapegoat.
ISRAEL. PALESTINE. Hamas engineers a crisis on the eve of two summits.
THE DRC. As the president seeks to join his opponents, the police join the rebels.
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GERMANY. Merz takes the wheel
The CDU's in the driver's seat, but the road won't be smooth.
Christian Merz's Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union won 208 of 630 seats in the Bundestag Sunday, followed by Alternative fur Deutschland at 152. The incumbent Social Democrats lost 86 seats to third place at 120.
INTELLIGENCE. Polls were largely accurate, with expectations of a silent AfD voting bloc perhaps reversed by Elon Musk’s overreach. The true surprise was the ex-communist Die Linke, increasing its tally by 25 to 64. Its rise from irrelevance was not just sufficient to nudge out its pro-Russian spin-off, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, but to bring the centre-left Greens down to 85 seats. As such, with an AfD coalition ruled out, this gives Merz only one real choice.
FOR BUSINESS. For the party with the worst result on paper, with a -9.3% swing, the SPD is the great survivor. Merz can’t discuss governing with the AfD without risking an internal revolt. A Union-Greens-Linke combination looks even more improbable. The SPD, with Boris Pistorius as its likely new leader, thus looks well-placed to play hard ball in coalition negotiations. Merz may be in front, but Olaf Scholz’s popular ex-defence minister could be back-seat driver.
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UKRAINE. RUSSIA. Exit strategy
Caught between Putin and Trump, Zelensky offers to quit.
Volodymyr Zelensky said he would resign if it brought NATO membership, or peace to Ukraine. Russia launched its largest drone attack since the start of the war. The US called UN members to vote against a Ukraine-backed statement.
INTELLIGENCE. Zelensky’s offer will be in discussion during Donald Trump’s meeting with Emmanuel Macron today,