NATO Summit, Day 2
Volodymyr Zelensky has already warned his NATO hosts in Vilnius, Lithuania, what kind of performance they can expect from him this Wednesday. Big advantage of social media.
For example, before leaving for Lithuania, the Ukrainian president tweeted that the alliance's emerging decisions on his country's possible accession to NATO were "absurd". Indecisiveness is "a weakness," he wrote, and only Putin benefits from this.
What happened? In the draft of the final document of the summit, the alliance formulates quite clearly in the first sentences of the decisive passages that Ukraine's future is in NATO, reports my colleague Matthias Gebauer from Vilnius: "But you don't give a timetable. Instead, the paper states that Kyiv must complete further reforms in democratic standards and in the security sector away from the war.
Zelensky wants, he cannot be satisfied with this. After all, he had hoped for a concrete path to membership: It had never happened before "that a time frame is set neither for the invitation nor for the membership". Matthias believes that this is the beginning of a fierce exchange of blows between Zelensky and the heads of state and government of the 31 NATO countries.
Why is NATO hesitant? Because Washington and Berlin are on the brakes, they had probably pushed for the relativizing sentences on accession.
Matthias writes: "Even before the summit, the German government said, on the one hand, that Ukraine's accession to NATO was not possible as long as the country was at war with Russia. In addition, however, the strategists of the German government have repeatedly emphasized that even in the event of a ceasefire, Ukraine's accession should not be automatic." Behind this is the fear that NATO will be drawn directly into the war with Russia by a possible accession to Ukraine.
Traffic light zofft, Union does not
Now something has happened again. Shortly before the summer break, the traffic light has identified a new topic for arguing.
This is how it happened: The FDP finance minister wants to save, so the Green family minister now wants to cancel parental allowance for the higher earners, two-thirds of Germans even think it's great, only the FDP people don't.
And now, with a change of topic, the SPD is running onto the pitch with its chairman Klingbeil, has pumped fresh air into an old ball from the fifties (spouse splitting!) and is now shooting it at the Liberals' goal. Says the FDP: No, let's not play along, it's not in the coalition agreement thing.
Transparent number of the SPD, as a gift. But it's all cute, isn't it?
In spousal splitting, a couple's joint income is halved, the income tax due on it is calculated, and finally the tax liability is doubled. The further apart the partners' incomes are, the greater the relief achieved by splitting.
Spouse splitting is, in a sense, a 28-billion-euro state funding pot for the traditional role model. Where else can you find something like that? Not even in detergent advertising do women make their husbands' laundry beautiful anymore. But the subsidy for single-earner marriage that runs and runs and runs.
Yes, some of you are now saying, dear readers (women are not included here), marriage and all that, i.e. somehow also spousal splitting, is in the Basic Law, you can't do anything. Sure, we can look it up, it says in Article 6: "Marriage and family are under special protection of the state order."
So it does not say that single-earner marriages are under special protection(s) and therefore have to be pampered with the help of spousal splitting. It's just marriage. And family.
Now it is always said: Family is where there are children. Why don't we support families more strongly, instead of primarily the (male) sole breadwinners?
If two people find each other and get married and one of them realizes that he would rather spend his life without work, then that's perfectly fine. Quasi-liberal, yes, almost Marxist paradise.
But why should the general public support people who are retiring from working life? So that they can pass the beer to the exhausted man in the evening? Mind you: I'm not writing about families here, but about single-earner marriages, two people, end.
According to the Federal Ministry of Finance, only 58 percent of the spousal splitting savings are attributable to couples with children to be taken into account for tax purposes. That's what I read from my knowledgeable colleague Florian Diekmann.
Wouldn't it then make more sense to promote marriage and family (attention, Basic Law!) instead of single-earner marriage? It wasn't me who came up with that, but clever people like the two former CDU general secretaries, Peter Hintze and Ronald Pofalla, for example. As early as 1994, the former proposed "redirecting funds to families with children by capping the splitting advantage for married people without children". The other, under CDU chairman Merkel, wanted the spousal splitting to be expanded into family splitting. That was in 2006.
And do you know who was against it at the time? Exactly. His party stood for the protection of marriage, "without ifs and buts," said the then CSU chairman Edmund Stoiber.
And today? Today, CDU leader Friedrich Merz is visiting the CSU parliamentary group in Munich with its CSU Prime Minister Markus Söder. There will also be a press statement and the Christian Unionists will certainly say something about family policy, parental allowance and the socialist attacks on marriage.
But this time, the man from the CDU is on the side of the CSU in this matter without ifs and buts. Bet?
Tax, pension, health insurance: This is how the state favors single-earner marriage
Here you can read the current SPIEGEL editorial
Closing ranks between the Left Party and the CDU will not prevent the AfD: The AfD is getting stronger and stronger in the east, and the first politicians in the CDU and the Left have long been flirting with an anti-Höcke coalition. Please, don't! Something else has to help against the right.
A sandwich with ham
When I think of ham, I always have to think of the »Toten Hosen« and their song »Eiskühler Bommerlunder«. In this rather meaningless piece, this meaningless passage: "A sandwich with ham / ham! / A sandwich with egg / egg! / These are two sandwiches / One with ham and one with egg."
What has burned itself into the brain during adolescence. You can't get rid of it. (By the way, the music video is about a marriage, but we've already done that here – see above).
So let's stick to the ham. Today, we can expect a ruling from the European Court of Justice on the protection of ham, or more precisely, on the protection of Corsican ham.
In October 2021, the EU Commission rejected the request of the French authorities to register the names "Jambon sec de l'Île de Beauté", "Lonzo de l'Île de Beauté" and "Coppa de l'Île de Beauté" as protected geographical indications.
No, the consortium of Corsican butchers did not like this at all and appealed against the Commission's decision.
And now we are waiting for the ham verdict.
Click here for the current daily quiz
Today's starting question: "A ghost is haunting Europe ...": What begins with this sentence?
Loser of the day ...
... is Mario Czaja, soon to be ex-CDU general secretary. This morning, CDU leader Friedrich Merz wants to propose to the presidium and federal executive of his party to replace Czaja and appoint Carsten Linnemann as acting general secretary.
Czaja, who was born in East Berlin and is a member of the Union Berlin football club, never found his way into the role of CDU general secretary. At least that's true if you interpret this role in a classic way. Czaja is a man of rather calm tones.
My colleague Florian Gathmann thinks that in good moments Czaja is "a political charmer, i.e. exactly the opposite of the edgy businessman Merz from North Rhine-Westphalia". But now Linnemann, the member of the Bundestag and party vice-president, a Merz confidant and so far head of the CDU policy commission.
Florian: "The sudden change of the general secretary is a sign of how dissatisfied Merz himself seems to be with the situation of his party. Even if he saved the Union from the total collapse after the bankruptcy in the 2021 federal election, the fact that you can't capitalize more on the weakness of the traffic light coalition while the AfD is getting stronger and stronger is fatal."
In addition, there is the debate about the candidacy for chancellor in the next Bundestag election, where Merz is a challenger from his own party with NRW Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst.
Secretary-General's castling in the CDU: May it be a little more Merz?
The latest news from the night
A swath of devastation at about 100 meters – a tornado?: Asweiler in Saarland was hit particularly hard by the storm on Tuesday evening. In a swath of about 100 meters, about 30 buildings were damaged. The storm also raged violently over Lake Constance.
Surf pro Mikala Jones dies in accident off Indonesian coast: Mikala Jones made his videos of the so-called "barrels" of breaking waves famous – now the pro surfer has died. His daughter published moving pictures.
U.S. senator outraged with statements on white nationalism: Republican Tommy Tuberville had described white nationalism as "American" – and even antagonized some members of his own party. His relenting is now rather unconvincing.
The SPIEGEL+ recommendations for today
Ticket machine, you can give me a try: While passengers with a 49-euro flat rate enjoy freedom on buses and trains, occasional passengers often continue to suffer from absurd fares. But the first alliances are creating the clever single ticket of tomorrow.
70,000 euros as a data analyst – "I'm certainly overpaid": Timo Schneider never wanted to have to worry about his finances. Today, the 29-year-old data analyst earns around 70,000 euros a year and invests in the capital market. He thinks his salary is too high for a 35-hour week.
Fitter for the front: Because of the attack on Ukraine, the IOC wants to exclude Russian and Belarusian army athletes – as if competition and military could be separated. From the very beginning, the sport had the goal of preparing athletes for war.
If politics continues like this, women will never be relieved: Men must finally make good on their promises and take on more household and childcare tasks. However, it will not work without legal regulations. These four points need to change.
I wish you a good start to the day.
Sebastian Fischer, Head of the SPIEGEL Capital Office