Thanks God it’s International Friday 32: The anti-trump from Rome?

Thank God it’s International Friday! Welcome to today’s edition of TGIIF, the international newsletter of the daily mirror at LinkedIn. Here you can subscribe to it for free.

A desolation of the beginning can also be saved. Friedrich Merz, who was elected in office on Tuesday, currently wants to show the most important European partners in Germany.

As the first Chancellor, he not only traveled to Paris immediately after taking office, but also to Warsaw. Europe has priority for Merz. This message can hardly be overestimated in its current meaning. This is particularly important this week this week: 80 years ago, the Second World War ended, 75 years ago the then French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman laid the foundation for the European Union with his visionary speech.

This Saturday, Merz is together with his French, Polish and British counterparts in Kiev to secure the continuing support to the Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj. An important signal to Putin. And to Trump. In their explanation, the four heads of state and government emphasize that local regions of Ukraine to Russia- as suggested by Trump several times- are out of the question for them.

European leadership instead of solo proceeds

Merz wants to take on a leadership role in Europe. This is seen by European partners with benevolence, even outside the conservative camp. This will not be achieved with symbol policy alone, the Federal Chancellor must now quickly have acts followed.

With the delivery of the Taurus marching aircraft, he would put a strong sign to Ukraine, which he had promised in the election campaign. But the coalition partner could thwart him here. In mid-April, Matthias Miersch, who has now become the SPD parliamentary group leader, emphasized that nothing would probably change in his party’s negative attitude in the Taurus question.

However, one thing is certain: German solo courses are incompatible with a European leadership role. This also applies to migration policy. The fact that Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, as one of his first official acts stricter border controls and the rejection of asylum seekers at all German borders, has made an irritation to the neighbors of Germany.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk also makes no secret of this. “The AfD, that is its problem, Mr. Chancellor,” Merz had to be told when he visited Warsaw. The goal must be to strengthen the EU external borders together instead of introducing controls at the German limits, Tusk demanded.

The new Pope as an anti-trump?

White smoke has risen in Rome much faster than expected. With Robert Francis Prevost, who now calls himself Leo XIV. Did the conclave want to set an accent against US President Donald Trump? Hardly, the experts from the “High Noon” talk of the Tagesspiegel agreed on Friday.

“Reducing Leo XIV to the role of an anti-trump reduces its worldwide importance,” writes my colleague Malte Lehming. He warns against taking the new Pope from daily policy calculation.

However, Pope Leo XIV can play an important role as a bridge builder if he succeeded in establishing a level of conversation with Trump and other difficult decision -makers, the theologian Elisabeth Jünemann emphasized in our expert talk. Have you missed the exciting discussion? You can see them here. 👇

It was a message of peace with which Pope Leo XIV began his first speech on Thursday evening on St. Peter’s Square. And the world needed the world bitterly. The number of armed disputes continues to increase. Smalling conflicts flare up again.

Escalation between the nuclear powers India and Pakistan

One of them is the confrontation between India and Pakistan around the Kashmir region. Both countries claim the border area. Three wars have led India and Pakistan against each other since their independence, two of them were about cashmere.

The trigger for the current escalation is the terrorist attack of April 22, in which 26 people were killed, including numerous Indian tourists. The Indian government accuses the Pakistani to have been involved in the attack, which rejects it. The ongoing fighting between the two states has been the hardest in around 30 years. Our columnist Peter Neumann, professor of security studies at King’s College in London, explains why the conflict is so dangerous. 👇

Farewell to the Holocaust-surviving Margot Friedländer

“At the end of her life, Margot Friedländer became a megastar,” writes my colleague Elisabeth Binder in her obituary. With the 103-year-old Holocaust survivor, an impressive ambassador of peace and humanity left us on Friday.

In 1946 Friedländer was emigrated to the United States. Together with her husband, who never wanted to set foot on German soil again. It was not until 2010, after his death, that she moved back to Berlin and from then on devoted her to the fight against forgetting in Germany. In her own charming way.

Remembering her means continuing this fight. #Never again

Next week I will write to you from Tallinn, where I will take part in the Lennart Meri Conference of the International Center for Defense and Security (ICDS). The International Security Conference is under the right motto “We Shall Go Forward Together” this year – the words with which British Prime Minister Winston Churchill conjured up the Allies in 1942.

That’s it from me for today. All the best and a nice weekend.

Heartfelt

Your Anja Wehler-Schöck

PS: Many thanks to Johannes Altmeyer for feedback and to Katrin Schuber for the graphic!