Dear Krautshell Friends,

Happy Easter to you and all your families. May you celebrate new life and use this special time for reflection if you observe the holiday, and if you don’t, we hope you get to benefit from all the candy that goes on sale starting Monday. 

We would love to send you another edition of the Krautshell this week, but it’s scientifically impossible to do so lying down on a beach holding a cocktail in one hand and a book in the other. Trust us, we’ve tested it.

Don’t worry, you’re not missing much this week anyways. All of Brussels and Berlin is on low-power mode as the Institutions are closed for the four-day weekend (like seriously, the amount of Out-of-Office Automatic Replies we’re getting is too damn high).

If you’ve made it this far, we don’t want to leave you completely empty-handed, so we’re giving you a little Easter Present, three Long Story Shorts. No need to thank us ?.

• Family Minister No More: This week, Federal Minister for Family Affairs Anne Spiegel (Greens) stepped down from her post following criticism of her comportment after the floods in South-Western Germany in Summer 2021. At that time, Spiegel was Minister for the Environment in the state most affected by the floods and she took a four-week family vacation in France only 10 days after the floods. Bad press followed, and so did the pressure, leading to Spiegel’s resignation.
• Thanks but No Thanks: German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) was planning to visit Kyiv along with the Presidents of Poland and the three Baltic States, but he received a very clear message from Ukrainian leaders: don’t come. The reasoning: Steinmeier, who previously also served as Germany’s Foreign Minister, is seen as a symbol of Germany’s previous soft stance on Russia. Steinmeier has already publicly admitted he was wrong to underestimate Putin and support the Nord Stream 2 Project, but this wasn’t enough for Ukraine to open their doors to him. For Germany, this is really embarrassing.
• Giving a Helping Hand: The German Government has decided to allocate over a billion euros to support companies affected by the war in Ukraine. Specifically, this aid is targeted at companies which, should they go out of business, would “have a significant impact on the German economy.” Or, as Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) and Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner (FDP) put it, the “heart of the German economy.” This assistance will come in the form of equity injections, loan guarantees, and general financial aid.

We’ll be back next week with our signature to-be-ignored-at-your-own-risk intel. If you’re dying to know some information before then, you can always ping us.

All the best,

Your Krautshell Team