The horrors of Nazism and a consistently robust economy have inoculated the country from extremism, but undercurrents of discontent should not be ignored, says Michael Bröning

Robert Harvey examines the relatively new phenomenon in politics that has seen the rise of the supra-politician promising to save the day, despite their lack of political experience

French president’s idea is to move beyond idle optimism by gaining German consent to turn the eurozone into a state-like entity — a federation-lite, writes Yanis Varoufakis.

The results of an election will not materially change the diffuse make-up of our democratic choice, writes Gerard Howlin.

Almost all chief executives here say they are planning to expand their businesses in 2017, despite the threat of Brexit, and over half have a strategy worked out to deal with the UK fallout, according to Deloitte survey.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has dismissed suggestions that the influx of refugees over the past year brought Islamic extremism to Germany.

Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed to press on with her refugee policy despite seeing her Christian Democrats (CDU) party punished by voters who flocked to the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Sunday’s three regional polls.

Merkel responds to concerns of migrant influx at party congress

A leading candidate to be mayor of Cologne has been wounded in a knife attack as she campaigned a day before an election in the western German city.

Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel’s leadership during the Greece crisis has given her conservatives a chance of winning an absolute majority if an election were held next week, an opinion poll yesterday showed.

Germany was fooling itself if it believed the peaceful post-WW2 neighbourhood it helped create transcended the logic of brute force, as the Ukraine crisis reveals, writes Lucian Kim.

German chancellor Angela Merkel faces increased dissent within her governing coalition over extending Greece’s bailout as part of her goal of keeping the eurozone intact.

A day after calling Islam part of Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said her government would use all means at its disposal to fight intolerance and discrimination, calling the exclusion of certain groups from society “humanly reprehensible”.

Eurozone politicians are not obliged to rescue Greece as the country is no longer of systemic importance to the euro, a senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party has said.

One of Belgium's biggest post-war labour demonstrations brought some 100,000 workers to the capital today to protest government free-market reforms and austerity measures that they claim undermine the welfare state.

German health campaigners have written to Enda Kenny backing plans for plain packaging for tobacco and dismissing pressure from German politicians to scrap the anti-smoking proposals.

Germany’s Angela Merkel expressed regret populist parties had done well in EU elections and said it was up to governments in countries like France to win back voters with policies that foster growth, jobs, and competitiveness.

The Czech Republic’s incoming finance minister has raised the possibility that the country might adopt the euro.

Ireland’s 12.5% corporate tax rate was not “up for grabs”, if the Government decided to seek a precautionary credit line after exiting the bailout next month, a senior minister has said.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s potential coalition partners, the Social Democrats, want to make a proposed financial transaction tax a requirement for participation in a European banking union.

Germany’s opposition Social Democrats threw up a new potential obstacle to a ‘grand coalition’ government with Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday ahead of a new round of talks, saying they would insist on a national minimum wage.

German chancellor Angela Merkel lost no time in approaching her Socialist counterparts to agree a grand coalition government following her resounding success at the polls.

A new eurosceptical party is on the brink of entering the German parliament for the first time, an opinion poll showed, casting doubt on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s bid to maintain her centre- right coalition and complicating her eurozone policy.

Angela Merkel’s allies swept to victory in a state poll in Bavaria yesterday, winning enough support to regain the absolute majority they had lost in 2008 and boosting the chancellor and her conservatives a week before a German federal election.

Conservative Party leader Erna Solberg, nicknamed “Iron Erna”, will become Norway’s new prime minister, leading a centre-right coalition government which will probably include an anti-immigration party.

Germans sleep better, Bismarck once said, when they don’t know how sausages and laws are made.

In a setback to the European Union, the major parties in its parliament today rejected a tentative deal on a seven-year €960bn budget that is supposed to kick in next year.

IRISH voters, long used to choosing between political parties that grew out of Civil War politics, are expected to “do it like the Europeans” by casting a vote for right, centre or left-wing candidates in next year’s European elections.

IT makes me want to tear my hair out when I read reports such as those on this week’s Dublin conference — Scandinavian Childcare: making it happen — because it seems no-one asks: what is childcare?

Germany’s education minister resigned today after a university decided to withdraw her doctorate, finding that she plagiarised parts of her thesis – an embarrassment for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government as it prepares for elections later this year.

German politicians yesterday unanimously criticised the Deutsche Bank co-CEO Juergen Fitschen, following reports he had called a senior politician to complain about a raid on the bank’s Frankfurt headquarters last week.

There was a lot of moralising going on in Rome, especially from politicians over the past few days.

The great Italian caricaturist Altan had a cartoon on the front of La Repubblica in recent days, in which an Italian is sinking below the waves, shouting: “I’m drowning!” On the beach, a fat man whose swimsuit sports the German national colours, says: “Zat is how you learn, zpendthrift!”

The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence service has resigned after admitting that his agency had shredded files on a neo-Nazi cell whose killing spree targeting immigrants rocked the country late last year.

A German politician says his country should have a referendum on any further financial aid to debt-ridden eurozone countries.

In the biggest challenge of her six-and-a-half years in office, German chancellor Angela Merkel walks a fine line between appearing to be a soft touch, and displaying a lack of commitment to the maintenance of the eurozone, writes Kyran Fitzgerald

Voters in Germany’s most populous state strengthened a centre-left regional government which chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives sought to portray as irresponsibly spendthrift, and inflicted an embarrassingly heavy defeat on the German leader’s party, projections showed.