Bundestag delay – snap analysis

Kate Connolly

in Berlin

The Bundestag debate has been delayed for half an hour on request of the CDU, thought to be to do with misgivings within the party over the debate, not least due to large numbers of protesters outside the CDU headquarters in Berlin.

CDU/CSU’s Thorsten Frei has just asked for a 30-minute break to allow for a meeting of the parliamentary party before we move ahead with the Influx Limitation Act debate.

So we will have a further delay here.

Jakub Krupa

And if you’re thinking, OK, Jakub, but what’s going on with Germany, aren’t they supposed to be starting any moment now?!

Don’t worry, I’m keeping an eye on this.

There’s a bit of a delay, but I will bring you the latest when they start the debate, now expected around 10:45 CET. There is one vote on energy before.

Almost half of Danish people now consider the US to be a considerable threat to their country and the overwhelming majority oppose Greenland leaving to become part of the US, new polling has found.

The research by YouGov, shared exclusively with the Guardian, comes after weeks of tension between Denmark, Greenland and the US over Donald Trump’s repeated assertions that he plans to take control of the autonomous territory, which is part of the Danish kingdom.

The poll of just over 1,000 people in Denmark, conducted between 15 and 22 January, found that 46% considered the US to be either “a very big threat” or “a fairly big threat” to Denmark.

This is higher than the number who said they considered North Korea or Iran a threat – of which 44% and 40% did respectively.

But the threat of Russia remains considerably higher; 86% of respondents said they considered Moscow a threat.

Of those surveyed, 78% said they would oppose Greenland being sold to the US, but 72% said the final decision should be Greenland’s, not Denmark’s.

Miranda Bryant with the full story.

US state secretary Marco Rubio confirmed overnight that the US interest in Greenland is genuine and “not a joke.”

This is not about acquiring land for the purpose of acquiring land. This is in our national interest and it needs to be solved.

Speaking to Sirius XM, he said that as Greenland was already covered by the Nato mutual defence pact given its relationship with Denmark, it only strenghtened the US resolve to control it.

Here is his explanation in full:

The Arctic has some of the most valuable shipping lanes in the world and as some of the ice is melting, they become more and more navigable and we need to be able to defend that.

The Chinese are not an Arctic power, … so they need to be able to have somewhere to stage from.

It is completely realistic that the Chinese will try to do in Greenland what they have done at the Panama Canal and other places: install facilities that get them cover to the Arctic, with the cover of a Chinese company, but then in reality that would serve a dual purpose that in a moment of conflict they could send naval vessels to that facility and operate from there, and that is completely unacceptable to the security of the world and the national security of the US.

Denmark can’t stop them, they would rely on the US to do so. So if the US is on the hook … as we are now … then we might as well have more control over what happens there.

I know it’s a delicate topic for Denmark, but it’s again a national interest item for the United States.

He declined to say if president Trump would succeed in buying Greenland (or restoring US authority over the Panama Canal), but insisted:

What I think you can rest assured of is that four years from now, our interest in the Arctic will be more secure; our interest in the Panama Canal will be more secure.

Speaking about that dilemma of how mainstream parties could or should deal with the far-right, Eleni Courea has the details of a new research that could give CDU/CSU’s Friedrich Merz some food for thought.

Voters in western democracies are turning away from mainstream political parties and towards populists because they are losing faith in their ability to implement meaningful change, a major report based on surveys of 12,000 voters has found.

The popularity of traditional centre-left and centre-right parties across major democratic countries has plummeted from 73% in 2000 to 51% today, according to research by the Tony Blair Institute.

Researchers looked in depth at the views of samples of 2,000 voters polled in each of six big democracies – the UK, US, Australia, Germany, France and Canada – and found they were “remarkably similar”.

They concluded that voters were increasingly turning away from centre-left and centre-right parties not for ideological reasons, but because confidence in their competence and integrity have plummeted.

Morning opening: Influx Limitation Act

Jakub Krupa

The focus is back on Germany today, where the Bundestag will discuss the Influx Limitation Act, a draft law aimed at controlling migration better by tightening the rules in the existing laws on residence.

This is not a drill: unlike the vote on Wednesday, which was on a non-binding motion, this is an actual draft law.

Even if it is almost impossible for it to complete the legislative process before next month’s election, it sends a strong signal of intent and marks another milestone in German politics. And you can feel the tensions rising every day now.

On Thursday, former chancellor Angela Merkel has criticised CDU/CSU leader, and likely future chancellor, Friedrich Merz, for breaking the “firewall” and passing the motion on Wednesday with the help of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland.

Separately, Auschwitz survivors criticised the vote, which one of them, Albrecht Weinberg, saying directly: “What happened in the Bundestag on Wednesday reminded me of Germany in 1933 of how Hitler and the Nazi party managed to come to power through legitimate means.”

On Thursday night, a big group of protesters also showed up in front of the CDU/CSU headquarters to express their frustration.

For Merz, there is no easy way out. If he passes the draft law once again relying on the AfD votes, he will get more criticism in the final three weeks of the campaign. But if he suddenly fails to get a majority, he will appear weak and incapable of delivering on his promises.

Merz faces a perennial question of how to deal with the rise of the far right and whether more mainstream parties can make a dent in their electoral prospects by taking some of their language and ideas. But the fifth anniversary of Brexit today reminds us how it can end.

The debate on the proposal 20/12804 is scheduled to start 10:30am. We will bring you the latest.

There is also plenty of stories elsewhere in Europe, so it’s likely to be a lively one!

It’s Friday, 31 January 2025, and this is Europe live. It’s Jakub Krupa here.

Good morning.