https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2025/07/05/18877844.php
=====================================================================================Cars rule the city center in Berlin—but there is no constitutional right to do so, according to a recent ruling by the Berlin Constitutional Court. This makes a car-free city center conceivable again—but what does the CDU say?
By Nick Reimer
[This article posted on July 2, 2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.freitag.de/autoren/nick-reimer/berliner-verfassungsgericht-hat-entschieden-die-vorherrschaft-der-autos-wackelt.]
Cars do not necessarily need roads
Is there a fundamental right to drive a car? That was the claim made by Berlin’s red-red-green Senate – the previous one, that is. And that’s how it seems. There are currently 49.3 million cars registered in Germany, and with 69 million people over the age of 18, it’s fair to call it a “car society.” However, the Berlin Constitutional Court has now ruled: No. There is no right to exclusive use of public roads by cars, and just because this is currently the case does not mean it has to remain so.
The debate was triggered by the “Berlin autofrei” (Berlin car-free) referendum, which campaigns for very strict sanctions on car use within the so-called S-Bahn ring – meaning Berlin’s city center. The initiators submitted 50,000 signatures to launch a referendum on the issue, although only 20,000 were required. Nevertheless, the Berlin Senate rejected it, namely the previous red-green-red coalition, which had campaigned on a “transport revolution” in its election program. Its argument against the referendum was that it was unconstitutional. The initiators wanted to allow private individuals only twelve, and later six, trips with private cars within the S-Bahn ring. The Senate argued that this was an infringement of car owners’ rights of action and property. The Berlin Constitutional Court has now ruled otherwise.
The “Berlin car-free” referendum is admissible
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According to the ruling, there is no right to the exclusive use of public roads by cars. Just because this is currently the case does not mean that it must remain so, argued the five female and four male judges. Surprisingly clear, by the way: eight votes to one. Individual restrictions are permissible, especially if they pursue “high-ranking public welfare goals with constitutional status.” The protection of health, life, and climate protection are such public welfare goals, and the referendum is therefore admissible.
The arguments are compelling: 29,000 people have died on Germany’s roads in the last ten years, and road safety and infrastructure cost society billions every year. The boom in SUVs and off-road vehicles contributes more to the growth of global greenhouse gas emissions than, for example, air traffic or heavy industry.
The ruling is a bombshell, as transport policy has always played a major role in Berlin. The majority of direct mandates in the inner districts went to the Alliance 90/The Greens, whose supporters tend to favor more cycling. Space is limited, and cyclists often protest against discrimination against them. Public transportation is better developed than in almost any other German city, and yet Berliners spend 40 to 60 minutes in traffic jams every day.
Barcelona, Paris, and Stockholm are already much more car-free than Berlin
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Other cities with millions of inhabitants have shown how city centers can become sustainable: Ten years ago, Barcelona implemented the “superblocks” concept to calm traffic in residential areas, while London has greatly reduced through traffic with its congestion charge. Copenhagen and Amsterdam have given priority to bicycles, and Paris has set up a so-called “Zone à Trafic Limité”: Only residents are allowed to use their cars in this zone. In March, Parisians voted to convert another 500 streets into car-free zones.
In Stockholm, a resident parking permit costs up to 1,300 euros per year, compared to 10.20 euros in Berlin. There were 11 superblocks in the German capital, which were fought for by residents. The black-red Senate has now ordered the immediate suspension of all plans for further superblocks. In fact, there used to be a car-free street in Berlin’s center. However, the new traffic senator, Manja Schreiner (CDU), ordered that Friedrichstraße be reopened to car traffic. Berlin likes to present itself as a cosmopolitan city, but when it comes to the traffic revolution, it is a backwater.
Problem: In Berlin, the majority votes for the CDU – and does not live in the center.
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In this respect, a referendum is a step forward. If the House of Representatives does not take up the issue now, 175,000 signatures will be needed to bring about a referendum. This is easily conceivable in Berlin.
However, this grassroots democratic process has a democratic catch: All Berliners will decide on a car-free inner city ring road. The majority do not live in the inner city districts, and the majority voted for the CDU, which rejected local speed limits and driving bans in the last election campaign. The car culture in Berlin is not so easy to attack.
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Economy: Minimum wage: How the employer lobby prevented the €15 wage
€15 would be feasible – and sensible. But employer associations have prevailed. Why this hurts many people – and who benefits from it
By Jan Peter Althoff
[This article posted on June 27, 2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.freitag.de/autoren/der-freitag/mindestlohn-wie-arbeitgeberverbaende-erfolgreich-gegen-15-euro-gewettert-haben.]
A higher minimum wage improves the incomes of millions of people in the lower wage segment, with women and employees in eastern Germany benefiting particularly.
The Minimum Wage Commission has spoken: The much-discussed minimum wage of 15 euros will not be introduced in the foreseeable future. On January 1, 2026, the general statutory minimum wage will rise from €12.82 to €13.90, and then to €14.60 a year later.
This corresponds to an overall increase of 13.9 percent. The decision was based on a compromise proposal by Commission Chair Christiane Schönefeld. Both employers and trade unions in the commission ultimately supported it.
This meant that there was no repeat of the scandal in mid-2023. At that time, the – supposedly impartial – commission chair Christiane Schönefeld, together with employer representatives, pushed through an increase in the minimum wage to just €12.41. This was far below the unions’ demands and did not even come close to offsetting the high inflation at the time.
The decision was preceded in October 2022 by a political increase in the minimum wage from €10.45 to €12 by the then traffic light coalition government. The small increase in 2023 was a tit-for-tat response by Schönefeld and the employers to this political intervention.
A scandal like the one in mid-2023 has thus been avoided
Also in response to what they considered a scandalously low increase in 2023, the unions had been demanding a substantial increase to €15 for some time. The SPD has allowed this amount to be written into the coalition agreement in vague terms – while at the same time emphasizing the primacy of the Minimum Wage Commission. According to the agreement, the commission will base its decision on both wage developments and 60 percent of the gross median wage of full-time employees.
And then: “In this way, a minimum wage of 15 euros can be achieved in 2026.” Chancellor Friedrich Merz interpreted this – quite understandably – as a rejection of the possibility of adjusting the minimum wage again through political intervention.
Women and employees in eastern Germany would benefit
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So there will be no minimum wage of 15 euros in 2026, nor in 2027. There would have been good reasons for it. A higher minimum wage improves the incomes of millions of people in the lower wage segment, with women and employees in eastern Germany benefiting particularly.
It would have been an additional boost for domestic demand. Low-income households in particular spend additional funds entirely on consumption, which directly stimulates private demand for goods and services.
Germany’s economy got off to a better start than expected in 2025; economic research institutes are currently revising their forecasts for the year as a whole and for 2026 upwards. In addition to the foreseeable increase in public investment thanks to the federal government’s debt package, higher demand from private households is a key driver of this – cautious – stabilization.
A higher minimum wage improves the incomes of millions of people in the lower wage segment.
The export sectors, on the other hand, are still in crisis. Given the geopolitical uncertainties, this is likely to remain the case, at least in the medium term. A stronger increase, especially for low incomes, would have been consistent in this situation. It would have placed less of a burden on export-oriented companies, as they employ only a below-average number of workers at the minimum wage. Instead, it would have further strengthened private demand – and thus indirectly benefited those companies and industries that profit most from it.
Successful resistance from employer and industry associations
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This is precisely what employer and industry associations had been campaigning against for weeks. In particular, the German Farmers’ Association repeatedly warned against an increase to 15 euros and called for exceptions for seasonal workers. Otherwise, a higher minimum wage would spell the end for many agricultural businesses. The employers’ association Gesamtmetall, whose member companies are only marginally affected, also spoke out against the €15 minimum wage, as did the catering and skilled trades sectors.
Back in April, the German Trade Association, the German Farmers’ Association, the Raiffeisen Association, the bakers’ guild, Gesamtmetall, and the agricultural and forestry employers’ associations issued a joint statement warning of company bankruptcies and rising prices as a result of a higher minimum wage.
However, these are less problematic than they may appear given the alarmist cacophony of recent weeks. If prices for goods and services produced at the minimum wage rise, a large part of the population will lose some purchasing power, as these households will have to pay slightly more for the same consumption. However, the minority of minimum wage earners will benefit – for good reasons: income distribution will become less unequal.
Bankruptcies are not a horror scenario
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Even corporate bankruptcies are not a horror scenario. Companies that pay the minimum wage pass on some or all of the increased labor costs to their prices. This may lead to lower sales and, in some cases, bankruptcy. If people get their hair cut less often, for example, some hair salons will disappear.
However, this is simply a sign that society considers the goods and services in question to be wholly or partially dispensable and prefers to spend its income elsewhere.
This may be annoying for the companies affected, but it is beneficial for the economy as a whole: it can use its time and money more effectively. It spends the money on products for which it is willing to pay more. And it uses the (working) time of its employees for goods and services that are produced with higher productivity, which in turn enables higher wages.
This is not a “creeping loss of simple jobs,” as the employer-friendly German Economic Institute dutifully claims. It is a prerequisite for good wages and prosperity.
In any case, the worst solution would be to keep such industries alive by paying poor wages.
Now, there may be good reasons why certain goods and services continue to exist despite insufficient demand. Security of supply, for example, may argue in favor of domestic agricultural production, while cultural reasons may argue for maintaining a diverse range of restaurants. In case of doubt, political intervention or public funds will be needed—as has long been the case with hospitals, daycare centers, and theaters.
In any case, the worst solution would be to keep such industries and businesses alive by paying their employees poorly.
In short, a higher minimum wage would have made sense.
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Economy: One-fifth of global oil exports: Will the Strait of Hormuz soon be closed?
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Donald Trump bombs Iran, the Middle East trembles – now Tehran is threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz! Is an oil shock coming? And what exactly is Iran planning? Four facts about the world’s most important sea route by far
By Kate Lamb
The Guardian
[This Guardian article posted on June 23, 2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.freitag.de/autoren/the-guardian/4-fakten-zur-strasse-von-hormus-wird-der-wichtigste-seeweg-der-welt-geschlossen.]
Will Iran close the Strait of Hormuz?
President Donald Trump’s unprecedented decision to bomb three Iranian nuclear facilities has significantly heightened fears of further escalation in the Middle East. In a joint operation with Israel – the largest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution – the world is now bracing itself for a possible Iranian response.
Analysts warn that Tehran’s response could be to block the Strait of Hormuz, a key trade route through which more than a fifth of the world’s oil supply (20 million barrels) and large quantities of liquefied natural gas are transported every day.
Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the strait in the past, which would restrict global trade and have a massive impact on oil prices – but so far, it has never actually done so.
What is the Strait of Hormuz?
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The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most important oil chokepoints and is of great geostrategic importance, not only for the United States. The stability of the global economy depends to a large extent on the unimpeded flow of oil through this strait.
It lies between Oman and Iran and connects the Persian Gulf in the north with the Gulf of Oman in the south and beyond to the Arabian Sea. At its narrowest point, the Strait of Hormuz is only 33 kilometers wide – the actual shipping route is just three kilometers wide.
Why is it so important?
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Around one-fifth of the world’s oil consumption is transported through the Strait of Hormuz every day. According to data from the analysis company Vortexa, between the beginning of 2022 and last month, around 17.8 to 20.8 million barrels of crude oil, condensates, and fuels passed through the strait every day.
The members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) – including Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Iraq – ship most of their crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz, mainly to Asia. The US Fifth Fleet (“United States Fifth Fleet”), based in Bahrain, is responsible for protecting commercial shipping in this region. Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain, is responsible for protecting commercial shipping in this region.
What would happen if the strait were closed?
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Blocking the Strait of Hormuz would have the strategic advantage of putting President Trump under immediate pressure: a sharp rise in oil prices would almost immediately trigger a wave of inflation worldwide – especially in the US.
At the same time, however, such a move would be an act of massive economic self-harm. Iranian oil is also exported via this route. Closing the strait would also increase the risk that the Gulf states – which have sharply criticized the Israeli attack – would be drawn into the conflict to protect their own economic interests.
Closing the strait would hit China particularly hard. The world’s second-largest economy imports almost 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports – despite international sanctions. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio therefore called on China to exert its influence on Tehran to prevent a blockade. Speaking to Fox News, he said: “I encourage the Chinese government in Beijing to call the Iranians – because they are highly dependent on the Strait of Hormuz for their oil supplies.”
He added: “If they actually do that, it would be another serious mistake.” For the Iranians themselves, it would be “economic suicide.” According to reports, some supertankers have already had to turn back after the US air strikes – in this strategically sensitive waterway of all places.
What has Iran said about the Strait of Hormuz?
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As reported by state broadcaster Press TV over the weekend, the Iranian parliament has approved a measure to close the Strait of Hormuz. However, the final decision on this lies with the country’s supreme leadership. Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi hinted on Sunday at possible long-term retaliation. Trump’s decision to bomb Iran would have “eternal consequences,” he said.
In his first public statement since the US entered Israel’s war against his country, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Israel had made a “grave mistake” and “must be punished.” However, he did not specifically mention the Strait of Hormuz.
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Finally talking about genocide
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by Matthias Hui
[This article posted on 6/18/2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.neuewege.ch/endlich-ueber-genozid-sprechen.]
The persecution of the Yenish people by the “Hilfswerk” Kinder der Landstrasse (Children of the Road) between 1926 and 1973 was a crime against humanity. This is stated more clearly than ever before in the expert opinion commissioned by the Federal Department of Home Affairs and recognized by the Federal Council, written by Oliver Diggelmann in February 2025. The professor of international law also investigated whether the acts constituted genocide. However, in his opinion, they did not constitute genocide, as recognized by organizations representing those affected. Not all experts agree with this assessment. Professor of criminal law Nadja Capus asks: “What other goal could the removal of children have had other than the extermination of an ethnic group?” What is clear is that even in recent Swiss history, there is debate about genocide. Genocide is not just its worst possible form, the Shoah.
The international community tried to learn from the Shoah. Crimes of this kind should never happen again, anywhere. In 1948, the states agreed on the UN Genocide Convention. It defines acts committed with the intent to “destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial” – the latter term would have to be replaced with ‘racialized’ from today’s perspective – “or religious group as such” as genocide. A well-known example: the UN War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia classified the 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica as genocide.
The fact that Israel’s horrendous response to the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, could amount to genocide against the Palestinian population was initially unthinkable in most places. The shock over the inhuman attack was, understandably, profound, especially in Israel and the Jewish world, and dominated global public opinion. In the Western media and Western politics, those who dared to warn of genocide were immediately pilloried, stigmatized with the most vehement accusations of anti-Semitism, and punished with exclusion from the discourse. I remember irritating conversations with friends—church people, Jewish people, academics, media professionals, including from leading left-wing media outlets, and party politicians—in which the discussion of genocide was avoided at almost any cost or dismissed as unreflective pro-Palestinian sentiment.
Perhaps many sensed the massive consequences it would have for their own moral and political positioning to reckon with a strategy of genocide by the Jewish state of Israel or its right-wing extremist government. The resulting politically engineered paralysing silence provided the necessary backing for those who were pushing forward an unscrupulously genocidal policy. The protests at universities against the ongoing genocide, which were strongly supported by Jewish students, were not only suppressed in the US with massive smear campaigns and repression; they formed a rare moment of momentum in this war that could have tipped public opinion worldwide. Without a doubt, the term “genocide” was used by some out of desperation over the senseless war, with provocative and demagogic intent, and in rare cases with anti-Semitic undertones. But talking about genocide always has a warning and preventive function. Banning it has devastating consequences, as the situation in Gaza in the summer of 2025 shows.
The bewilderment, including my own, was compounded by the reaction of Western governments to the verdict of the International Court of Justice in January 2024: The fact that there was an initial suspicion of genocide and that it would be investigated further was dismissed by those who had argued against Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine on the basis of international law, as if this central international legal authority were simply expressing one opinion among many. At the same time, the facts of the attack on Gaza, which could be followed live, became increasingly overwhelming: the destruction of all infrastructure in the health and education sectors, the starvation of the entire population, calls by officials on camera for the expulsion or even extermination of the Palestinians.
Even if the people on the ground have not been saved, the tide is turning in early summer 2025. For example, the Spanish prime minister drew conclusions: “We do not do business with a genocidal state.” Today, I have no doubt that Israel’s war crimes in Gaza will one day be classified as genocide. (What will remain of Gaza for its future is another matter entirely.) It is not only leading human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that classify Israel’s actions as genocide. It was not only UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher who asked the UN Security Council in May 2025: “What more evidence do you need? Will you act decisively to prevent genocide and ensure compliance with international humanitarian law?” Virtually all renowned genocide researchers describe Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide in scientific publications and public statements. Some have come to this conclusion after a long process of grappling with the increasingly overwhelming facts. Holocaust researcher Amos Goldberg of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem cites the destruction of Gaza as a political, social, and national collective, the systematic creation of conditions for mass death, such as the destruction of hospitals or the blocking of humanitarian aid, and finally the evidence of intent in genocidal statements by politicians, media figures, officers, and influential rabbis.
The first priority is still to stop the genocide and save human lives. But the central question for the international community is: How can Palestinian society—individually, starting with all traumatized children, and socio-politically—experience a healing process and ultimately liberation? Ultimately, the nagging question will arise as to how Israeli society could have allowed itself to come so close to genocide and normalize offensive genocidal rhetoric in politics, the media, and society. Quite a few people are asking themselves the harrowing question of whether and how a society, a state—including, of course, individual soldiers, fathers, and mothers—can recover from such a moral abyss. In Western countries, the question will arise in retrospect as to why politicians have devoted more energy to combating talk of genocide than to combating the actual genocide. How will Switzerland one day come to terms with its failure, once again, as the depositary state of the Geneva Conventions and constitutional guardian of human rights, to fulfill its duty to warn of genocide and seek to stop it, even though it had long been aware of the situation on the ground thanks to information from its own people and ICRC delegates?
Matthias Hui,
born in 1962, is co-editor-in-chief of Neue Wege, a theologian, and a member of the board of the Swiss Human Rights Institution SMRI.
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Standing firm
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by Iren Meier
[This article posted on 5/27/2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.neuewege.ch/standhalten.]
“Saying no has a great beauty.” I don’t claim to understand this sentence right away. Not even after thinking about it intensively. The longer it stays with me, the more mysterious it becomes. It struck me right in the heart. It was uttered by Mohammad Rasoulof, the great Iranian film director. In his latest masterpiece, The Seed of the Holy Fig Tree, he explores the human being who must find his position and attitude in an unjust regime. Rasoulof does this in such a nuanced and multi-layered way that you leave the cinema completely confused, thrown back on yourself and the big questions. At first glance, you would expect him to say something like, “Saying no comes at a high price” or “Saying no takes courage.” But he speaks of great beauty. Very decisively. And—as I see it—demanding. Go with this sentence! And explore it!
I set out on a journey. In search of clues. And I ended up in South Africa in 1985. In Beyers Naudé’s living room. What remains with me from my first personal encounter with a resistance fighter?
South Africa, bleeding and in turmoil, angry and loud, five years before Nelson Mandela regained his freedom. Beyers Naudé was not imprisoned in a cell on Robben Island. He was under a kind of house arrest. The first white man to be so. At the time, this was called “banned” in South Africa. He had no passport, no freedom of movement, almost no contact with the outside world. He was not allowed to have more than one guest at a time in his home. An upright man, ostracized and marginalized. Prison and isolation without physical bars, cruel too. Naudé’s ban had been lifted just before our visit.
I can still see us walking through the front garden of his house, entering the living room where this brave man sat. With his hair neatly parted, his old-fashioned glasses, and the hint of a smile. He was easy to imagine as a pastor. He spoke German. And he spoke softly.
I remember thinking: this biography, this journey. And he acts as if it’s nothing special. His ancestors, who landed in Table Bay with Jan van Riebeeck in 1652, were among the first settlers. Born into a long-established Boer family, Naudé swore allegiance to the “African Brotherhood,” the nationalist, racist, political-religious movement of the Boers. It became the ideological center of apartheid. The theologian Naudé rose high in the hierarchy of the secret society – and then he left. After the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, when 69 Black people were shot dead during a demonstration, he broke with his past and became a traitor to his comrades and his closed, privileged white world.
For the oppressed, he became a fellow human being who stood in solidarity with them and a white comrade-in-arms against injustice and racism. He joined the Black Reformed Church. The personal price he had to pay for this was high. But he never said a word about it when he described the reality of South Africa to us back then. No bitterness.
Why do I think back to Beyers Naudé? He has been dead for a long time, and South Africa has won its freedom. I remember him because something about that encounter has remained indelibly etched in my memory. The calmness that surrounded him. More precisely: the peace. And his face. The expression of someone who had come a long, hard way and was now at peace with himself and his conscience.
When I read Rasoulof’s sentence, Beyers Naudé immediately came to mind. There is great beauty in saying no.
From Beyers Naudé, my trail leads me to Jovan Divjak. Seven years later. 1992 in Bosnia. Jovan Divjak, born a Serb in Belgrade, wanted to be a teacher. His single mother couldn’t afford his education and sent her son to the army, a free alternative to civilian studies. Jovan became a general in the former Yugoslav army. When disaster struck and this army besieged and shelled Sarajevo under Serbian rule, Divjak decided to switch sides. He stayed and helped build up the Bosnian army to defend Sarajevo. Why? “I couldn’t do anything else,” he said later. A Serbian general with the enemy. A traitor. A defector. Mistrust, hatred, slander… there was nothing he didn’t experience.
Why do I think back to Jovan Divjak? He too is dead. And the Yugoslav wars have long since been overshadowed by others, new ones. The images from back then are blurring. But not all of them.
It was 1992, the first year of the war. Fehim, 17, and Mirza, 12, were playing basketball with friends in front of their house in besieged Sarajevo.
A grenade fired from Serbian territory hit the teenagers, killing the brothers and one of their friends. Halida Bojadži, Fehim and Mirza’s mother, found her sons torn to pieces. Jovan Divjak set off for the Bojadži family home just hours later. He was nervous and afraid: “I didn’t know how they would react to me. The Serbs.”
There is a TV documentary in which Divjak recalls how he slowly climbed the stairs to the family’s garden, how the general and the bereaved mother met: “He hugged me and cried like a child,” Halida said later. “He came to us as a Serb. He shared with us the pain he had not caused. He asked for forgiveness for others.”
A moment of great beauty.
Jovan Divjak and the Bojadži parents never lost touch again; a bond united them until their deaths. And the general, who would have liked to become a teacher, took Bosnian orphans under his wing after the war and showed them what reconciliation means. Peace. Respect. And courage.
The objection is valid: these are the brave, the great. Too great for me? But who else should we look to if not them? In the storms of this world, in which we must seek stability and support. When madness, cruelty, and dehumanization become political programs. Start anew. Perhaps simply begin. Quietly, modestly. A small, hesitant, and fearful “no” can be of great beauty.
Iren Meier,*1955, lives in Bern and reports mainly on Turkey and Iran. She has worked as a journalist for Radio SRF since 1981. From 1992 to 2001, she was a correspondent for Eastern Europe and the Balkans, based in Prague and Belgrade. From 2004 to 2012, she worked as a Middle East correspondent in Beirut.