Author

Doug Brown

Latest by Doug Brown

Business

Money Managers Race for a Slice of Germany's 577 Billion Dollar Pension Overhaul

• A reform that steers German retirement savings into the stock market could roughly double private pension assets to about 500 billion euros over the next decade
• The prize has set off a scramble among the world's biggest fund managers

Economy

The Rhine Falls to a Record Low, Stalling Shipping and Squeezing German Industry

• Water on the Rhine has dropped to its lowest level since records began in 1880, leaving barges stranded at the river's shallowest point and forcing German industry to scramble for costly alternatives just as a summer drought tightens its grip

Business

NTT DATA Business Solutions Earns SAP's Golden Certificate as a Global Operations Partner

• The German-headquartered SAP specialist NTT DATA Business Solutions has been awarded SAP's Golden Certificate, a mark of recognition for its standing as a Global Operations Partner within the software maker's partner network

Business

Ströer Posts Solid First-Half Growth but Its Shares Slip on Debt and Third-Quarter Worries

• The German out-of-home advertising group Ströer lifted revenue and profit in the first half of 2026, powered by its digital billboards, yet its shares eased as investors focused on rising debt and a softer look to the coming quarter

Politics

Germany Moves to Give Its Spy Agencies Sweeping New Powers to Counter Russian Threats

• Berlin's cabinet has approved draft legislation that would hand the foreign intelligence service and its domestic counterpart far wider powers, from sabotaging hostile operations to scanning vast datasets with artificial intelligence
• Ministers cast it as a response to a growing hybrid campaign from Russia

Economy

Germany's Trade Deficit With China Swells to 55 Billion Euros as Exports Slide

• Germany has recorded a trade gap of about 55 billion euros with China, as its exports to the country fall while Chinese goods pour in
• The reversal marks a hard turn for an economy long used to selling more to China than it buys

Business

Apax to Buy Gerresheimer's Plastic Packaging Businesses in a 1.5 Billion Euro Carve-Out

• The German packaging group Gerresheimer is selling two of its plastic packaging arms, Centor and its global Primary Packaging Plastics unit, to the private equity firm Apax in a deal worth about 1.5 billion euros, part of a push to slim down and focus on its higher-value business

Business

More Than a Concert: How Maxim Berin's BIG ART Festival Redefined Luxury Entertainment in Sardinia

• A concert may last little more than an hour, but the right evening can stay in memory for years
• That distinction defined BIG ART Festival in Porto Cervo on August 9, when Maxim Berin turned Romazzino, A Belmond Hotel into a complete world of music, design, gastronomy and Mediterranean elegance, crowned by Robbie Williams

Health

Why Reinvention Is Good for the Brain: The Psychology Behind the I.R.I.N.A. Method™

• Change is often described as exciting, but psychologically it is rarely comfortable
• Entrepreneur, coach and neuropsychology specialist Irina Biss built her work, and The I.R.I.N.A

Business

Trump Administration to Pay Germany's RWE $1.2 Billion to Walk Away From US Wind Projects

• The German energy giant RWE has agreed to give up its offshore wind leases in American waters in exchange for a payout of about 1.2 billion dollars from the Interior Department, and it plans to put much of the money into gas instead

Politics

Germany's Security Council Meets After a Suspected Drone Attack at Its Main Cargo Hub

• A cargo jet struck an unknown object leaving Leipzig and Halle airport, and a drone was later found near a runway
• Federal prosecutors are treating it as an attempt to compromise national security, and Chancellor Friedrich Merz has convened the National Security Council

Politics

Pistorius Signals Germany's Newest RCH 155 Howitzers Are Already in Ukraine

• During a factory visit, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said Germany's cutting-edge RCH 155 howitzer is going down well in Ukraine, a remark that appears to confirm the advanced system is already on the battlefield rather than still in training

Politics

Europe Is Backsliding on Climate Action With Germany Pulling the Brakes, Analysts Warn

• The Climate Action Tracker says the European Union is loosening its climate rules just as heatwaves, wildfires and drought grip the continent, and it singles out Germany as a driving force behind the retreat

Business

Germany's Fuchs Halts Output at Its Saudi Lubricants Plant After a Fire in Yanbu

• The German lubricants maker Fuchs has suspended production at a joint-venture plant in the Red Sea port of Yanbu after a blaze caused heavy damage
• No workers were hurt, and the company says it can keep supplying customers through other sources

Politics

Merz Presses Morocco to Take Back Migrants Who Surged Into Spain's Ceuta

• After thousands of people crossed into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco, Chancellor Friedrich Merz demanded that Rabat take them back at once
• The intervention pulls Berlin into a crisis on Europe's southern edge and underlines his hard line on irregular migration

Business

Veronika Jeanvie Revives the Spirit of Marie Antoinette in a Spectacular Haute Couture Performance at Montmartre

• An extraordinary fashion performance transformed Paris' historic Carrousel de Saint-Pierre into a living stage where haute couture, history and theatrical artistry became one

Politics

Germany Weighs a Return to the Draft as Its Volunteer Push Falls Short

• A new voluntary service model was meant to rebuild the Bundeswehr, but only a few hundred recruits have signed up this year
• Now Berlin faces a decision it hoped to avoid, whether to make military service mandatory again for the first time since 2011

Business

NordLB Pushes Into Fund Finance and CLOs to Rebuild Its Capital Markets Arm

• The state-backed lender from Hannover, once brought low by bad shipping loans, is chasing growth in fund finance and the structuring of collateralised loan obligations
• It is a bid to widen its earnings beyond traditional lending under a new head of capital markets

Business

Paris and Berlin Reach for a Made in Europe Pact to Rescue Their Carmakers

• France and Germany are trying to fuse two agendas into one grand bargain, French protection for European industry and German relief for a car sector in crisis
• The prize is a Made in Europe framework that would tilt public money toward the continent's own factories

Business

How Happy Pot Is Rewriting the Etiquette of the Group Gift

• The collective present has always been long on good intentions and short on logistics
• A Swiss platform called Happy Pot argues that the awkward part, the chasing and the spreadsheets, is exactly the part technology should absorb

News

One Killed and Many Hurt as Van Strikes Berlin Pride Crowd, Suspect Shot Dead by Police

• A van was driven into crowds at Berlin's Christopher Street Day celebrations on Friday night, killing a woman and injuring more than a dozen people
• The interior minister said the evidence points to an Islamist terror attack, and the named suspect was later shot dead by police in Spandau

Business

THE Circle Debuts in Zurich, Where Introductions Are Meant to Become Capital

• Viktory Agency has launched THE Circle, an invitation-only salon for entrepreneurs, investors and luxury brands
• Its first evening unfolded at the Baur au Lac in Zurich on July 4, 2026, and the agency is already mapping a European calendar that runs through Paris, Monaco and beyond

Business

Berlin Steps Back and Tells UniCredit and Commerzbank to Sort It Out Themselves

• Germany's finance ministry says the fate of Commerzbank now rests with the two banks rather than the government, a notable shift in tone even as Berlin keeps calling UniCredit's pursuit aggressive
• With the Italian lender sitting on close to half the shares, the pressure on Frankfurt is real

Business

German Fintech Funding Storms Back in 2026, Led by Green Money and B2B Software

• German fintech pulled in about 1.2 billion euros in the first half of 2026, nearly triple the previous six months
• Clean-energy financing and business-facing software did most of the heavy lifting, and Germany held its place as Europe's second biggest fintech market behind Britain

Politics

Arcana Mace, the 'European Palantir': What the Defence-Tech Platform Truly Is

• Defence Trading calls Arcana Mace a European answer to Palantir, a sovereign software layer for military procurement
• A separate investigation asks whether the same brand is also a media marketplace sitting on top of a shadow defence-technology stack

Economy

Germany Approves a 152 Point Plan to Stop Its Best Startups Leaving Home

• The cabinet has signed off a startup strategy aimed at a single stubborn problem, that the country is good at founding companies but poor at keeping them here once they grow

Business

Italy's Italo Bets 3.6 Billion Euros on Cracking Open Germany's Railways

• The Italian high speed operator has ordered 26 Siemens trains and plans to run 50 services a day across Germany from 2028, a direct challenge to Deutsche Bahn on its home tracks

Politics

Merz Calls a Minister's Exit an Opportunity, and Berlin Hears a Reshuffle Coming

• A senior minister walked away over the weekend
• Instead of treating it as a loss, the chancellor told ZDF the vacancy could be a chance to rethink who sits around his cabinet table

Politics

Berlin and Paris Draw Closer on Defence as Europe Bets on Its Own Muscle

• Friedrich Merz and Emmanuel Macron used a meeting in Bruehl to widen military cooperation across nuclear deterrence, missile defence and long range strike, a bid to give Europe more of its own weight as Washington pulls back

Politics

Why NATO Radar Planes Keep Circling Over the Baltic

• A NATO early warning jet has been tracing slow loops over Latvia and the Gulf of Riga, and the pattern is less a mystery than a message aimed squarely at Moscow

Economy

Ten EU States Push Back on Brussels Over Carbon Charge for Heating and Fuel

• A bloc of ten member states led by Italy and Poland wants Brussels to soften a planned carbon price on heating oil and road fuel before it starts in 2028, and together they hold enough votes to force the argument

Politics

Berlin's Mayor Steps Away From Re-election as a Blackout Scandal Refuses to Fade

• Kai Wegner has announced he will not seek another term as Berlin's mayor, conceding that the fallout from a week long winter blackout has drowned out everything else he wanted to say to voters

News

A Radical Group Says It Set the Fires That Cut a Major German Rail Line

• A group calling itself Kommando Angry Birds has claimed it planted incendiary devices in trackside cable ducts north of Leverkusen, severing the busy Cologne to Dusseldorf line and reviving fears about how exposed Germany's infrastructure has become

News

Germany Is Paying for 50,000 Strike Drones to Send to Ukraine

• A reported German deal worth around 90 million euros would put 50,000 first person view attack drones into Ukrainian hands, one of the largest orders of its kind and a sign of how central cheap, smart drones have become to the war

News

Zverev Chases Wimbledon Glory Against Sinner in a Final Loaded With History

• Alexander Zverev has reached his first Wimbledon final and stands one win from a second Grand Slam in as many months, but standing across the net is the defending champion and world number one Jannik Sinner

News

Marc Marquez Sets the Pace at the Sachsenring as Silly Season Steals the Show

• Marc Marquez opened the German MotoGP weekend on top at a track he owns, but the paddock chatter belonged to a wave of 2027 signings that is already reshaping the grid

Politics

Germany Clears Its New F128 Frigates for Building, but Keeps a Tight Leash

• The Bundestag budget committee has signed off on four new F128 frigates worth 6.3 billion euros, yet the approval comes wrapped in oversight rules that reflect how sharply the price has climbed since the plan began

Business

Volkswagen Workers Walk Out as the Board Weighs Mass Cuts and Plant Closures

• Thousands of Volkswagen employees staged protests across Germany as the carmaker's leadership met to weigh a restructuring that could shut four plants and cut as many as 100,000 jobs, with the powerful IG Metall union warning of open conflict

Business

A Rescue Deal Aims to Keep the Feneberg Name and Its Jobs Alive in the Allgau

• The insolvent regional grocer Feneberg has a way forward, with LEH-Allgau under Alexander Pade and the Rewe Group agreeing to split its 72 stores between them and pledging to protect the brand and the people who work in it

Politics

Zelensky Chased Firm Promises in Ankara, and Left With a Mix of Cash and Maybes

• NATO wrapped its Ankara summit with a 70 billion euro pledge for Ukraine and warm words about unity, but the guarantees Zelensky wanted most stayed vague, leaving him to bank concrete deals with individual allies instead

Health

Three Graduates Are Turning Brewery Leftovers Into a High Protein Milk

• A Munich startup founded by three university graduates is spinning the spent grain left over from beer into a milk alternative it says packs three times the protein of oat milk with a fraction of the sugar

Economy

How the Price of a Doner Became Germany's Real Inflation Gauge

• The doner kebab has quietly turned into the number Germans trust more than any official statistic, a street food barometer of the cost of living that now shapes dinner table anger and party politics alike

News

One of the Deadliest Strikes on Kyiv Lays Bare Ukraine's Air Defence Gap

• A Russian barrage that killed dozens in Kyiv and damaged scores of apartment blocks has exposed how thin Ukraine's defences have grown against ballistic missiles, even as it intercepts the vast majority of what Moscow throws at it

Health

DAK Puts up 60,000 Euros for Digital Ideas That Make Work Healthier

• For the eleventh time the health insurer DAK-Gesundheit is running its German workplace health award, and this year the brief is squarely digital, with 60,000 euros in support on offer for projects that use technology to keep employees well

News

Trump Reportedly Called FIFA's President Before Balogun's Red Card Was Frozen

• A report says President Trump phoned Gianni Infantino and asked for a review, and hours later FIFA suspended Folarin Balogun's World Cup red card, clearing the United States striker to face Belgium in the Round of 16

Politics

Klingbeil Wants Middle Earners to Keep up to 900 Euros More a Year

• The finance minister is pushing an income tax overhaul aimed at people on 2,500 to 4,000 euros a month, with the biggest names in the 40,000 to 60,000 euro bracket set to save close to 900 euros a year, paid for in part by leaning harder on top earners

Politics

Why a Minijob Overhaul Could Quietly Trim Take Home Pay by up to 52 Euros a Month

• A fresh set of reform proposals would end the social insurance exemption that defines German minijobs, and new calculations suggest the lowest earners could lose around 52 euros a month while nothing has actually changed yet

Business

Europe’s Health Data Reckoning Has Begun: EHDS Will Expose the Vendors and Countries That Mistake Connectivity for Interoperability

• New European market analysis warns that the European Health Data Space is no longer a Brussels policy story, it is now a hospital budget, vendor accountability, and data-quality crisis
• Europe’s most…