International
Germany celebrates 34 years of reunification but with political cracks due to populism
The Germans celebrate 34 years of reunification, a process that ended with the division of the two Germanys, although the recent electoral behavior of the East Germans, where populist parties have become strong, cracks the traditional political scenario of the country.
Behind the festive atmosphere marked by the events of the 34º anniversary of the reunification led by Chancellor Helmut Kohl, a concern weighs the political reality: the booming populism of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the leftist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW).
The results of these parties in appointments such as the European elections last June or the recent elections of the federal states of Eastern Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg, have hit the Central European nation, in which new political divisions between East and West seem to be opening up.
“In 1989, the two Germanys started from different economic and social points and the expectation was that soon there would be an equalization and that would also equalize political points of view,” Martin Schulze Wessel, historian at the University of Munich and expert in Eastern Europe, told EFE.
“At the socio-economic level there is still no equalization, although progress is being made in that direction, but with regard to the vision of politics and political culture, that equalization has not taken place, moreover, there have been new divergences,” he said.
Schulze Wessel alludes to the fact that, after 35 years of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the standard of living in what was the German Democratic Republic (GDR) has increased although the gap between the east and the west is still observed in data such as that the East Germans receive a salary 14% lower than the Westerners, according to data from the Hans Böckler Foundation, a study center specialized in the Teutonic world of work.
This Thursday, in a speech delivered in the city of Schwerin (northeast), Scholz invited to abandon the idea that total equality between east and west in Germany can take place.
“The idea that unification would end completely when the situation in the east would be exactly the same as that in the west, when there is no west that is a single unit, is an idea that does not help us,” Scholz said in the context of the celebration of German Unity Day.
Strong populism in the east
Politically, the east has a different dynamic, as shown by the fact that in the last European elections AfD was – with few exceptions such as Berlin – the most voted force in what constituted the GDR, while in the western territory it swept away the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
In those elections, the CDU won with 30% of the votes, followed by the AfD, with 15.9%, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD, 13.9%) and The Greens (11.9%).
In the European elections, BSW broke out with 6.7%, a percentage celebrated as a success because that formation was barely a few months old and because, in East Germany, the party of the leftist figure Sahra Wagenknecht managed to be the most voted party, after AfD and the CDU.
According to Daniel Kubiak, a researcher at the Humboldt University of Berlin, told EFE, “we can see that the party system of East Germany differs from the West, because in the west there are still two majority parties (CDU, SPD), which have been joined by the Greens, the FDP and AfD, and it is largely stable.”
“The east is more volatile and people tend to vote for parties located at the ends,” he added.
This, according to Kubiak, is not something unique in Europe, since the vote has also become more volatile in other nations of Europe, such as France, Italy, Poland or Austria, the latter country in which the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) won the legislative elections last Sunday.
The end of the consensus on aid to Ukraine
Among the issues with which AfD and BSW differed in the European elections, but also in the federal states of the east that voted in September, where the far-right formation won in Thuringia, while the Wagenkecht party is emerging as a government partner in Saxony and Brandenburg, is the opposition to military support for Ukraine.
AfD and BSW want Germany to break with the current policy of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has turned his country into the nation in Europe that provides the most military aid to Ukraine.
“The European elections and the elections in the federal states of the east have shown a division and that there are populist parties, the far-right AfD and BSW, that go out of the consensus of the other parties, and there seems to be a rift between east and west,” Schulze Wessel concluded.
International
María Corina Machado says Venezuela’s political transition “must take place”
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said this Thursday, during a virtual appearance at an event hosted by the Venezuelan-American Association of the U.S. (VAAUS) in New York, that Venezuela’s political transition “must take place” and that the opposition is now “more organized than ever.”
Machado, who is set to receive the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10 in Oslo, Norway — although it is not yet known whether she will attend — stressed that the opposition is currently focused on defining “what comes next” to ensure that the transition is “orderly and effective.”
“We have legitimate leadership and a clear mandate from the people,” she said, adding that the international community supports this position.
Her remarks come amid a hardening of U.S. policy toward the government of Nicolás Maduro, with new economic sanctions and what has been described as the “full closure” of airspace over and around Venezuela — a measure aimed at airlines, pilots, and alleged traffickers — increasing pressure on Caracas and further complicating both air mobility and international commercial operations.
During her speech, Machado highlighted the resilience of the Venezuelan people, who “have suffered, but refuse to surrender,” and said the opposition is facing repression with “dignity and moral strength,” including “exiles and political prisoners who have been separated from their families and have given everything for the democratic cause.”
She also thanked U.S. President Donald Trump for recognizing that Venezuela’s transition is “a priority” and for his role as a “key figure in international pressure against the Maduro regime.”
“Is change coming? Absolutely yes,” Machado said, before concluding that “Venezuela will be free.”
International
Catalonia’s president calls for greater ambition in defending democracy
The President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Salvador Illa, on Thursday called for being “more ambitious” in defending democracy, which he warned is being threatened “from within” by inequality, extremism, and hate speech driven by what he described as a “politics of intimidation,” on the final day of his visit to Mexico.
“The greatest threat to democracies is born within themselves. It is inequality and the winds of extremism. Both need each other and feed off one another,” Illa said during a speech at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City.
In his address, Illa stated that in the face of extremism, society can adopt “two attitudes: hope or fear,” and warned that hate-driven rhetoric seeks to weaken citizens’ resolve. “We must be aware that hate speech, the politics of intimidation, and threats in the form of tariffs, the persecution of migrants, drones flying over Europe, or even war like the invasion of Ukraine, or walls at the border, all pursue the same goal: to make citizens give up and renounce who they want to be,” he added.
Despite these challenges, he urged people “not to lose hope,” emphasizing that there is a “better alternative,” which he summarized as “dialogue, institutional cooperation, peace, and human values.”
“I sincerely believe that we must be more ambitious in our defense of democracy, and that we must remember, demonstrate, and put into practice everything we are capable of doing. Never before has humanity accumulated so much knowledge, so much capacity, and so much power to shape the future,” Illa stressed.
For that reason, he called for a daily defense of the democratic system “at all levels and by each person according to their responsibility,” warning that democracy is currently facing an “existential threat.”
International
WMO predicts 55% chance of weakened La Niña impacting global weather this winter
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported on Thursday that there is a 55% chance that the La Niña phenomenon, typically associated with cooler temperatures, will affect global weather between December and February, though in a weakened form.
In its update released Thursday, the WMO clarified that while La Niña is usually linked to a temporary drop in average global temperatures, some regions could still experience warmer-than-normal conditions.
As 2026 progresses, the WMO expects the planet to shift toward neutral conditions, neither influenced by La Niña nor by its opposite, El Niño, which is associated with increased temperatures. The likelihood of neutral conditions is expected to rise to 75% between February and April, according to the agency’s regular bulletin on these phenomena.
La Niña occurs due to cooling of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean waters and is also linked to changes in tropical atmospheric circulation, including wind and rainfall patterns. The opposite phenomenon, El Niño, has not been observed by experts since 2024, which currently remains the warmest year on record.
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