Carnival season set to generate €2 billion

An International Press Card (IPC) ostensibly issued by the German Journalists’ Union (dju) to Ghislaine Maxwell is probably fake, the Verdi trade union said Monday.

A copy of the International Press Card (IPC) emerged in files recently released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Jeffrey Epstein’s yearslong sexual abuse of underage girls. Maxwell was found guilty of sex trafficking for luring underage girls toward Epstein and is currently serving a 20-year sentence. 

Verdi said the number of the card was different from other cards issued in 2015. 

“We are thus assuming a counterfeit IPC,” the union said. Copies of the card found in the DOJ files show the front of the IPC, with a photo of Maxwell and her name.

DW spoke to the chairman of the Munich Security Conference, former US ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger, on Monday, days before the event opens. 

Last year’s event was dominated by a pointed speech from US President JD Vance, who criticized European migration policies and later met with leaders from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), who were not invited to the event. 

This year, that will change. But Ischinger told DW US pressure had nothing to do with the AfD’s return. 

“That’s just a myth. I’ve never been approached by anyone from the US side about that at all,” he said. 

He said that when his predecessor Christoph Heusgen revoked AfD invitations, there was a very specific context. 

“The AfD had just walked out of a speech by President Zelenskyy in the German Bundestag [parliament], which was really something which made everybody, including myself, very, very angry. But since that moment, we’ve had elections in this country. And the AfD is now the single largest opposition party. Should I ignore that?” he asked.

The chairman of the Munich Security Conference (MSC), Wolfgang Ischinger, told DW he saw two core functions for this year’s event.

The first he likened to a “bicycle repair shop,” oiling the chain and getting trans-Atlantic ties rolling again after a tense few weeks. 

“Part of our mission, I think, is to at least offer the possibility of repair work in terms of rebuilding, trust, confidence building, et cetera among trans-Atlantic partners. Obviously, trust has been damaged. Think of Greenland,” Ischinger told DW’s Nina Haase. 

Ischinger, a former US ambassador closely associated with the MSC for decades, said he also hoped the event would contribute to a more self-reliant Europe, “after 80 years of relying on the American security umbrella.”

“It’s not written in the Bible, as the Polish prime minister used to say, that 450 million Europeans need 350 million Americans to defend themselves against 140 million Russians,” Ischinger said. “Why can we not comply with the American demand of doing more for ourselves to become more capable, more self-reliant? We should.”

You can read more on the story here and you can watch the full interview below.  

The national leadership of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has told all branches of the party to refrain from holding events that include Austrian far-right extremist Martin Sellner.

The party’s federal executive board, led by co-chairs Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, adopted the decision in Berlin.

In 2024, the party officially distanced itself from Sellner’s views on remigration. The term is used by the far right to refer to deporting large numbers of people of foreign origin from Germany, even those holding German citizenship, including by force.

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), has classified Sellner as a leading figure of the Identitarian Movement across the German-speaking world, citing his role in promoting themes such as remigration and the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory.

In the resolution, the AfD urged “all associations and members” not to organize party events with Sellner, addressing state, district and local party boards.

The order means that, while AfD members could still meet with Sellner, they would be banned from organizing events that include him.

AfD lawmakers met Sellner in January at the Thuringian state parliament in Erfurt, and an AfD state legislator in Brandenburg had previously appeared with him publicly.

The BfV has said it will not publicly refer to the AfD itself as a “confirmed right-wing extremist movement” until a Cologne court rules on a bid by the AfD for an injunction against using the term.

A Romanian man appeared in court for the first day of his trial on charges of luring a young girl away from a water park in southwestern Germany and sexually abusing her.

The 31-year-old faces charges of sexual abuse, sexual assault and attempted grievous bodily harm.

Investigators say the man lured a six-year-old girl out of the swimming pool at the Rulantica park in Rust, near the French border, last August.

He is accused of taking the child to a nearby cornfield, where he took cocaine and tried to persuade her to do the same.

The man then allegedly sexually assaulted her, but the girl kept fighting back. The man was then said to have thrown her into the bushes and fled.

The girl managed to make her way to a neighboring village and was found by a motorist who alerted the police about two hours after she disappeared.

Officials detained the suspect about a week later in Romania, and he was subsequently extradited to Germany.

A Ukrainian national has been indicted in connection with a plot to detonate parcel packages in Europe, with Russian intelligence linked to the plan, German prosecutors said.

The suspect, named as Yehven B. in accordance with Germany’s privacy laws, had been arrested in Switzerland in May and extradited to Germany in December.

Yehven B. and two other suspects, Daniil B. and Vladyslav T., carried out an order by Russia intelligence intermediaries in Mariupol to send packages with GPS trackers from the German city of Cologne, with their destination being Ukraine.

Russia has previously denied any involvement in the plan.

Accusations of sabotage attacks by Russia have repeatedly been made by various European countries.

Western democracies are seeing rising support for disruptive politics that favor tearing down institutions over reform, according to a new security survey.

The Munich Security Conference report blames US policy shifts under US President Donald Trump for accelerating strains on the postwar order.

Read more about the report here.

A criminal trial against a mother accused of hiding her young daughter for nearly her entire life has restarted in western Germany.

The case at a regional court in the town of Siegen resumed after earlier hearings were postponed, including when the girl’s grandfather failed to appear.

Prosecutors say the 49-year-old kept the child completely isolated for seven years in the grandparents’ house in nearby Attendorn, some 65 kilometres east of Cologne (about 40 miles), in September 2022. The prosecution says the girl suffered considerable psychological harm as a result of being denied contact with others and not attending kindergarten or school.

She was freed by police and welfare officials in 2022, when she was 8, and taken to a foster family.

The girl’s mother faces charges that include abuse of a dependent and unlawful imprisonment. The maternal grandparents are also on trial, accused of aiding and abetting. All three were in the courtroom on Monday.

The motives for the actions remain unclear.

The carnival period in Germany is expected to generate some €2 billion ($2.4 billion) in revenue, according to a forecast by the German Economic Institute (IW).

Carnival is characterised by excess — particularly when it comes to alcohol — ahead of Lent, the 40 days of fasting that traditionally precede Easter. The festivities are particularly popular in the western Rhineland region, with Rose Monday being the culmination.

Restaurants and bars will be the biggest winners, with hospitality accounting for the largest share, some €900 million in total.

Retail sales of sweets, costumes and other carnival items are projected at roughly €400 million. Meanwhile, the transport sector can also look forward to a €290 million boost and hotels a further €162 million.

Cologne is expected to be the biggest beneficiary among German cities that celebrate carnival. About €850 milion worth of revenue should be generated there alone —  more than 40% of the nationwide turnover.

Carnival visitors in that city face sharply higher hotel prices, with overnight stays during peak days costing nearly €90 more on average than at comparable times, a rise of about 66%.

Overall revenue is projected to be about €100 million lower than last year, when the Carnival season lasted 115 days — 15 days longer than this year. The unusually short length is down to Easter, which determines when carnival falls, falling early this year. The season always begins at 11 a.m. on November 11 of the preceding year.

Guten Tag from the DW newsroom here in Bonn as we bring you the latest about Germany.

You join us just ahead of the business end of carnival season, which is a really big deal here in the Rhineland.

The extended period of sometimes drunken revelry starts in November, but really fires up just ahead of Lent in the run-up to Easter. It culminates in huge processions in the major carnival centers of Cologne, Düsseldorf, Mainz, and Bonn next Monday.

A forecast by the German Economic Institute says that, despite a shorter-than-usual season this year, carnival will still deliver a welcome €2 billion ($2.4 billion) boost to the German economy.

Stay with us for this and other Germany-related headlines from Monday, February 9.