Arne Delfs

(Bloomberg) -- Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said former senior German and Russian officials met in the capital Baku this month for talks on how to end Russia's war against Ukraine, confirming media reports.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s chief of staff, Thorsten Frei, is set to become the new leader of the conservative parliamentary group, succeeding Jens Spahn, according to a party official familiar with the decision.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will appoint Health Minister Nina Warken as his new chief of staff, according to multiple local media reports, making the 47-year-old conservative the first woman to hold the post in postwar Germany.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz came under criticism from his own party members after a cabinet reshuffle, which was meant as a fresh boost for his leadership, turned into chaos.

German officials are working behind the scenes to identify Chinese economic vulnerabilities that they could exploit if the European Union finds itself in a trade war with the world’s second-largest economy.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz is pushing for the European Union to finalize its next seven year budget by the end of this year ahead of schedule as the bloc faces potential political gridlock with a slate of elections coming in 2026, including in France and Spain.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz said a failed drone attack uncovered this month at an airport shows that Germany is under renewed threat of hybrid attacks — and vowed that those responsible will be held accountable.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Germany will take a concrete position on China as he signaled that German companies are taking a harder line when it comes to global trade imbalances.

Germany and five other nations that favor fiscal restraint said a €2 trillion ($2.3 trillion) seven-year European Union budget proposal must be scaled back “by several hundred billion” euros, arguing that it should reflect the budgetary consolidation taking place across the bloc.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned that Germany’s eastern Saxony-Anhalt region will suffer economic damage if the far-right AfD party wins control of the state’s government next Sunday.