Morning Briefing: The allure of doing nothing

Accordingly, a life as a privateer is often not a question of money, but of the courage to violate the conventions of the performance society, according to which one has lived for many decades. With one of the nicest quotes from Henry Kissinger, on the other hand, it is unclear whether the former US Secretary of State really ever said it like this: “Who do I have to call if I want to speak to Europe?” Well, that question has been answered. For some years now, the EU has had a “High Representative of the European Union for Foreign and Security Policy”. His name is sure to be on the tip of your tongue: Josep Borrell. So the question is no longer who the US government has to call when it wants to speak to Europe, but rather why it should. In the Ukraine crisis at least US President Joe Biden prefers to settle things directly with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Today the two of them want to make a call, and that’s good news. Anyone holding a telephone receiver has at most one hand free to sign deployment plans. The aforementioned Josep Borell is meanwhile extremely dissatisfied that Brussels is playing no role at all in this conflict. The EU foreign policy representative told the “Welt” on Wednesday: “We do not want to and must not be an uninvolved bystander whose heads are being decided.” Quite a notable complaint about your phone ringing too infrequently. A little hint to Brussels: Foreign policy relevance is assigned according to different criteria than a cod catch quota. It should not be a coincidence that the Russian energy giant Gazprom announced yesterday with a big chingderassabum that the German-Russian gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 is finally operational. “This new line will certainly help to raise prices on the European market stabilize “, said Putin with a view to the high gas prices. Or, according to the unspoken alternative: Germany shows solidarity with the Ukraine, Nord Stream 2 refuses the previously missing operating license and does without cheap gas. What does Zwickmühle mean in Russian? Compared to the Omikron variant, Godot was a punctuality fanatic. For weeks we have been waiting in Germany for the “tsunami of new infections” that the mutated coronavirus is supposed to bring us according to yesterday’s warning from the World Health Organization. Until then, says my colleague Jan Hildebrand, we would do well not to fall into a new lockdown too quickly. Instead, he sings in his comment a song of praise to the much-criticized corona policy of waiting and improving.

But what makes sense in any case: to prepare now for the massive wave of sick leave, that threatens us through Omikron. In the USA, hundreds of flights have been canceled every day since Christmas because a significant part of the flight crew is either infected or is under quarantine. And according to the “New York Times” many museums in Washington will remain closed on the weekend – not because of a new lockdown, but because Omikron is lacking staff. A debate has also begun in Germany about whether the quarantine times should not be shortened in order to keep the country running during an omicron wave. Ghislaine Maxwell, ex-partner of the late US multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein, has to prepare for a longer prison term: The 60-year-old was judged by a jury in New York found guilty , as Epstein’s helper played a central role in building a ring on the sexual abuse of minors having played. Maxwell was “dangerous” and had “manipulated their victims”, the prosecutor had said in the closing argument. The British appeared “smart” and “smiling” and thus lured the alleged victims, who often came from problematic backgrounds, into a trap. The abuse of numerous minors by Epstein is said to have taken place over decades on his properties in New York, Florida, Santa Fe or the Virgin Islands. Judge Alison Nathan will determine Maxwell’s sentence at a later date. And then there is the very quiet New Year’s Eve that is ahead of us tomorrow. In the meantime, my children have carried out an inventory of the narrow stocks of firecrackers that have flowed to us from dark sources. We are currently at 80 snap peas and six sparkling pans. Will that be enough to defend our usual hyper-liberalism against the black helicopters of the Nanny State? On Monday, January 3rd, I’ll get in touch with you with an update. Until then, I wish you a New Year when everything sparkles inside, at least. Kind regards
Your Christian Rickens
Textchef HandelsblattYou can subscribe to the Morning Briefing here: