- 5 settimane fa
Europe Today: AfD fa la storia in Germania, il funerale di Mladić sfida piani UE per la Serbia
Il partito di estrema destra AfD ha vinto le regionali in Sassonia-Anhalt. A Belgrado si svolge oggi il funerale del criminale di guerra Ratko Mladić, sfidando gli avvertimenti UE e mettendo alla prova la candidatura europea della Serbia.
ALTRE INFORMAZIONI : http://it.euronews.com/2026/09/07/europe-today-afd-di-estrema-destra-fa-la-storia-funerale-di-mladic-sfida-lue-della-serbia
Abbonati, euronews è disponibile in 12 lingue.
Il partito di estrema destra AfD ha vinto le regionali in Sassonia-Anhalt. A Belgrado si svolge oggi il funerale del criminale di guerra Ratko Mladić, sfidando gli avvertimenti UE e mettendo alla prova la candidatura europea della Serbia.
ALTRE INFORMAZIONI : http://it.euronews.com/2026/09/07/europe-today-afd-di-estrema-destra-fa-la-storia-funerale-di-mladic-sfida-lue-della-serbia
Abbonati, euronews è disponibile in 12 lingue.
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00:15Good morning, it's Monday the 7th of September, you're watching Euronews and this is Europe Today.
00:22Coming up, political earthquake in Germany. The far-right AFD party won the regional election in the eastern state of
00:31Saxony-Anhalt.
00:32This is the first time since 1945 that political power may go to a right-wing party, which the authorities
00:40consider a potential threat to the constitutional democratic order.
00:45We have the latest live from Berlin. In a show of high-stakes diplomacy, U.S. peace envoy Steve Witkoff
00:52and Jared Kushner arrived in Kiev for their first visit to the Ukrainian capital since the war started more than
00:58four years ago,
01:00after holding talks with Vladimir Putin in Moscow the day before. The mission comes after days of escalating Russian aerial
01:08attacks.
01:09And Ursula von der Leyen is in Greenland, where she is expected to sign a joint declaration with the Danish
01:16Autonomous Territory later today.
01:18The EU Commission President wants to express the bloc's steadfast support of Greenland amid continuous calls from President Donald Trump
01:26for the United States to acquire it.
01:30Welcome to the program, I'm Stefan Grobe.
01:33Let's go straight to the historic election in Germany, where the far-right AFD party won the majority in the
01:40eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.
01:42Will this shake up Friedrich Merz's coalition government in Berlin?
01:46Let's head over to our correspondent, Laura Fleischmann, in the German capital.
01:50Good morning, Laura.
01:52So, help us understand this AFD landslide.
01:56What was actually driving this result?
02:02Good morning to you too, Stefan.
02:03And, well, let me first lay out the current situation in Saxony-Anhalt.
02:07The AFD won around 43 percent of the votes, looking at the latest projection.
02:12And the CDU, who is currently governing in Saxony-Anhalt, is at around 17 percent and was less than half.
02:18So, the current situation in Saxony-Anhalt is that the AFD is planning on governing with an outright majority, but
02:27there are only three seats shy of that.
02:29And this leaves them with the situation that they will need to form a coalition before the top candidate of
02:36the AFD, Ulrich Siegmund, has stated that he would not want to form a coalition, but now he seems to
02:41have to.
02:41So, the CDU stated that they will rule out a coalition with the AFD.
02:46This only leaves the BSW, but they also said that they would not vote for Siegmund for a state minister,
02:53for a minister-president in the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt.
02:59This now is a very difficult coalition puzzle to solve in Saxony-Anhalt.
03:04And what led a lot of the voters to now vote for the AFD, this is due to a campaign
03:10of the AFD for first-time voters and also for people who are usually non-voters.
03:17And they also had a significant gain with former CDU voters who now decided to instead support the AFD.
03:23This is, of course, a clear signal to Friedrich Merz and his party, the CDU.
03:29Laura, the election is now over, but the anger towards Chancellor Merz remains.
03:35What does the result mean for Merz and his government going forward?
03:41This is, of course, a political disaster for Merz.
03:44He is losing support from his party space and also from his coalition partner, the Social Democrats.
03:50But he stated, or it has officially been said, that he will not resign.
03:54However, the AFD's co-chair, Alice Weidel, stated that she expects Merz to step down before Christmas
04:01and that if the AFD would govern on a federal level, that they would cut the government's spending radically
04:06and that they would also start a major deportation campaign.
04:10Looking at the weeks ahead, the government also faces a difficult situation in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,
04:15where there will be state elections in just two weeks.
04:18And the AFD is also right now leading the polls.
04:22All right, Laura Fleischmann in Berlin.
04:25Thank you very much.
04:26And we stay in the German capital, where we are now joined by Günter Krings.
04:31He is the vice chairman of the Christian Democratic Parliamentary Group in the Bundestag.
04:36Good morning, sir.
04:37Good morning.
04:39So, to say the Christian Democrats lost yesterday would be an understatement.
04:44It's a disaster.
04:46Your party practically lost half of its voters.
04:49All this on Chancellor Merz's watch.
04:52Will he face personal consequences?
04:55It was a devastating result, and that's certainly clear.
04:58It was even worse than was expected.
05:00Of course, on the one hand side, there's a long-term trend in sectionary anhalt.
05:04From election to election, the AFD did significantly better from the last state election than the European election, federal election.
05:11But still, of course, this result has to do with the perception of our policy in Berlin.
05:17And it's also clear that one day after this election, we will not talk about personnel.
05:23But we have to talk about analyzing these results.
05:26We have to see clear what the message was sent to us.
05:30And at least the perception of our reform course is not in a way that we had the chance to
05:36win over voters or to at least hold them.
05:40And so that doesn't mean that the reform course is wrong.
05:43But the perception and the credibility also of our party is at a low.
05:49Well, you elegantly evaded a straight answer on Friedrich Merz.
05:53Again, how can he possibly exercise even a shred of authority after this election result?
05:59Wouldn't the party be better off without him at the helm?
06:03First of all, this is a state election, even though it has big federal policy implications.
06:09It's not the right thing for our party.
06:11We are a party that is a party of responsibility that has governed this country for decades.
06:15and to talk about changing the chance that just one day after this election will not be the right thing.
06:21But of course, there will be talks also about how are we equipped and what will be our standing in
06:28the next weeks.
06:30And there will be no taboos in this discussion.
06:33But there's much more than the discussion about personnel.
06:36It's not contented about also how we communicate, how we will win back our credibility.
06:41So it's much broader than just the question of personnel.
06:46And finally, will this election result trigger a political course correction in Europe
06:52as the far right will unquestionably be emboldened?
06:56Certainly the far right feels emboldened.
06:59It's certainly also a signal of alarm.
07:01But it also should be perceived in Europe.
07:04I mean, a significant part of the anger that the voters, that the voters cost or that caused the voters
07:11to vote for the AFD
07:13comes from European decision.
07:15So the European Union also should ask what did we contribute to this anger and what do we have to
07:21change?
07:22All right, Günther Kings, vice chairman of the Christian Democratic Parliamentary Group in the Bundestag.
07:27Thank you very much for your time this morning.
07:32U.S. Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Kiev yesterday as part of a renewed push for peace
07:38by Washington.
07:39They spoke with President Volodymyr Zelensky about diplomatic ways to end the war.
07:44The talks took place only a day after they met with President Putin in Moscow for more than three hours
07:50behind closed doors.
07:52The meeting ended without announcements of any breakthroughs.
07:56Our correspondent Sasha Vakulina knows more and she joins me now in the studio.
08:01Good morning, Sasha.
08:02So let's talk about the meeting in Kiev first.
08:07What can you tell us? What's the latest?
08:09There has been no breakthrough, sadly, from the meeting in Kiev, Stefan,
08:14with the envoy stating that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not willing to compromise on its maximalist demands
08:21Russia's demands from the very beginning, meaning that they're still demanding Ukraine to withdraw forces from its own territories.
08:29And therefore, Russia's war against Ukraine is most likely set to continue into next winter,
08:35in which case Kiev will need more support.
08:38Let's take a listen.
08:41If the war continues into winter, we are very much counting on the winter package,
08:46which I discussed in great detail today with Steve, Jared and our European partners.
08:52But the most important thing about this visit and about those talks in Kiev is the fact that they did
08:56take place.
08:57As you said, for the first time, Witkow and Kushner were in Kiev.
09:01So many times it was postponed.
09:03They were expected around Independence Day by the end of August in Kiev.
09:07That didn't happen.
09:08Same way as this visit was very shaky until the very last minute,
09:12with Russia targeting Kiev's airports,
09:14with Witkow and Kushner reportedly willing to fly to Kiev,
09:19despite Ukraine having its airspace closed since February 2022.
09:23Let's take a listen to Wladimir Zelensky.
09:26The Russians have made it clear with their air attacks that from a security perspective,
09:30the U.S. envoys cannot land or use the plane, even though we had everything ready.
09:35Our airports were operational.
09:37Yeah, Sascha, you mentioned it.
09:39It was the very first time that Trump's envoys, Witkow and Kushner, visited the Ukrainian capital.
09:45But they have been in Moscow many times, eight or nine times or something like that.
09:50But without yielding any sizable result, any success, is this time different?
09:58Not really.
09:58But also, all the talks, every time there are talks in Moscow,
10:01they're very different from what we saw in Kiev.
10:03Though there's never any sort of openness regarding what happens behind those closed doors.
10:08There was no ever any presser like the one we saw in Kiev on Sunday.
10:14And also, regarding the results of these talks,
10:16they're rather confidential with just a couple of bits happening
10:19and, you know, us finding out about things.
10:21But clearly, all those visits do mean that the conversations and the relations
10:27between the U.S. envoys, specifically Steve Witkow, with the Russian president, are quite deep.
10:32Let's take a listen to what he said to Putin on Saturday.
10:36First of all, President Putin, thank you so much for having us.
10:40We were sitting outside just now, me, Jared, and Carol, and then Yuri joined us.
10:45And we were all talking about when we retire, we'll have all these incredible stories
10:52and incredible memories, and yours will be right at the top of it all.
10:57Unclear whether they're going to be in the next meeting,
10:59probably trilateral, with the U.S., Ukraine, and Russia, Stefan.
11:03Yeah, well, that topic will certainly not go away any time soon.
11:08Sasha, thank you so much for bringing us up to speed.
11:11The death of Ratko Mladic was supposed to close one of the darkest chapters in the Balkans.
11:17Instead, it has opened a new political battle in Serbia.
11:21The funeral of the convicted Bosnian-Serb war criminal will take place in Belgrade later today,
11:27but without state or military honors, probably.
11:31Senior EU officials had warned last week that any glorification of Mladic
11:36could undermine Serbia's relationship with Brussels and even derail its bid to become an EU member.
11:43To learn more on this, I'm joined by our correspondent, Meryt Gwynne.
11:47Good morning, Meryt.
11:49So, tell us why EU officials have been raising the alarm over plans for Mladic's funeral.
11:58Also, Stefan, as you know, Ratko Mladic, often referred to as the butcher of Bosnia,
12:03is a convicted Bosnian-Serb war criminal found guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity.
12:12And his name is essentially synonymous for many with one of the darkest periods in Europe's recent history.
12:17Now, when he died in late August, while serving a life sentence in The Hague,
12:22the Serbian justice minister at that time initially said that he would be buried with all the state and military
12:29honors.
12:30Now, the official line coming from Belgrade now is that that is not the case,
12:34that the funeral will happen later today without state honors,
12:37without the presence of official government figures.
12:41But, Stefan, despite that, and despite the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic,
12:46not attending the funeral today and trying to distance himself from the justice minister's comments,
12:51The optics and the imagery coming out of Serbia around the commemoration of Mladic's death
12:57has really hit a nerve here in Brussels.
13:00We saw the body of Mladic transported from The Hague to Belgrade last week, last Thursday,
13:06in a government plane, his coffin draped in the Serbian flag in the presence of a cabinet minister.
13:13And the following day on Friday, we know this was raised at a meeting of EU ministers in Dublin,
13:18and we heard from the EU's commissioner for enlargement, Marta Koss.
13:23She issued a stern warning on social media. I believe we can look at that now.
13:27She said the glorification surrounding his Mladic's death is incompatible with the values on which the EU path is built.
13:35The values that underpin our common future are not negotiable.
13:39She then said, in this context, I have decided not to proceed with my planned visit to Serbia.
13:44So, Stefan, I think the commissioner for enlargement cancelling her planned trip to a EU-Canada country
13:50really speaks volumes about the extent of the outrage that Brussels has really felt here in response to these events.
13:57Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the whole story is pretty disturbing.
14:01And you mentioned the optics.
14:02Now, we know there's not going to be a state funeral, no pomp and circumstances here.
14:09Is that enough to undo some of the damage that has been done already?
14:14Well, that's a good question, Stefan, because last week, in fact, we had ministers,
14:18just the Belgian foreign minister, warning that any state on us would effectively, you know,
14:23see Serbia backtrack on its path to become an EU member.
14:27So that would have really, I think, triggered a really firm response from the EU.
14:31But I think it's fair to say that a lot of the damage has already been done because of the
14:36optics of this.
14:37The commemoration that happened over this weekend was held at a state-owned army house in Belgrade.
14:42The justice minister was present there.
14:44We even saw the derby, the football derby in Belgrade last night being held with a minute of silence for
14:50Mladic.
14:50So all this imagery really doesn't help Serbia on its path to become a EU member.
14:56And this is already a very tense relationship.
14:58We know that a member states are already reluctant to open or to progress Serbia on its path to become
15:04a EU member.
15:05And one diplomat confirming to Euronews last week, in fact, that any commemoration,
15:10any glorification around Mladic, state honours or not,
15:13would really be a setback for Belgrade on its bid to become a EU member.
15:17All right.
15:18All right.
15:18Thank you so much for your insight.
15:20Now, there's a lot to discuss when the EU agriculture ministers meet in Dublin today and tomorrow.
15:26Europe is recovering after a summer of heat waves and droughts that have devastated crops
15:32and left many farmers facing huge financial losses.
15:35France has announced more than one billion euros in aid for farmers.
15:39So far, Brussels has said EU farmers can be compensated through flexibilities in their strategic plans and via state aid.
15:47Merit Gwynne sat down with the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Christoph Hansen,
15:51and started by asking him what more Brussels could do.
15:55Well, first of all, it has indeed been a very challenging summer.
15:59And even the late spring was already in many regions heavily under pressure because of climate effects,
16:05because of drought, because of wildfires.
16:08And this is, of course, putting a lot of pressure because farmers are losing their harvests, partly at least.
16:14Then, of course, our farmers were as well our best line of defense or the first line of defense for
16:19wildfires,
16:20because with their tanks, with their machinery, they were on the spot to help our firefighters.
16:26And now comes, of course, the financial aspect of it.
16:29They have liquidity problems, and that is why we are helping them.
16:35I wrote a letter as well to the ministers in the beginning of this week to elaborate on the tools
16:40that we already have,
16:41that they can use advanced payments, for example, but as well derogations from certain obligations,
16:47because farmers can just not meet them under these conditions.
16:50And let's not forget, we presented before summer a fertiliser action plan where we made available 540 million euros,
16:58which can be topped up by the national budgets.
17:02This will be a first financial relief, but the situation is far from being over.
17:06You mention the liquidity problem, and this obviously comes when we also have a fertiliser and fuel cost crisis.
17:13It seems like there's a perfect storm here for farmers.
17:15Are you confident you're doing enough?
17:18Because there seems to be flexibilities in current programmes, but no new cash, which is what many farmers are calling
17:23for.
17:23The farmers know exactly that the cash is limited.
17:26We will, of course, have for the next year, we have the agricultural reserve, 450 million that we can use.
17:33I think we need as well to speak about solidarity in what is produced currently,
17:39because often the consumers want the perfect apple, the perfect potato.
17:43So this might not be the case this year.
17:45And as well, retailers expect a certain quality.
17:49And I think there we need to think differently as well to find new solutions so that the product can
17:54still be sold.
17:56That is a lot what can be done.
17:58A lot of additional money, of course, we know this is difficult.
18:02I have to ask you about the situation in Ukraine, because we know they are facing big difficulties exporting their
18:07grains due to increased Russian attacks on Black Sea infrastructure and ports.
18:12What can the EU do here to help find a solution for Kyiv?
18:18Well, of course, Ukraine is not the only one concerned, because in the end they are as well heavily attacking
18:25Russian infrastructure.
18:26And that has an effect as well.
18:28But nonetheless, I think we have meanwhile an experience of helping Ukraine getting their grains to the world to get
18:36to their traditional markets.
18:38The solidarity lanes is one part of it.
18:40But I think we have as well to look into the Danube corridor, even though we know that waters have
18:48been quite down.
18:50If I may, on the solidarity lanes, because this has been a very political issue in the past.
18:54We know that the states have been protesting against this.
18:57Do you see room to expand those lanes?
18:59I think what needs to be avoided is that we had during the autonomous trade measures a temporary liberalization.
19:07And this liberalization led to disruptions, led to a price decrease and as well leakage of grains, for example, that
19:16were supposed to go through Europe, but not to leak into the market.
19:20I think we have meanwhile as well very clear experience what went wrong back in time.
19:25And this needs to be addressed for future exports of Ukraine through Europe, but that is not meant for the
19:33European market.
19:37All right, that does it for us today.
19:39Thank you for watching.
19:40I'm Stefan Grobe.
19:41Take care and see you tomorrow.
20:00Take care and see you tomorrow.