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Germany is introducing a 49 euro monthly transport ticket for this winter as a followup to the 9 euro transport scheme that was used in the summer months. This will enable users to travel at lower cost on short and long distance public transportation. A one-off payment for gas bills will be introduced for households and businesses in December.

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Since the beginning of the $9 euros ticket for travel on the German rail system Deutsche Bahn on June 1, 2022 52 million tickets were sold. The ticket allows anyone to travel for 1 month in the months of June, July and August. It has saved 1.8 million tons of emissions because 20% of ticket users do not normally use public transport. A similar result in emissions savings can be achieved by lowering the speed limit on highways. A typical passenger emits about 4.6 tons of carbon a year in automobiles.

Also popular is the simplicity of the scheme. It also brings more people from different regions together in Germany by encouraging travel and relieves some of the stress of the pandemic. Overall it has an effect in lowering inflation and making travel easily accessible to all people in the country.

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Under a landmark ruling by a federal court in Leipzig, German cities can now ban older diesel engine vehicles. The cities of Stuttgart and Dusseldorf are allowed to legally ban older higher polluting diesel cars from zones that are badly affected by air pollution. Environmental group DUH brought the lawsuit after 70 German cities exceeded European Union limits for nitrogen oxides (NOx) in 2017. NOx emissions can cause respiratory disease and difficulty breathing. Diesel engines produce high levels of nitrogen oxide, and low levels of carbon dioxide. EU air quality standards are not being met in cities across Europe, so that this could set a precedent for Europe, says the BBC. Of the 15 million diesel cars on German roads only 2.7 million meet the latest Euro-6 standards, according to German automotive watchdog agency. Diesel car market share is dropping- falling to 39% in 2017 from 48% in 2015. The VW diesel emissions scandal in 2015 further eroded public confidence. The German government already has suggested alternatives such as offering free public transport in cities with poor air quality. The government opposed the ruling because it did not want the car industry to bear the additional cost of retrofitting older vehicles at a time when German carmakers were investing in electric vehicles.  Yet the trend is clear. Paris, Madrid, Mexico City, Athens have pledged to ban diesel vehicles from the centre of cities by 2025, with Copenhagen doing this in 2019. ...

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European Union countries, Britain and the US face the risk of a resurgence of coronavirus through the Delta variant and other variants. The Delta variant detected in India is 40% to 80% more transmissible than the Alpha variant detected in the UK, with the Alpha variant 50% more transmissible than the original coronavirus that originated in Wuhan.    Virologists in Italy feel they are flying blind at this time because of the lack of genetic sequencing in Italy, Spain, France and across most European Union countries. The UK has done genetic sequencing on 27% of recent covid positive tests. The figure drops to 1% for Italy and is tiny for most of the EU countries including Spain and France. Without genetic sequencing it is hard to predict and take steps. Another problem in the EU is that the southern economies Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Croatia are dependent on summer tourism for the economy. The UK economy can handle a delay to a full opening for 6 weeks without serious impact to the economy, says WSJ. Southern European economies can afford only short delays to full reopening. Croatia acted as a door to spread of coronavirus into central Europe when Germans and Austrians went to vacation spots in Croatia in summer 2020. This situation could be happening again in 2020 with British and other tourists visiting vacation areas in Portugal, and Germans visiting Greece and other summer tourism spots. Portugal's national health institute says the Delta variant represents 60% of new cases in the area around Lisbon based on early data. The government of Portugal is facing criticism for letting a Champions League soccer final to take place in Porto, Portugal between two English teams. Thousands of English fans watched the game at the stadium. Other problems are in relaxing of mask rules in France and Italy, last week in France and in the coming week in Italy. French nightclubs open July 9 without mask requirement. Germany is maintaining some social distancing measures and this includes mandating medical masks in closed public spaces and on public transport. Half of French, Italians, Germans are vaccinated and quarter fully vaccinated. Yet the gaps of unvaccinated people is large enough to cause serious concern of another wave. The relaxation of mask rules- the entire stadium in Budapest was packed for a recent game between Hungary and Italy for a soccer Euro 2021 game with no masks to be seen. Stadiums played a key role for the spread of the original coronavirus in Italy with a game in Bergamo, Italy, in the area near Milan. All this makes health officials concerned about the risks of still another wave of the coronavirus.   ...

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The European Union’s total defense spending increased by 30% from 2021 to 2024, to 326 billion euro or $341 billion. That is 1.9% of the EU’s GDP it's economic output, according to European Defense Agency. It is still short of 2%.  Britain will ramp up defense spending all the way up to 3% in 2027. Britain is short of defense equipment with transfers to Ukraine and with much of the defense budget going to maintain a nuclear deterrent. This leaves less for other defense needs. This report says most of the procurement for defense equipment goes to countries outside Europe.The Kiel Institute says 80% comes from outside EU. It is not mere shortage of funds it is the severe bottleneck from lack of defense manufacturing industry  that is putting Germany, France and UK in a situation where they are too dependent on the US. It takes years to build this capacity. Russia built it up during 3 years of war by going to a wartime economy and it now produces 4 times the ammunition Europe produces. The US did the same to match and exceed Russian capabilities and capacity, Europe lagged behind with unwillingness of Macron and of Scholz in particular to switch funds from needs in transport, infrastructure to defense. The debt brake Merkel to stop debt based infrastructure investment is what ails Germany. It has had two pernicious effects it created the AfD's surge by lowering economic growth and investment in public needs - housing, transport, public services. It worsened the SPD and CDU performance by not investing in security with no policies to return crime committing refugees to their home countries. A combination of aid and other assistance, diplomacy, secured the cooperation of countries to take them back. A strong display of action on removing refugees committing any offenses would have lessened the number of terrorism incidents. ...

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Russia's leading business paper Vedemosti summed up the situation on Dec. 17, 2014, in its editorial- "This is a very dangerous situation; we are separated from a fully fledged run on the banks by just a few days..If the currency market is not reassured right now, the banking system will require large external support." Warning signs were evident at a banking conference in Moscow in October 2014 when the Economy minister, the central bank head Nabiullina, and the head of the largest bank Sberbank, German Gref, expressed skepticism about the economic policies and the risks involved. Not until Dec. 17, was a decisive response evident and the risks of a collapsing ruble openly addressed with economic actions by the Putin administration. A collapsing ruble would have repercussions on the global financial markets and slowing global economy, increasing potential geopolitical risk, and adding to risk of contagion for other emerging markets, which was reflected in the nervousness of global financial markets on Dec 15-16, 2014....