German Parliament News

Norway has agreed to order four submarines from Germany's Thyssenkrupp for 45 billion crowns ($5.3 billion), with Germany agreeing to order another two, the Norwegian defense ministry said on Tuesday.Norway and Germany, both NATO members, are jointly procuring identical submarines from Thyssenkrupp's shipbuilding division.The Norwegian defense ministry said Germany had agreed to order two submarines from Thyssenkrupp, pending approval from the German parliament.The signing of the contract is due this summer…

Italy and Malta are refusing to allow charity ships in ports; governments say charity ships help people smugglers. Charities counter that policy will cause more deaths at sea. For the second time in a week, Malta on Monday detained a humanitarian vessel that normally rescues boat migrants off the coast of Libya, where two shipwrecks have claimed the lives of as many as 200 people in recent days. The Sea Watch 3 vessel, operated by a German charity, requested to leave port after undergoing maintenance and the port authority refused, a Sea Watch spokeswoman said. The port authorities said only that the vessel's status was under review.

Luerssen, ThyssenKrupp and German Naval Yards have agreed to bid jointly for a German navy warship contract after competition authorities struck down an earlier bid, an industry source said. The contract had originally been worth 1.5 billion euros($1.68 billion) but it is unclear how much the government will ultimately pay. The contract for five corvettes, which had been due to be awarded without tender to a consortium of ThyssenKrupp and Luerssen, was struck down by the German cartel office after German Naval Yards complained. Under the deal, which must still be approved by the cartel office, German Naval Yards would win work worth 15 percent of total revenues from the contract. The German parliament's budget committee will decide on the contract on June 21, the source said.

A tender worth around 4 billion euros ($4.5 billion) for four warships for the German navy has been delayed by around six months to ensure quality standards are met, according to a copy of a defence ministry letter seen by Reuters on Tuesday. The new MKS 180 multi-role combat ships are expected to be delivered from 2023. They are intended to be capable of attacking targets on land and underwater and providing aerial protection to other vessels. In the letter to the German parliament's budget committee, Deputy Defence Minister Markus Gruebel said it would take longer to conclude the agreement with bidders than it took with previous procurement projects due to higher quality standards.

The European Commission will publish detailed reports on its negotiations with the United States to forge the world's biggest trade pact, EU trade chief Cecilia Malmstrom said on Friday, responding to criticism that the talks have been shrouded in secrecy. If agreed, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would encompass a third of world trade, and proponents say it would deliver more than $100 billion of economic gains on both sides. But opponents in Europe have voiced concern that it could erode EU standards on food safety and the environment, and argue the negotiations have not been transparent. In a blog post, Malmstrom said one of her first decisions as trade commissioner when she took office last year had been to make the negotiations more open…

Switching from coal to gas as the power sector is a significant opportunity to cut emissions. This alternative can save more than 50% of emissions per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced. “I think it is both timely and necessary for German to develop a plan for how natural gas can contribute to fulfilling the ambitions of the Energiewende (energy transition). Increasing the use of natural gas will be beneficial both for the German economy and for the climate,” Lund said. On June 24…