Update in the evening: The last gasp of the traffic light

France already has a head of government again: At midday, President Emmanuel Macron appointed 73-year-old François Bayrou as the new prime minister. The feeding came after the fall of the official government and amid complex political negotiations. You can read what there is to know about Bayrou and what tasks the centrist politician now faces here:

But I would like to focus on German politics this Friday afternoon; after three years of traffic light disputes, you have a slight feeling of: It's possible!

Cem Özdemir has only been Federal Minister of Education since the end of November and the break of the traffic light coalition, but was able to announce a significant success today. After months of struggle, the federal and state governments have reached an agreement on Digital Pact 2.0, which provides 2.5 billion euros each for the digital infrastructure of schools over the next six years. The key points of the agreement are:

Özdemir emphasized the importance of this investment:

See the joint declaration from the federal and state governments for the “Digital Pact 2.0” in full here:

This is crucial for the future of children in Germany. The negotiations were not easy. The talks had stalled under the official FDP Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger. But the states had also fought tooth and nail against the 50:50 split of funding. The compromise that has now been found allows the countries to contribute a large part of their resources through measures that have already been planned.

In the last week of the Bundestag before Christmas, the broken traffic light coalition came together again on another issue. With the votes of the SPD, Greens and FDP, the Bundestag is expected to decide next week on tax relief for poorer sections of the population and the middle class as well as an increase in child benefit for families. The planned measures include:

For 2025 and 2026, there should be a total relief of around 11 billion euros. However, it is still unclear whether the Federal Council will decide on the plans before Christmas or in February. However, there is a prospect of retroactive validity from the beginning of the year.

Things remain exciting on the political stage in Berlin, and there is certainly a small element of election campaigning in all these agreements – the traffic light flickers on one last time before it finally goes out.

Source: ZDF

Last year, 1.46 million animals were used in experiments in Germany. The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) has now announced this. Ten years earlier, in 2013, the number was almost three million.

Source: Imago

21 percent. So few one-year-olds in Germany are completely against it polio vaccinated. By the age of two, 77 percent have full vaccination protection. Vaccinations have massively reduced many diseases such as measles, diphtheria and polio – but current vaccination rates show that the willingness to have oneself or one's own children vaccinated is dwindling.

At diphtheria The rate of complete immunization for children aged 15 months (born in 2021) was recently only 64 percent. A complete vaccination against mumps, measles and rubella Around 77 percent of two-year-olds of the same year of birth received it.

In view of the increasing need, most food banks in Germany are forced to ration the amount of food they give out. “A third are trying to help themselves with temporary admission stops or waiting lists, which they work through if possible,” said the chairman of the Tafel umbrella organization, Andreas Steppuhn, to the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” (NOZ).

Jan Schneider and the entire ZDFheute team