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28th Mar 2024

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Germans debate return of military conscription

The secretary general of Germany's ruling CDU party, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, has launched a summer debate about reinstating military conscription for men and women, following recent online polls showed military conscription was popular among supporters of the competing rightwing AfD party. Former CSU defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg warned however of "exorbitant costs" in funding up to 700,000 young people serving the army. Germany scrapped general conscription in 2011.

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Opinion

EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania

Among the largest sources of financing for energy transition of central and eastern European countries, the €60bn Modernisation Fund remains far from the public eye. And perhaps that's one reason it is often used for financing fossil gas projects.

'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told

Italian central banker Piero Cipollone in his first monetary policy speech since joining the ECB's board in November, said that the bank should be ready to "swiftly dial back our restrictive monetary policy stance."

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