Germany

Summer bookings to Greece by German holidaymakers were 40 percent higher than a year ago by the end of January, helping the country overtake the Balearic islands as Germans' most popular holiday destination, Doerte Nordbeck, head of Travel & Logistics Germany at German market researcher GfK, told journalists at a news conference on Wednesday, ahead of the world's biggest travel fair in Berl

Germany's highest administrative court in Leipzig will on Thursday decide the fate of 15 million diesel vehicles in the country when it rules on whether cities in Europe's largest car market can ban heavily polluting cars, reported Reuters.

Bulgaria is at one of the last places in the European Union in people working in the field of culture. This shows the data from a Eurostat study. The statistical agency surveyed the period between 2011 and 2016. For these five years, cultural workers have increased by 7%, equivalent to 550,000 new jobs.

Bulgaria and Romania should not be admitted to Schengen. This was stated by the future prime minister of the German province of Bavaria Markus Söder.

"We need constant border control, and I hope you will forgive me, we do not want enlargement of the Schengen area and the inclusion of Bulgaria and Romania, this is the wrong signal," said Markus Söder, quoted by bTV.

A Bulgarian citizen was apprehended in Germany for involvement in a trafficking group. This was done during a police operation in Berlin, Bremen, North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony, BNT reported.

The controversy over Volkswagen AG's diesel-emissions cheating took another twist when the carmaker apologized for a test that exposed monkeys to engine fumes to study effects of the exhaust. 

Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) demanded on Jan. 22 concessions on immigration and healthcare from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives in looming coalition talks that the center-left party voted for at the weekend.

German tour operators have again shown an increasing demand for holidays in Turkey, said the head of a leading tourism association in Germany on Dec. 25.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Dec. 18 that she hoped to conclude exploratory talks with the Social Democrats (SPD) on forming a government by mid-January so that both parties can launch official negotiations on renewing their alliance.

The one thing that the government has shown any consistency about since being elected to power in January 2015 has been its targets.