Germany news: No rush to decide on next-gen jet replacement

The last shipment of German nuclear waste to be returned from processing in Sellafield in the UK is on its way back to the country, according to a spokesman for the GNS organization, which specializes in the disposal of such waste, whose name roughly translates to Society for Nuclear Services.

The last remaining Castor containers were loaded onto a ship that set sail on Wednesday evening, he said. 

The containers should arrive in the coming days at the deactivated nuclear power plant in Brokdorf in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein. 

The waste is to be stored there until Germany establishes a permanent final storage facility for radioactive waste — something successive governments have struggled to do for years. 

It's not clear where the ship will dock. 

The waste hails from spent fuel rods from German nuclear plants, all of which are now offline, that were sent to the Sellafield facility in Cumbria for processing. Germany is obliged to take such waste back under international treaties.

The last such delivery from France returned to the country in 2024. Germany's last three nuclear power plants definitively went offline in April 2023, part of a shutdown process that took years.

The protest group called "Stop-Castor" announced a protest for Wednesday, June 17, outside the Hamburg-Barmbek rail station. Other actions at other possible transport points for the waste were being planned, it said. 

"As long as no durable concept for the long-term storage of atomic waste made so far exists, atomic [waste] transports must not take place," a spokeswoman for the group said.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz's office briefed German media on Friday anonymously, saying that Merz had penned a handwritten letter to US President Donald Trump for his 80th birthday and arranged a gift. 

German news agency dpa and other outlets reported the story, but the unnamed source did not specify what the gift would be. The letter had been dispatched to the White House in time for the day itself, June 14.

Trump, who became the oldest US president ever to start a fresh term in 2025, plans to celebrate his 80th birthday on Sunday in front of the White House, among other things, by hosting a UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) bout on the South Lawn. 

On Monday evening, Trump, Merz and other G7 leaders are set to convene in Evian in France. Merz is set to present Trump with the gift at the summit meeting.

Merz brought Trump a golf putter and a copy of his grandfather's birth certificate on his first visit to the Oval Office, and followed that up with a replica of a 1785 trade deal between the newly formed US and Prussia on a later visit this year. 

The pair seemed to hit it off in some of their earlier encounters, but tensions have emerged in recent months amid Merz's apparent criticisms of the war in Iran and the state of the US economy and society.

Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said at the annual Berlin air show on Friday that the government would need time to consider a new consortium's bid to build a next-generation, multirole combat jet for the German military. 

This follows just days after the 9-year-old Franco-German FCAS presitge project collapsed, amid bickering between French aviation giant Dassault and Airbus in Germany. 

The vultures promptly started circling the FCAS carcass, eying fresh government grants. A consortium of eight companies calling themselves "Team Gen 6" put their names forward to cooperate on a sixth-generation combat jet. 

"I am very pleased about this initiative, initiatives of precisely this kind are now needed," Pistorius said at the ILA air show. "But we must look very carefuly at what can be done with whom, and how quickly, and at what cost, and with what involvement from German industry."

There was still some ground to cover to reach a decision, Pistorius said.  

The Team Gen 6 alliance that issued the application incorporates Airbus, MTU, Hensoldt, MBDA, Autoflug, Diehl Defence, Liebherr and Rohde und Schwarz. 

The head of Airbus Defence and Space, Michael Schöllborn, said at the ILA that he was interested in a new "compact" solution that would be focused on military needs and not plagued by excessive complexity because of too many countries wanting to pack too many desires into one design. He said he thought the mid-2030s or 2040 could be a realistic completion date. 

"In contrast to last time, we should bring political, military and industrial interests into harmony," he said. 

A court in the Bavarian capital, Munich, has ruled that search engine operator Google can be held directly liable for incorrect answers generated by its "AI overview" feature.

The legal dispute had centered on whether the service should receive the same legal treatment as conventional search results.

Read more about the story here.

The small rural municipality of Olpe in western Germany has issued a permit to hunters in four hunting areas to kill a specific wolf accused of dozens of attacks on livestock.

Local hunting authorities, in conjunction with the North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) state Agriculture Ministry, issued the authorization for the "removal of the damage-inducing Wolf 'GW1896m.'" 

The license has a limited validity, provisionally until the end of July. Olpe authorities said they had informed local hunting authorities of the move on Thursday as they issued the order. 

This decision was taken in accordance with recent alterations to German hunting laws pertaining to wolves, which came into force in NRW this April, aiming to strike a "durable balance between the return of wolves, protecting livestock and public safety."

States are allowed to designate a wolf as a hunting target if they can demonstrate it has been posing a threat to public safety, public interest and agricultural interests.

"Wolf 'GW1896m' has attacked numerous livestock animals in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, as demonstrated beyond any doubt by genetic analysis," Olpe municipality said in a press release. "In total, wolf 'GW1896m' can be attributed to 56 attacks in NRW alone in which livestock came to harm." 

The animal came under renewed scrutiny this April in particular, when a series of attacks on April 9, 10, 19 and 25 in two nearby areas led to the death or injury of a total of 35 sheep and lambs. Genetic tests showed it was the same wolf in each case, authorities said. 

Wolf numbers in Europe have been rising sharply in recent years amid rewilding efforts and improved protections. But this has led to questions about the safety of livestock, pets, and in extreme cases, people.

Animal rights activists have criticized the German and EU reforms making it easier to shoot so-called "problem wolves" in exceptional circumstances.

As sports fans turn their attention to the FIFA World Cup getting underway in North America, Germany head coach Julian Nagelsmann is being scrutinized for his inability to articulate his decision-making process when it comes to the squad.

DW's Jonathan Harding's article on the coach points out that Nagelsmann's waffling might just be a true reflection of overall German sentiment rather than possible personal shortcomings and a lack of optimism from the coach himself.

Read Jonathan's full article here: Julian Nagelsmann: The coach struggling to speak to Germany

Germany's Federal Statistical Office on Friday announced that inflation in the country had dropped slightly in May, likely as a result of cuts to fuel taxes.

Inflation dropped to 2.6% in May, down from 2.9% in April — the highest since January 2024.

Year-on-year energy prices were 6.6% higher than in May 2025; but were, nevertheless, lower than April's 10.1% year-on-year rate.   

The Statistical Office pointed to the German government's decision to cut fuel taxes by €0.17 ($0.20) per liter on diesel and gas as a possible reason for the improved inflation numbers.

"Energy prices remained at a high level as a result of the Iran war, although the reduction in the tax on motor fuels, which has applied since the start of May, is likely to have had a dampening effect on the rise in prices," said Federal Statistical Office President Ruth Brand.

Annual inflation in Germany is expected to end the year around 3%, but the German Council of Economic Experts warns the number could jump to 3.5% if the Strait of Hormuz — a major global oil transport chokepoint — remains closed as a result of the ongoing US and Israeli war on Iran.

The continued closure of the strait and the temporary status of the fuel tax cut — which is set to expire in June — could ultimately lead to a continuation of rising food and services prices for German consumers.

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania State Environmental Minister Till Backhaus on Friday announced that a stranded humpback whale that made headlines in Germany and around the world between March and May before dying had drifted as many as 200 kilometers (125 miles) over the course of four days after being transported to open waters.

The 12-meter (40-foot) long whale, dubbed Timmy by German media, was first spotted in the northern German state's Wismar harbor in early March and remained locked in the waters of the Baltic Sea for weeks, repeatedly stranding.

Experts argued that the creature would not survive and advised against attempts to transport it into the open waters of the North Sea but Backhaus approved a private initiative designed to move the weakened mammal nevertheless, a decision he stood by on Friday.

Backhaus defended the attempt and said no evidence indicated the transport had contributed to the whale's death.

Backhaus said the signal from a tracking device affixed to the whale's fin disappeared between May 6 and 7, adding that it had "more or less drifted" after being released into the North Sea on May 2. 

The whale's dead carcass was later sighted and identified off the island of Anholt, between Denmark and Sweden, on May 14.

Federal police in Hamburg say they initiated a partial lockdown of the city's airport on Friday out of an abundance of caution when a man erroneously opened the facility's escape routes and entered a restricted security area around 9:45 a.m. local time (0745 GMT).

Police say it was unclear what the man's intentions were when he hit the button that opened escape routes, allowing him to wander into the restricted area. 

The incident caused a major evacuation of both the security area and planes.   

An airport spokesperson later confirmed that "the precautionary measure taken by federal police has ended and passengers are now passing through security again," adding that "flight operations are resuming."

Nevertheless, the spokesperson noted that significant delays and flight cancellations would continue throughout the course of the day.

Guten Tag from the DW newsroom in Bonn where we begin our coverage of the day's news with travelers in Hamburg being forced to deal with evacuation, flight cancellations and massive delays after a passenger erroneously opened escape routes by hitting an emergency button and entering a restricted security area.

Police say flights have now resumed but added delays will continue throughout the day.

In the northern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, State Environmental Minister Till Backhaus presented a postmortem report on a humpback whale that provided weeks of headlines after it became stranded in German waters in March. 

Backhaus said the creature drifted for days before scientists lost the signal transmitted from a tracking device attached to its tail fin. The cause of the whale's death remains unclear.

Inflation numbers declined slightly in Germany according to statistics, though economic recovery remains anemic. The dip is reportedly due to the introduction of fuel rebates designed to ease pressure on consumers still struggling with global oil shortages caused, among other things, by the war that the US and Israeli launched against Iran on February 28 and the subsequent ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil transit route.