Germany news: Iran war not causing migration wave — Dobrindt

According to a new poll, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has widened its lead over Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservative bloc, CDU/CSU.

In the latest "Sunday Trend" survey conducted by the INSA Institute for the Bild newspaper, the AfD gained one point to reach 27%, while the CDU/CSU fell one point to 24%.

This marks the largest gap ever recorded in an INSA "Sunday Trend" poll, according to Bild.

Support for the former "traffic light" coalition — named after the parties' colors — remains unchanged: the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) stands at 14%, the Greens at 13% and the business-focused Free Democratic Party (FDP) at 3%.

The Left Party rose to 11% while the populist-left BSW dipped to 3%.

In the ZDF Politbarometer published on Friday, the AfD also emerged as the strongest party for the first time.

The German vice chancellor and finance minister, Lars Klingbeil, has said Germany is ready for a reform of the United Nations' Security Council.

Klingbeil said that "structural reform" of the UNSC had been a ‌clear message at ‌a summit of progressive world leaders in Barcelona he has been attending on Saturday.

German train stations are to be modernized and renovated to the tune of €20 billion ($23.55 billion) over the next five years, with the money spent on improving appearance, safety and security.

"The train stations are particularly important to us," said the chief executive of national rail operator Deutsche Bahn (DB), Evelyn Palla.

"They are a visiting card, not just for us, but also for cities and municipalities," she said, adding: "We clearly have some catching up to do."

She said more than 1,000 stations across the country would be modernized this year at a cost of €4 billion.

Another 710 train stations across Germany will be completely made over by 2030, 130 of them this year, according to Palla.

She said an additional €50 million would be invested in improving safety and cleanliness.

The company says this will include equipping more stations with cameras and video surveillance in coordination with federal police.

Experts say the many problems with Germany's rail network, including dilipidated stations and frequent delays, are the result of decades of underinvestment in infrastructure, which the current coalition government pledged to reverse. 

However, there have been reports that some of those pledges might not be fulfilled.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told German newspaper Die Welt that Berlin was helping lead the way in efforts for European allies to step up their military capacities.

But he also dismissed speculation Washington could leave the US-led alliance after Donald Trump lashed out at it for what the US president considered to be a lack of support in the war with Iran.

Click here for more on Rutte's comments on NATO, Trump and Europe.

German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil has said authorities must take steps to counter an imminent shortage of kerosine — used for aviation fuel —  amid the Iran war and called on the coalition goverment to accelerate the transition to renewables.

Klingbeil, who is also vice chancellor and the co-leader of junior governing coalition partner the Social Democrats (SPD), told the news magazine Spiegel:  "We must take the warnings of a kerosine shortage very seriously."

"For me, it's clear: We shouldn't just address the price problem but must also keep security of supply in mind at all times."

"We are in a situation that is similarly challenging to the energy crisis following the Russian invasion of Ukraine," he said.

"We need to make the country more resilient, less dependent on fossil fuel imports," he added.

The International Energy Agency warned on Friday that European countries could face a kerosine shortage in the next six weeks, with imports from the Middle East severely hampered by the war and much oil infrastructure damaged in the conflict.

Kerosine prices have more than doubled since the start of the war on February 28.

A 13-year-old boy has discovered a 2,300-year-old coin coming from ancient Troy in a field in the German capital.

The find, rare for Germany, helps to cast light on the links that existed between Ancient Greece and northern Europe.

You can read more about the excitement caused by the discovery here:Teen discovers first ancient Greek artifact found in Berlin

German police say an explosion in a pedestrian underpass in Völklingen in the early hours of Saturday morning has killed one man and seriously wounded four others.

Two of the men were said to have suffered life-threatening injuries in the blast, which investigators said was caused by "human action."

They initially gave no more details.

Völklingen is a town of about 40,000 people situated a few kilometers (miles) west of Saarbrücken, the capital of the state of Saarland, which borders France.

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has said the US-Israeli war on Iran has so far not led to more people seeking shelter in Europe but that European authorities are taking precautionary measures.

"We are not currently seeing increased migration pressure," Dobrindt told the Rheinische Post newspaper in an interview published on Saturday.

He said authorities were monitoring migration movements in countries such as Iran and Lebanon.

"At present, we are seeing high levels of internal migration in both countries, but we are not yet detecting pressure on the Turkish border. That would be the first indicator of a further migration movement towards Europe," Dobrindt said.

Over 4.25 million people were internally displaced in the two countries between the start of the war in February 28 and early April, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) report.

In his Saturday comments, Dobrindt said the coming weeks would show how the situation develops, especially in the Middle East, and what migration movements may follow.

He also left open the possibility of extending border controls beyond September.

Dobrindt ordered intensified checks and refusals of entry at all nine of Germany's external shortly after he took office in May last year, a move that is allowed only on a temporary basis under the EU's Schengen rules.

Those checks have twice been extended as Germany adopts an ever more hardline migration policy.

Guten Morgen from the team in the DW newsroom in Bonn!

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has said the United States and Israel's war with Iran has so far not caused more people to come to Europe to escape the fighting.

Germany's antisemitism commissioner has called for organizers of cultural events to be on their guard against artists using performances to spread anti-Israel messages.

And an explosion in a town near Germany's border to France has claimed at least one life, with the cause still under investigation.

You can read about these and other stories from Europe's biggest economy in our roundup of German stories on Saturday, April 18.