Germany updates: Fewer refugees living in Germany

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has condemned Russia's incursion into Estonian airspace.

It comes after Estonia said three Russian jets violated its airspace on Friday.

Click here for Wadephul's comments and more on the Russian incursion in our blog on Russia's war in Ukraine.

"DACH Against Hate" is a new initiative to combat growing antisemitism in Germany. Holocaust survivor Charlotte Knobloch, who has been left deeply shaken by the rise in antisemitism, spoke out at the launch. 

Read more about the initiative fighting antisemitism in German-speaking countries.

The German government is maintaining its tough stance on the deportation of rejected asylum seekers to Afghanistan. Critics say promises made to former personnel now at risk of reprisals should be honored.

Read more on Germany's talks with the Taliban here.

Germany needs around €2.5 billion ($2.9 billion) for the construction of railway lines over the next four years, German news agency DPA reported, citing the Transport Ministry.

The ministry cited increasing construction costs over recent years as being the main reason for the funding gap.

It's not clear whether this will impact projects scheduled until 2029.

News of the deficit comes a day after it was revealed that another €15 billion was needed for motorway refurbishment projects planned between 2026 and 2029.

State secretary for transport Stefan Schnorr said some of the work on the country's motorways would not be able to start as planned due to the lack of funds.

Germany's coalition government is considering an additional €30 billion ($35.2 million) for the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the occupied West Bank.

This follows Development Minister Reem Alabali Radovan's visit to the region last month.

Alabali Radovan, a Social Democrat, urged Israel to release withheld tax revenues owed to the PA, stressing that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' administration was under unprecedented political and financial pressure.

However, Alexander Hoffman, who is parliamentary leader of the conservative CSU party, told German Newspaper Bild his party wanted "clarification."

The AFP news agency said Hoffmann's spokesman confirmed that "humanitarian help is important, but it must be clear which concrete projects the money will be used for before the funds are approved."

"Projects that endanger Israel's security must be excluded," AFP quoted the spokesman as saying.

A final decision has yet to be made, with the coalition government debating the proposal, German news agency DPA reported, citing its own sources.

A German Roman Catholic bishop has said the church should lift a ban on marriage and sex for priests.

"I call for the celibacy requirement as a condition of the priestly vocation to be lifted," Bishop of Speyer Karl-Heinz Wiesemann told Germany's Catholic KNA news agency on Friday.

While stressing that celibacy remained an important spiritual way of life for priests and members of religious orders, he said, "I believe that there could also be other ways of expressing and living out this complete submission to Christ and his church."

It's not the first time clergy in Gemany have called for such reforms.

The Vatican requires priests and nuns remain unmarried and refrain from all sexual contact. Additionally, women are not admitted to the Catholic priesthood.

Speaking ahead of the autumn plenary meeting of German Catholic bishops next week, Wiesemann said lifting the celibacy rule could apply only to Germany. 

He justified the move saying the country had a lack of priests and that prohibiting marriage and sex could be keeping some people from considering a vocation as a priest.

In the KNA interview, he also floated the idea of temporary celibacy.

"We are seeing that the problems in priestly life often start after five or 10 years," he said.

Temporary celibacy would remove the taboos and facilitate a final decision, and this would enhance the value of celibacy, he said. "A precondition for this is however, that exercise of the priesthood is not tied to the final decision on celibacy," Wiesemann added.

New tariffs put in place by the Trump administration appear to be affecting German exports to the United States as imports from the US increased.

Germany's export surplus in trade with the US was €34.6 billion (€40.7 billion) from January to July 2025, dropping to the lowest level recorded for the first seven months of a year since 2021, according to figures released Friday by the Federal Statistics Office (Destatis).

While German businesses are still exporting more to the US than Germany imports from its transatlantic partner, the surplus dropped 15% compared to the same period of 2024. That's a decline of €6.4 billion.

Imports from the US into Europe's largest economy rose by 2.2% to €55.3 billion. Germany has had an annual export surplus with the US since 1991.

As part of its global tariff regime, US President Donald Trump's administration has placed a baseline 15% tariff on EU imports since August 7. Steel and aluminum exports to the US have been subject to 50% tariffs since June.

Fall in overall German export surplus

In the overall international trade in goods, Germany's export surplus declined by €32.7 billion, or 21.2%, to €121.3 billion, Destatis reported.

Despite strong criticism from numerous aid organizations, the German government has confirmed a report that envoys for Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt are holding talks in Afghanistan with the ruling Islamist Taliban about deportations from Germany.

And that's just one of the many Afghanistan-related issues politicians in Germany have been discussing. 

Read all about the complex talks between two countries that don't have official diplomatic relations and the debate in Germany over admitting Afghans who worked for German groups operating in Afghanistan: German government nears deal with Taliban on deportations

Better never than late? That's apparently the thinking at German national rail operator Deutsche Bahn, according to a report in Der Spiegel news magazine.

The magazine reported Friday that it had seen several Bahn-internal messages saying trains were canceled to improve the struggling company's punctuality statistics.

"Train cancelled from Cologne Deutz to improve statistics," one message reportedly said. "Inform passengers to use alternative connections."

According to the company's definition, a train that arrives at its destination with a delay of more than 6 minutes is considered late, but canceled trains are not included in on-time arrival statistics. 

Deutsche Bahn regularly announces the percentage of delayed and on-time arrivals — figures eagerly followed by the German public and media (yes, DW follows them, too). Data for long-distance train arrivals in August, the most recent month available, shows 59.6% of trains arrived on time.

The railway company denied canceling trains to improve on-time arrival statistics. It did, however, say in some cases it could make operational sense to end a train's journey before the scheduled destination.

Deutsche Bahn has been without a chief executive since August and is financially struggling. The company, which is wholly owned by the federal government, booked a loss of €760 million ($894 million) in the first half of 2025.

That figure is, however, still less than the €1.2 billion loss it had in the first half of 2024.

A Berlin regional court on Friday heard arguments in a case brought against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) by the owner of the building that houses some of the party's offices.

Austrian landlord and building owner Lukas Hufnagl filed for the eviction of the party following a celebration of its record result in Germany's federal elections in February. The party took place in the building's courtyard and the AfD logo was projected on the building's walls — neither of which has been agreed upon with the building's owner.

Hufnagl argues that the party had not rented the courtyard or the building's façade and that its election celebration event had prevented other renters from entering their offices for hours.

The AfD has rejected the accusations and initially vowed to use all legal means at its disposal to fight the eviction from the building in Berlin's Reinickendorf district. It says it has several rental agreements for the property until 2027.

The party said later on Friday that it offered to enter into independent arbitration over the dispute. 

Earlier reporting in the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung has said Hufnagl's Vienna-based firm is struggling financially as banks decline to offer credit for a building where the AfD is the main tenant.

The party has been declared a proven right-wing extremist organization by Germany's domestic security agency.

The judge in the case, Burkhard Niebisch, said Friday that the parties failed to reach an agreement in court and that he would issue a verdict on the legality of the eviction next Friday. 

A new YouGov poll has found that 44% of adults in Germany oppose a European Union (EU) ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles, which will take effect a decade from now. Another 19% of those polled said 10 more years isn't long enough to transition and want the plan to be delayed.

Just under 1 in 4 of those surveyed (24%) support the plan not to register new cars with combustion engines as of 2035.

Support for the ban was highest among people who support the Green and The Left parties, while the strongest opposition came from Alternative for Germany (AfD) voters.

Leaders of Europe's top carmakers called for emission standards on new cars to be relaxed, while Germany's influential auto industry has said rigid emissions regulation "jeopardizes competitiveness."

The automobile combustion engine ban set out by the EU in 2022 aims to cut carbon dioxide emissions in the transport sector as part of the bloc's attempts to fight climate change and its devastating effects, such as wildfires, heat waves and drought.

The representative survey, commissioned by the German dpa news agency and conducted by YouGov between September 12 and 15, polled 2,057 eligible voters.

The YouGov poll also found 60% of respondents believe climate protection will make life more expensive in Germany over the long term, while 17% see it as reducing costs, and 13% expect no climate impact on their wallets.

It also said 36% of adults want the government to do more to fight climate change, 29% are satisfied with current efforts, and 24% would prefer less action.

After a meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez Thursday night, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said his government will set its position on possible European sanctions on Israel ahead of an EU leaders' summit on October 1. 

"I expect we will have a position at the informal council on October 1 in Copenhagen that is supported by the entire federal government," Merz said on Thursday evening.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen this week proposed suspending EU financial support and trade benefits for Israel over the Israeli government's military offensive in the Gaza Strip. 

Merz said Germany stands "firmly" with Israel but described its military response in Gaza as "disproportionate."

Sanchez's left-wing government has been one of Europe's most vocal critics of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country's military campaign in Gaza.

Authorities in Berlin set about the work of dealing with a pair of unexploded World War II bombs on Friday, forcing people to evacuate their homes and close businesses in parts of the German capital.

A slime-and-silt-covered bomb found after decades in the Spree River initially led to around 10,000 evacuations, but authorities said after closer examination that it was not a danger and would not need to be diffused.

However, about 12,400 people have been evacuated in the Spandau district, where a second bomb is set to be defused on Friday, according to Berlin police.

Read all about bombs shaking up life for Berliners on Friday.

 

The overall number of refugees in Germany has fallen for the first time in over 10 years, according to government statistics made public by the Left Party on Friday.

Germany's refugee population declined by about 50,000 in the first half of 2025, from about 3.55 million at the end of 2024 to 3.50 million, a response to a parliamentary query from The Left party showed.

This marks the first drop in the total number of refugees living in Germany since 2011.

The total number includes recent arrivals and long-term residents as well as refugees from Ukraine.

The decline reflects a combination of an increase in deportations, voluntary departures and naturalizations, The Left party said.

Data from the Interior Ministry shows 83,150 Syrians were granted German citizenship, though not all of them were refugees.

Of the roughly 3.5 million refugees, some 492,000 currently hold uncertain status, including asylum-seekers whose claims are being processed and people with temporary permission to remain in Germany. At the end of July, 1.27 million refugees from Ukraine were living in Germany.

The Left party's Clara Bünger called the decline "no cause for celebration," adding that fewer people in need of protection were making it through the European Union's borders.

Guten Morgen from the DW newsroom in Bonn. 

Political pundits in Germany on Friday will be addressing German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's trip to Madrid, where he and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez agreed they want to get a struggling European fighter jet off the ground.

But the two leaders disagreed on their countries' respective policies toward Israel and recognition of Palestinian statehood. 

Thousands of people in Berlin were cleared out of their homes overnight while experts defuse an unexploded World War II bomb found in the Spree River. 

Depending on the verdict in a rental disagreement case today, the far-right Alternative for Germany may spend the weekend looking for a new place for a party office.