Friedrich Merz, who is likely to become Germany’s next chancellor following yesterday’s election, has had a phone conversation with Israel’s prime minister, according to Netanyahu’s office.
The leader of the Christian Democrats said he would invite Netanyahu to Germany, the prime minister’s office said.
This apparently suggests Germany under Merz intends not to enforce the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against Netanyahu.
Let german do the german things like the old days
The thing is:
As per law, the federal police is required to enforce the warrant and Merz can do shit about it unless he successfully overturns the law. If the officers did not arrest him, they would even be liable to prosecution for obstruction of justice (Sadly, no English version of the German law article). In fact, even Merz himself could be charged himself should he try to order them to stand down, which AFAIK he doesn’t have the authority to do anyway.
Imma go out on a limb here and assume that nobody would have the balls to do this and create an international incident.
Yeah, I won’t put my money on it either. However, I can see various NGOs initiating reports to federal prosecutors in the aftermath, followed by calls to lift immunity. Of course, his coalition wouldn’t allow that to happen, but doing so would cost them a huge chunk of credibility.
