Today in Germany: A roundup of the latest news on Wednesday

Strikes announced for local transport in Hesse as disruption hits Hamburg, German insurer Ergo plans to cut 1,000 jobs, IG Metall prepares case against Tesla and more news on Wednesday February 18th.

Public transport workers in several cities in Hesse are to walkout on Thursday after the union Verdi called a fresh warning strike.  The action will hit services in Frankfurt, Gießen and Marburg, with employees of local transport operators including the Frankfurt Transport Authority (VGF), Stadtwerke Gießen and the Marburg Transport Authority (MVG) expected to take part. The strike follows the collapse of the latest round of negotiations over the collective agreement for local public transport in Hesse.

In Frankfurt, most underground and tram services are expected to remain in depots from early Thursday morning until the end of the day, according to the Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund (RMV). S-Bahn and regional train services, which are run by Deutsche Bahn, will continue operating as usual, and city buses are also largely unaffected because drivers are covered by different agreements. Replacement rail services for the U2 line are also scheduled to operate.

Disruptions in Gießen and Marburg are likely to be limited, as many bus drivers there fall under separate contracts and are not directly involved in the dispute. The dispute is part of nationwide collective bargaining, as Verdi pushes for better working conditions and pay for nearly 100,000 local transport employees. In Hesse, negotiations centre on working hours, holidays and bonuses.  This week transport strikes are also affecting Hamburg, Bamberg, as well as the Autobahn network.

On Wednesday, underground trains and buses in Hamburg were severely disrupted.  Leading German insurance firm Ergo will cut 1,000 jobs by 2030 as it makes greater use of artificial intelligence, company officials said this week. The Munich Re subsidiary, which currently employs 15,000 people, will aim to eliminate 200 posts a year "with the reinforced use of AI", Ergo human resources director Lena Lindemann told Handelsblatt business daily.

She said the job cuts would be made at call centres and in the handling of claims. People who leave posts would not be replaced and there would be some early retirements. Employment among Ukrainian refugees in Germany is steadily rising nearly four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to a new report.  The analysis by the research institute of the Employment Agency and the Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) found that around half of working-age Ukrainians who arrived in the first six months of the war are now employed, although the rate is still behind the wider working-age population.

Researchers say that many refugees are women caring for children alone, with limited childcare and war-related trauma slowing their entry into the labour market. Despite this, Ukrainians have found work faster than many previous refugee groups. Experts say this has been helped by immediate access to employment without asylum procedures. Many remain in part-time jobs and continue to receive state support, especially households with children.

It comes as cuts to integration course access have raised concerns among experts that language and training opportunities essential for long-term labour market integration could be reduced. More than 80 film industry figures including Oscar-winning actors Javier Bardem and Tilda Swinton issued a statement on Tuesday slamming the Berlin Film Festival's "silence" on Gaza. The signatories to the open letter, sent to AFP, said they were "appalled" by the festival's "institutional silence" and "dismayed" at its "involvement in censoring artists who oppose Israel's ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza".

Their statement came after the Berlinale's jury president, German director Wim Wenders, answered a question on Gaza last week by saying: "We cannot really enter the field of politics." Prominent directors who signed Tuesday's letter, coordinated by the Film Workers for Palestine collective, include British filmmaker Mike Leigh and the American Adam McKay. On Saturday, the Berlinale put out a statement defending Wenders from the "media storm", indicating that his remarks had been taken out of context.

Germany's largest labour group IG Metall is preparing a case against Elon Musk's Tesla, it said, accusing the carmaker of engaging in "union busting". The complaint would be filed "as soon as possible", union spokesman Markus Sievers told AFP on Tuesday, adding that more details would be forthcoming once it was fully prepared. "Tesla has long tried to keep IG Metall out of its operations," he said.

"It is made clear to employees that if they get involved with IG Metall, it will not be conducive to their business." The electric carmaker has had a tumultuous relationship with the industrial trade union since opening a factory on the outskirts of Berlin on 2022. In March 2025, the union accused Tesla of withholding sick employees' pay and of pressuring them to come to work. Tesla factory manager Andre Thierig earlier this month publicly accused an IG Metall representative of secretly recording a works council meeting, prompting a police investigation.

Hitting back on Tuesday, IG Metall accused Thierig of defamation and said it had applied for an injunction to stop him repeating the accusations. It's been nearly a year since the last Bundestag election in which Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) came to power along to form a coalition comprised of the centre-right CDU/CSU and centre-left SPD.  Shortly before this anniversary, the majority of German voters say they think the previous government, under former Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), did a better job than the current one.

This was shown by a recent Insa survey on behalf of the Bild newspaper. According to the survey, 35 percent of respondents said former Chancellor Scholz had done a better job than Merz. Only 22 percent said the opposite, that Merz is doing a better job than his predecessor. Beyond the chancellors, most of the ministers of the former traffic light government, which was comprised of the SPD along with the Green party and the Free Democrats (FDP), also scored better than their current replacements.

Just two of the current cabinet's ministers – those being Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul and Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt – scored better than their predecessors.

Summary

This report covers the latest developments in artificial intelligence. The information presented highlights key changes and updates that are relevant to those following this topic.

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