Daimler wants to divest from EADS – but political concerns are an obstacle – By Jens Flottau

Having just finished a meeting on the future of EADS, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and senior government officials had just one message: There is no need to rush. Everybody should relax and slowly consider all the available options.

It is safe to assume that the exact opposite is true when it comes to the current debate surrounding one of Europe’s high profile and high-tech companies. There is not much time left to find new shareholders for EADS, the parent company of Airbus. And one might even argue that there are hardly any options available that could please all constituents.

More and more cities and local authorities in Germany are organizing their own water supply – By Wolfgang Mulke

Berlin’s Economics Senator Harald Wolf is in an awkward situation. As a member of The Left party, he favors keeping water and power providers in public ownership. But as an official of the Berlin regional government, he has to live with the legacy of his predecessors, who privatized exactly those utilities.

It is the water utilities in particular that are causing cross party dissatisfaction in the German capital. In 1999, the water supply was partly privatized. The RWE and Veolia companies became the new owners, securing generous profit gurantees for their participation.

Deutsche Börse AG and the New York Stock Exchange want to merge into the world’s largest trading powerhouse – By Hannes Koch

Wall Street has become an address that stands more for failure than success. Though there have always been ups and downs, the investment banking sector collapsed in the financial crisis of 2008. And now this: The embodiment of Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange, faces a takeover by Germany’s premier stock exchange Deutsche Börse AG in Frankfurt – a company which, from an American point of view, can hardly be taken seriously.

Aside from the injured vanity of the New York financial aristocracy, there are fundamental doubts about the point of the merger, which would produce the world’s largest stock exchange. Some analysts question whether two ailing halves can make a healthy whole.

Many immigrants have established careers in Germany – By Mehmet Toprak

Erol Onanmis came to Germany from Istanbul in 1971. He was 11 when his father came to work as an automotive upholsterer for BMW. The little boy couldn’t speak a word of German. Today, the 50-year old runs his own hair salon in Munich. “Germany has become my home, I feel comfortable here,” Onanmis explained.

Memet Kilic was already 23 and an attorney when he came to Germany from Turkey. He attended a language course, studied for a university degree, and ultimately made his way into politics. Today he holds a German passport and sits in the German parliament, the Bundestag, for the Green Party.

Nazan Eckes has also made it to the top. Born in Cologne in 1976, the daughter of Turkish immigrants is a regular fixture on television. She also wrote a book about her childhood and growing up within two cultures. “I’ve never been discriminated against, and feel that I am accepted 100 percent,” Eckes said.