分类： politics

A leading German center-right politician is facing widespread condemnation from across the political spectrum, including members of his own party, over accusations of blatant hypocrisy after he confirmed he and his husband welcomed a child via a surrogate mother in the United States.

Jens Spahn, 46, who currently serves as parliamentary group leader for the joint Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc, made the announcement Wednesday that his son Georg had been born through international surrogacy. “Georg is our greatest joy. This feeling is almost impossible to put into words,” Spahn told German tabloid *Bild*. His husband Daniel Funke later shared a photo of the couple walking with a pram on Instagram, captioning the post “We Are Family.”

The controversy stems from Germany’s longstanding national ban on surrogacy, a policy that Spahn has repeatedly and publicly supported for years. Enshrined in the 1990 Embryo Protection Act, commercial and altruistic surrogacy within Germany carries penalties of up to three years imprisonment or significant fines. While German law does not criminalize raising a child born to a surrogate abroad, the CDU reaffirmed its unwavering support for the domestic ban as recently as this February, arguing the prohibition is necessary to prevent surrogacy from becoming a exploitative commercial industry.

Critics have highlighted two key past positions Spahn has taken that contradict his recent personal choice: In 2020, while serving as Germany’s Federal Minister of Health, Spahn rejected a proposal from the free-market Free Democratic Party (FDP) to relax the country’s surrogacy ban. Five years earlier, in 2015, he wrote publicly that “as a gay man and a Christian I find it personally very hard to warm to the idea of a rented womb.”

Spahn is not the first CDU politician to face this controversy: Earlier in 2025, fellow party member Hendrik Streeck also revealed he had become a father via a U.S.-based surrogate.

Across Germany’s political landscape, figures from multiple parties have called out Spahn’s actions as a breach of political credibility. Greens parliamentary leader Felix Banaszak offered personal well wishes to the new parents but argued Spahn has an obligation to publicly address the significant ethical questions at hand, noting that surrogacy’s moral complexities are “not trivial.” His Green colleague Janosch Dahmen, the party’s health spokesperson, went further, emphasizing that the dispute is not about the child’s birth, but about political consistency. “Anyone who advocates for rules politically should be able to explain clearly why those rules apparently do not apply to them personally,” Dahmen said.

FDP politician Henning Höne echoed the criticism, saying he cannot respect politicians who pass domestic laws only to “evade them internationally with money and contacts.”

The most damaging rebuke has come from within Spahn’s own conservative bloc. Marion Rosin, a CDU member of the Thuringia state parliament and activist with the party’s Women’s Union, argued that “politicians who set standards for others must be measured by them too. If that credibility is gone, resignation is a matter of consequence.” Daniel Peters, a senior CDU politician in the northern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, went on the record to *Bild* stating that Spahn’s position as parliamentary leader is “no longer tenable and he must resign,” arguing it is fundamentally wrong for a lawmaker to disregard the legal framework he upholds politically by acting one way in private while supporting different rules for the public.

Klaus Holetschek, a senior leader of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party the CSU, told Germany’s DPA news agency that while the party respected Spahn’s private choice and congratulated the couple, the bloc’s political stance remains unchanged: “what is banned in Germany remains banned – and we won’t waver on that.”

Surrogacy, an arrangement where a woman carries and gives birth to a child for intended parents who cannot conceive on their own, is banned across multiple major EU member states including Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. Policy on the recognition of international surrogacy has shifted in recent months: France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, ruled earlier in July 2025 that children born via surrogacy abroad must be legally recognized as the children of their intended parents in France. By contrast, Italy’s right-wing government led by Giorgia Meloni introduced a new law in 2024 that criminalizes Italian citizens pursuing surrogacy abroad, even in countries where the practice is legal.

For many German couples, both same-sex and heterosexual who cannot conceive through traditional means, international surrogacy has become a common workaround for the country’s strict domestic ban.

On a Friday in mid-2024, a Moscow suburban court delivered a verdict that effectively removes one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most vocal domestic critics from the upcoming national parliamentary race. Sixty-three-year-old Boris Nadezhdin, who has openly condemned Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine and attempted to challenge Putin in the 2024 presidential election, was found guilty of displaying prohibited “extremist symbols” in a 2023 online interview.

The conviction stems from a brief appearance of an image of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny during that interview. At the time of the conversation, Navalny was already serving a 19-year prison sentence on widely discredited extremism charges that global observers and human rights groups uniformly labeled as politically motivated. Navalny, who had been the most prominent opposition figure to challenge Putin’s rule for years, died in February 2024 under suspicious circumstances while detained in a remote Arctic penal colony.

Nadezhdin has repeatedly dismissed the conviction as a baseless, absurd political maneuver, arguing that Russian authorities are deliberately blocking him from participating in September’s scheduled parliamentary election. The court in Dolgoprudny, the Moscow outer suburb where Nadezhdin resides, handed down a 1,000 ruble fine (equivalent to roughly $13) alongside the guilty verdict. While the fine is minor, the conviction carries profound political consequences that permanently block Nadezhdin from holding public office.

This legal action marks the latest in a string of restrictions placed on the Putin critic over the past several months. Just one week prior to the verdict, Russia’s Justice Ministry added Nadezhdin to its controversial “foreign agent” registry, a designation that brings heavy social stigma, constant state surveillance, and formal bars on running for public office. Prior to Friday’s ruling, Nadezhdin had still been permitted to pursue a symbolic, low-profile campaign for a parliamentary seat; that option is now fully closed.

During the court hearing, Nadezhdin reported feeling unwell, forcing proceedings to pause briefly so an ambulance team could conduct a medical evaluation. Before the session began, he told reporters he had considered traveling abroad for medical treatment and political safety, but Russian authorities have already imposed an exit ban barring him from leaving the country.

Nadezhdin’s exclusion from electoral politics follows a pattern of opposition crackdown that played out earlier this year during the 2024 presidential race. In January 2024, he drew widespread public support by openly calling for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and collected more than the required number of voter signatures to qualify for the ballot. However, Russia’s Supreme Court ultimately disqualified him, ruling that over 9,000 of his submitted signatures were invalid — a margin just large enough to remove him from the March 2024 race. Putin ultimately won a fifth presidential term with only token, widely compliant opposition on the ballot, a result that drew international criticism for lack of democratic competition.

The conviction of Nadezhdin comes amid a broader ongoing crackdown on anti-government dissent that accelerated after the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Since that time, Russian authorities have dramatically expanded restrictions on freedom of speech and political opposition, targeting independent journalists, human rights organizations, civil society leaders, LGBTQ+ activists, and minority religious groups with sweeping legal penalties. Hundreds of dissidents have been jailed on politically motivated charges, while thousands more have fled the country to avoid persecution.

In a parallel development on the same day as Nadezhdin’s verdict, another former supporter-turned-critic of Putin was taken into custody in St. Petersburg. Ilya Remeslo, a pro-Kremlin blogger and activist who publicly broke with the government earlier this year, was arrested on charges of spreading “false information” about the Russian military — a criminal offense that has become one of the most common tools used to target government critics. The state-run Tass news agency confirmed that Remeslo will be transferred to Moscow for an upcoming court hearing. Remeslo first publicly criticized the military campaign in Ukraine and called for Putin’s resignation in March 2024; shortly after that announcement, he was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric clinic for a month, a move he described as retaliation for his public comments.

LONDON — Britain is on the cusp of a Downing Street transition, with Andy Burnham set to formally assume the leadership of the country’s governing Labour Party on Friday, clearing the final procedural step before he takes office as prime minister next week. The center-left party will officially confirm the outcome of the leadership contest to replace outgoing prime minister Keir Starmer, a race where Burnham stood as the only candidate. As of Thursday evening, the former Greater Manchester mayor had secured the backing of 379 out of 403 sitting Labour Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, locking in his expected victory.

For weeks, Burnham has held the unofficial title of prime minister-in-waiting, but he has released few concrete details of his policy agenda to date. One month ago, after winning a by-election to secure a seat in Parliament, he pledged to build a new brand of British politics “rooted in unity and hope” and craft an economic framework that spreads balanced growth evenly across every region of the United Kingdom. To this point, he has avoided formal press conferences and granted only a small number of interviews, meaning he will enter 10 Downing Street as a largely unfamiliar figure to most voters outside of his northern Manchester base.

Burnham brings a far more approachable, relaxed leadership style compared to the stern demeanor of his predecessor Starmer, and is widely regarded as one of the Labour Party’s most skilled communicators. However, he will inherit many of the same urgent challenges that defined Starmer’s tenure, including sluggish national economic growth, a persistent cost-of-living crisis exacerbated by ongoing armed conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and chronically overstretched public services that have struggled to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to statements from Burnham’s office, he will outline his core policy priorities for the first time as Labour leader in his inaugural address on Friday. In the speech, he is expected to frame his administration as one that has the “courage to fix the big issues that successive political leaders have neglected.” Key areas of focus will include national economic renewal, expanding public ownership of critical infrastructure sectors, and creating new, high-quality modern industrial jobs. Burnham will argue that Britain took “a series of wrong turns in the 1980s”, when successive governments centralized political power in Westminster and pursued mass privatization of national economic assets – policies implemented by Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that fundamentally reshaped the UK’s economic and social landscape.

In a pre-recorded social media video released late Thursday, Burnham added that improving access to consistent social care for people requiring support due to age, chronic illness or disability will also be a top legislative priority. The issue, which has confounded both previous Labour and Conservative governments, has grown increasingly pressing as the UK’s population continues to age, leaving millions of vulnerable citizens and their families without reliable support.

Starmer first announced his resignation last month, ending a two-year tenure marked by repeated missteps and public judgment errors that eroded his support among both Labour Party members and the general public. Currently, the governing Labour Party consistently trails the anti-immigration Reform UK party in national opinion polls, and the party suffered catastrophic losses in May’s local government elections – a result that built irresistible pressure for Starmer to step down.

Starmer will remain in the role of caretaker prime minister until Monday, when he will formally tender his resignation to King Charles III. Following Starmer’s exit, the monarch will invite Burnham to form a new government, in line with UK constitutional convention. Under Britain’s parliamentary democratic system, governing parties are permitted to replace their leader and sitting prime minister without triggering a snap general election; the next scheduled national election is not required to be held until 2029.

This leadership transition marks a continuation of a trend of frequent prime ministerial turnover in the UK that has reshaped British politics in recent years. When Burnham takes office, he will become the seventh person to hold the role of prime minister since 2016.

A fierce political clash has erupted in Ireland’s lower parliamentary chamber, the Dáil Éireann, over the projected fiscal costs of unifying the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, after a senior Sinn Féin lawmaker compared independent economists predicting high initial unification costs to climate change deniers.

Thomas Gould, a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD), made the controversial remarks during a scheduled debate focused on the tax and public spending ramifications of a potential united Ireland. The core of the disagreement centers on wildly varying projections from academic analysts, who have arrived at drastically different cost estimates based on differing core assumptions about post-unification governance and public spending.

Gould argued that some commentators are deliberately leveraging fabricated data and inaccurate figures to undermine support for Irish unification. He specifically called out Professor John Fitzgerald, an economist who co-published a 2024 study examining how Northern Ireland’s current public service funding requirements would translate to a unified Irish state. Fitzgerald’s study put forward a central projection of €11 billion (£9.4 billion) in annual net initial costs for unification, equal to roughly 5% of the Republic of Ireland’s total national income. That estimate would require the new unified state to implement unpopular policy adjustments: tax increases, higher government borrowing, or cuts to public spending.

That projection was directly challenged by political scientist Professor John Doyle, who used an alternate set of assumptions to calculate a far lower annual initial cost of approximately €2.5 billion.

In defending his criticism of high-cost projections, Gould drew a parallel to decades of climate change denial. “For years, when we talked about climate change, climate change deniers were rolled out to give their opinions, even though all the science was against them,” Gould told the Dáil. “Now, we have that happening here, where we know the data and the positive implications Irish unity could have but we are allowing false data to come in to skew the conversation.”

Irish Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Simon Harris offered a more nuanced perspective earlier in the debate, acknowledging that the transition to a united Ireland would bring with it significant fiscal costs and logistical complexity, while pushing back on efforts to sum up the full impact in a single figure. Harris argued that the economic effects of unification would shift over time rather than remaining static, and that the public debate should focus on what the island’s two divided economies can collectively build after integration.

“The fiscal position in year one would, of course, not remain static. Over time, costs and revenues would evolve as both economies adapt, grow and become integrated,” Harris said. “How these opportunities are managed, and the extent to which these benefits are realised, will be the key determinant of the long-term fiscal impact. In other words, these outcomes are not predetermined. They will be shaped by the policy choices we make, the policies we pursue and the decisions we make.”

The debate comes just one week after the two governing parties of the Republic of Ireland – Harris’ Fine Gael and coalition partner Fianna Fáil – defeated a Sinn Féin proposal that would have started formal state planning for unification. The proposal included two key elements: the creation of a citizens’ assembly bringing together 99 randomly selected citizens to debate the advantages and drawbacks of Irish unity under the guidance of an independent moderator, and a requirement for the Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) to draft a public green paper outlining cross-government preparations for unification, covering everything from economic policy to public health and housing.