German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he is open to new dialogue with the United States, but added that he would not join US President Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace as it currently stands. 

“We are, of course, ready to explore other forms, new forms of cooperation with the United States of America,” he said at a press conference in Rome on Friday.

Merz had previously expressed his willingness to participate in such a body to Trump weeks ago, but he added that what it has now become cannot be accepted by Germany in its current structure “on constitutional grounds.”

The rejection adds Germany to the list of traditional US allies that said they would not join the board, including France, the UK and Spain.

Saudi Arabia, Hungary and Qatar have confirmed their spots on the US board, which some observers see as a way to circumvent the United Nations. 

Contrary to initial expectations, it is not a body solely dedicated to overseeing the peace process in the Gaza Strip as called for when it was established by a UN resolution. 

Nevertheless, Merz said Berlin was ready to cooperate with Washington in “finding new formats” that bring peace closer “in various regions of the world.”

 “And I don’t want to limit that just to Gaza and the Middle East. It can, of course, also be Ukraine,” Merz said.

Germany and Italy are deepening defense and economic cooperation with the leaders of the two countries signing an agreement in Rome.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni agreed on closer cooperation in the production of drones, naval vessels, underwater systems and air and missile defense systems.

 “There is no hierarchy in Germany’s relationships,” Merz said. “We are happy about every country with which we have such close and cooperative relations as we do with France and Italy. And we know that we can only move forward together in this European Union.”

The leaders are also looking to collaborate in the development of electronic warfare and aerial combat defense systems. 

The leaders signed an updated version of a 2023 action plan encompassing cooperation on internal security, migration and cultural heritage, among other areas.

Merz also said the EU’s free trade agreement with India had been largely negotiated with a trip involving the EU commission president to India, expected in the coming days, to ink the deal.

“We want an ambitious ‍European trade policy,” Merz said ​in ​a joint news conference with Meloni in Rome after an intergovernmental summit. 

“The agreement between the ‍European Union and the Mercosur countries was an important ​breakthrough… further agreements are now to follow, first and ⁠foremost ​with India.”

The trial of 8 suspected right-wing extremists accused of planning a coup is beginning in the German city of Dresden.

According to German federal prosecutors, the “Saxon Separatists” prepared to overthrow democracy in Germany 75 years after the end of the Nazi era. 

Read DW’s full report on Germany’s so-called “Saxon separatists.”

German judges have nixed an appeal by a Ukrainian national suspected of helping blow up an underwater gas pipeline to be freed from prosecution.

But neighboring Poland is refusing to extradite his alleged co-conspirator.

The suspect had tried to claim “combat privilege,” saying he was acting as a soldier attacking enemy infrastructure. Read DW’s full report.

Investigators have been examining allegations that a man carried out sexual acts on corpses at a hospital in western Germany, authorities have said.

Police in the town of Herford and prosecutors in the city of Bielefeld said a 39-year-old suspect is being investigated in two cases of disturbing the peace of the dead. The alleged incidents took place in June and December last year at a hospital in the town of Bünde.

Investigators said the suspect had worked at the hospital in auxiliary roles until the end of June, including cleaning duties in the pathology department. The condition and circumstances in which the bodies of a woman and a man were found, along with evidence at the scene, led authorities to suspect sexual acts had been carried out.

Police searched the man’s home on Wednesday and took a saliva sample, which is now being analyzed along with other seized evidence, investigators said.  

Three people have been killed in a series of accidents caused by black ice on motorways in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, police said early Friday.

Black ice triggered multiple crashes in the early morning hours on the A44 motorway. Police said a truck collided with a semi-trailer loaded with paper, which caught fire. The truck driver died at the scene, while the semi-trailer driver was taken to hospital.

In a separate crash on the same stretch of road, two more people were killed. Police said a total of 17 accidents occurred in both directions due to icy conditions. The A44 was closed in both directions in the area.

Earlier Friday, black ice also caused a major pileup on the A42 motorway near Essen. An initial car skidded on a bridge over the Rhine-Herne Canal, triggering a chain-reaction crash involving 26 vehicles, police said.

Emergency services said 25 people were slightly injured, five of whom were taken to hospital as a precaution. Traffic backed up for several kilometers during the morning rush hour, police said.

Bitterly cold rain and extreme ice have disrupted daily life across the northern state of Lower Saxony, forcing school closures and triggering widespread traffic accidents.

Police said Friday morning conditions on the roads were “catastrophic,” with hundreds of ice-related crashes reported from the Teutoburg Forest to the East Frisian Islands. Most accidents caused property damage, though some people were lightly injured, and trucks were seen jackknifed in several areas.

The German Weater Service (DWD) has warned of rain or drizzle freezing on contact with cold ground, especially west of the Weser River. The alert covered much of northwestern Germany, with police urging residents to stay home.

Police in western Germany have arrested a suspected burglar after a police dog tracked him down inside a warehouse in the town of Hagen.

Officers said Friday that the 30-year-old had broken into the building through a roof hatch before police surrounded and searched the site. The suspect hid inside a wardrobe, where the police dog Pixel located him.

Police said the man refused to come out and could not be ruled out as armed, prompting an officer to order the dog to intervene. Pixel bit the suspect on the arm and pulled him out of the wardrobe onto the floor.

The man was lightly injured, taken to a hospital for treatment, and later placed in temporary custody. Police said he is suspected of having previously broken into the same warehouse.

Supermarket giant Aldi Süd has confirmed that several hundred jobs will be cut at its German headquarters over the coming years.

The company told the DPA news agency that the layoff process began last year. Industry sources have put the number of affected positions at up to 500, mainly in accounting, human resources, and purchasing. The story was first reported by Germany’s Lebensmittel Zeitung.

Aldi Süd did not give specify the number of affected jobs or provide detailed reasons for the cuts. 

About 2,000 people are currently employed at Aldi Süd’s Germany headquarters in Mülheim an der Ruhr. The retailer also employs around 50,000 people nationwide, operates roughly 2,000 stores across Germany, and is one of the country’s largest grocery chains.

In Germany, Aldi operates as two separate companies — Aldi Nord (North) and Aldi Süd (South) — while simply bearing the name Aldi in other countries.

Guten Tag from the DW newsroom in Bonn.

You join us as news comes in that three people were killed in crashes caused by black ice in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

In one incident, a truck hit a semi-trailer and caught fire, killing the truck driver. Two more people died in a separate crash amid icy conditions, and a 26-vehicle pileup injured 25 people and snarled rush-hour traffic near the city of Essen.

In the town of Hagen, a police dog named Pixel made headlines by pulling a suspected burglar out of a wardrobe after he was cornered by police officers.

Stay with DW for more stories from Germany!