German Foreign Minister Violates Rule She Fought For

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has been a member of the "Alliance 90/The Greens" party since 2005. This party has fought for years to ban night flights at Germany's largest airport, located in Frankfurt am Main. They achieved their goal: since 2011, flights have been prohibited from 11 PM to 5 AM.

However, as reported by the German newspaper Bild, on June 23, after attending the Germany-Switzerland football match, Baerbock took off from Frankfurt to Luxembourg at 11:54 PM, where the next day a meeting of EU foreign ministers was to take place. The sound of the government plane's engines was heard throughout the southern part of the city. The authorities of Hesse informed Bild that they had granted permission for the flight in advance, violating regulations for the sake of "public interest." Furthermore, the distance from Frankfurt am Main to Luxembourg is 184.36 km, a journey that could have been made quickly by train. Previously, Baerbock had called for increasing fees for short-distance flights.