Berlin  - Chancellor Angela Merkel's promise that personal savings at German banks are safe is a political assurance, her spokesman said in Berlin Monday, implying a statutory insurance of deposits was not planned.

"It's a political statement that can be relied on and is decisive," said Ulrich Wilhelm. The German government and its capabilities stood behind this assurance, he added.

Merkel herself, in a speech in the central city of Wiesbaden, said "the state's guarantee" had been necessary to restore confidence.

Berlin  - Emerging from talks with visiting Serbian President Boris Tadic, German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected Wednesday proposals for an ethnic division of Kosovo.

Reports from Belgrade the previous day suggested that Tadic himself had suggested division as a compromise, but in Berlin, Tadic said that he had been misunderstood.

The interpretation of what he said had been "politically wrong,"

he told reporters.

About 50 nations, including Germany, have recognized Kosovo as independent, whereas Serbia insists Kosovo still belongs to it.

Berlin  - Chancellor Angela Merkel threw her weight Tuesday behind a government guarantee for troubled German mortgage lender Hypo Real Estate (HRE), saying she assumed the lifeline would be extended this week.

She said the package was a "confidence-building measure" that would have "incredibly important meaning" for the economy in Germany.

Axel Weber, president of the Bundesbank, stood at her side and added the step was vital to bring long-term stability to the bonds market that supplies credit to Germany's mid-sized enterprises.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday she would fight pressure from the European Union to curb state influence over Europe's biggest carmaker, Volkswagen.

"The federal government is on the side of VW," the chancellor told an assembly of 18,000 workers at the company's main plant in Wolfsburg in the state of Lower Saxony.

The government has drafted a reform of legislation on Volkswagen which it believes satisfies EU law while cementing veto powers asserted by Lower Saxony with just over 20 per cent of VW shares.

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned on the Sunday the "brutal, inhumane" bombing that killed at least 53 people the day before in Islamabad.

"The fight against transnational terrorism remains a top priority for affected countries like Pakistan and the international community," she said in a Berlin statement.

"Germany will be continuing to support its partner Pakistan in efforts for stability and prosperity."

Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a condolence message to the Pakistan Foreign Ministry that everything must be done to "discourage support for the terrorists."

Linz, Austria - German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Saturday for greater transparency in financial markets, following the global upheavals caused by the US credit crunch.

Merkel said it was unfair that the losses arising from the crisis have been "shed fairly equally around the world."

Europe needed to do more for greater transparency and to ensure that such a scenario does not repeat itself, she told a rally of the conservative Austrian political party OeVP.

Merkel said greater trans-Athaltic cooperation was needed in the financial sector.