'Agreement' vs. 'Deal'. Framing of the EU-Turkey Refugee Policy in German Quality Newspapers

Document from the year 2017 in the subject Communications - Journalism, Journalism Professions, grade: 1,0, University of Hamburg (Institut für Journalistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft), language: English, abstract: ¿The chancellor does not make any deals.¿ This is a statement from the German government spokesman Georg Streiter, who answered a question of the journalist and YouTuber Tilo Jung during a session of the Federal Press Conference in April 2016 (Jung 2016). Streiter obviously did not find the term deal appropriate for the new agreement1, the EU had made with Turkey in order to reduce the number of refugees coming to the EU via Turkey.

In Germany¿s political language the term deal has nothing but a bad, dubious or at least un professional meaning, whereas Abkommen¿the German word for agreement¿has a neutral and respectable connotation. Consequently, it is no surprise that spokesman Streiter did not like a journalist using a term like deal. However, Jung used the term in full awareness of its bad connotation, probably to put emphasize on the arguably political background of the agreement.