The German government has not yet survived a year, and is very close to an end.

(1) The coalition has been disagreeing on major issues for months now, and the three parties are fighting each other openly now.
(2) The German Federal President (from the Christian Conservatives) resigned for weird reasons two weeks ago. The new candidate from the Conservatives would have no problems to get elected if the whole coalition voted for him, but it currently looks like many electoral delegates from the Liberals are considering to vote for the candidate nominated by the social democrats and the green party. This would be a disaster for the government.
(3) A couple of days ago, the government announced how they want to counter the global financial crises in Germany: they decided take away money from disabled and unemployed people as well as seniors (there are other cuts as well, but this is actually the biggest one).

The protest against the government has never been that big, the Liberal party is down to 3% (from 15% at the elections), and in a re-election the current coalition would not stand a chance.

Today, there was a big demonstration against the government in Berlin. It would have been great to see 20.000 people on the streets.

But it was not.

Because stupid ******** started throwing stones, bottles and even self-made bombs at policemen. Two policemen were severely hurt and had to be operated. It is not yet sure if they will survive.
(EDIT: this seems to be wrong – the police obviously wasn’t publishing adequate information. My point, however, remains, no matter if police officers were severely hurt, killed, or only injured.)

STOP IT.

You are destroying everything we, the people of Germany stand for. We are a peaceful people, and have proven this again and again recently, e.g. when the USA went to war in Iraq and Germany stood up against this war. Most people don’t agree with your violence, and you are ridiculing 20.000 people who went on the street to protest social cuts today. The police has nothing to do with this!

You are taking away our voice by taking illegal and inhuman actions. You offered the government the chance to pretend that only leftwing-radicals on their usual anti-capitalism campaign protested today, which is simply not true.

If you want to throw rocks at people, please feel free to go into some forest and through rocks at each other. Or bottles, or bombs. Noone cares.
Just get it over with.

The new German government has deleted several documents from the website of the Ministry For Environment, which was in the hands of the SPD in the last legislative period and is now governed by the Christian Conservatives.

One example is a brochure which was widely used as study material in German schools, showing the difficulties and potential dangers of nuclear energy (the UNESCO awarded a price to the booklet in 2007); another example is the publication “Nuclear Energy – An Expensive Meander – The Myths of the Nuclear Power Industry“, authored by Sigmar Gabriel (SPD), the Minister for the Environment of the last legislative period.

These documents were silently removed with the simple reason of lobbyism. I hope one day society will acknowledge the importance of us “internet people” who carefully watch these things and ask questions.

When the Ministry was asked to comment on this, they didn’t even bother to come up with proper reasons.

The first reason (1) which was given – stating that all materials authored by ex-ministers are removed as standard procedure – is proven wrong, since there are still bazillion of publications of ex-ministers on websites of Ministries; the second reason (2), stating that online brochures are removed as soon as there aren’t any offline brochures available is not only completely insane (why would you remove free digital information when the same information is not available anymore in a paper version?), but also untrue (several brochures on websites of Ministries are declared to be unavailable as paper version, and it is therefor encouraged on those very sites to download them for free).

Unbelievable.

Update:
One day later the Ministry for the Environment realized that their plan to clandestinely remove critical papers towards nuclear energy failed – the news of the removal spread on the internet.
The answer: a polite “thank you” by the press office, followed by uploading the documents in question again – (1) and (2).

(Source: Netzpolitik.de)

A few weeks ago elections were held in the German county Thüringen – which was governed by the Christian conservatives (CDU) for quite a while now. They lost 11.8% votes though and dropped down to 31.2%, and the left party (Die Linke) scored second with an outstanding outcome, leaving the social democrats (SPD) as third party far behind.

It was the choice of the SPD to make up their mind who would govern Thüringen from now on:

• CDU + SPD (48 out of 88 seats)
• SPD + Linke + Greens (51 out of 88 seats)

The ruler of the left party, Bodo Ramelow, even offered the SPD that he would pass on the office of prime minister (which is very unusual, because the left party would have been the biggest party in that coalition) to make it easier for the SPD.

But the SPD chose to form a coalition with the CDU (sic!), disappointing many many (many) voters by ignoring the possibility for a left coalition. The CDU was governing Thüringen alone for 8 years now, and it was the chance for the SPD to bring change to the country.

Now comes the interesting part: when a new coalition is formed, there is a statutory meeting in parliament where the delegates vote for the new prime minister – in this case Christine Lieberknecht, CDU. A simple majority is needed, and Lieberknecht failed twice this morning, receiving only 45 out of 88 votes.

I’m happy to see that there are still decent SPD delegates in this country – on the other hand it’s quite sad to see that there are only 3 out of 18 in Thüringen.

Anyway: thumbs up, guys. Keep going!

Update, one hour later:
Christine Lieberknecht (CDU) was confirmed as prime minister with 57 out of 88 votes. I assume that the FDP is responsible for that, because they are rather in the opposition against CDU + FDP than in the opposition against a left coalition.

(Sources: wikipedia.de for the chart, mdr.de for the content)

The new German ministers for the next 4 years have been announced, and our most beloved Mr. Schäuble will become minister of finance. The heads of the three coalition parties – Merkel (CDU), Seehofer (CSU) and Westerwelle (FDP) – gave a press conference today.

A Dutch reporter asked Merkel how she possibly came up with the idea to nominate “a person” as minister of finance who “forgot” about receiving 100.000 Deutsche Mark when questioned in the German parliament in 1999.
The background: Schäuble took 100.000 DM from an arms dealer in 1994, denied any financial transaction when questioned in 1999, and one year later admitted receiving 100.000 DM.

Merkel replied very shortly that she trusts “this person” (both actually avoid the name Schäuble). The reporter pretends to be confused and asks again, but Merkel just dodges the question, and the moderator goes on: “next question, please”.

• Video of the press conference (youtube, 1:13 minutes)
• background on wikipedia (unfortunately only in German)

(Source: fefe, wikipedia, spiegel)

Autor: Christian Gosse

Tja, offenbar sind die ersten Casting-Runden der alle vier Jahre stattfindenden Show “DSDOK” herum und die Auserwählten werden in den nächsten Wochen einige Workshops absolvieren und in mehreren Mottoshows im Bundestag und auf internationalen Konferenzen ihre Fähigkeiten unter Beweis stellen.
Die diesjährige Jury bestand als “Mama” Merkel, “Grinse”-Guido und “Heiland” Horst und wenig überraschend haben sich zwei der Jurymitglieder selbst ins Kabinett gewählt.

Hier also die voraussichtlichen Finalisten und ihre Ensemblerollen:

Angela Merkel: Bundeskanzlerin
Diese Rolle hatte sie schon die letzten vier Jahre gespielt, doch jetzt hofft sie, mit der neuen Bandbesetzung endlich die Misstöne abgestellt und ein paar harmonische Kantonisten verpflichtet zu haben. Merkels mütterlicher Charme hat sie schon in der letzten Staffel zum Liebling der Zuschauer werden lassen.

Ronald Pofalla: Kanzleramts-Minister
Sozusagen der Notenständer der Kanzlerin. Muss nicht singen, was vielleicht auch ganz gut so ist.

Guido Westerwelle: Außenminister
Singt die zweite Solostimme, vor allem bei internationalen Auftritten. Hat langjährige Bühnenerfahrung, aber gilt beim Publikum oft als ein bisschen selbstverliebt. Hört sich selbst gerne singen.

Wolfgang Schäuble: Finanzminister
Hat durch seine eigenwillige Interpretation des Innenministeriums viel Kritik beim Publikum einstecken müssen, und auch das Verfassungs-Komitee würdigte seine gesetzlichen Leistungen nicht in dem Maße, das er erhofft hatte. Aber chor-intern gilt er als Meister der schwierigen Töne, er singt Tonfolgen, die sich kein anderer traut, nicht mal Guido. Daher vielleicht eine gute Besetzung als Nachfolger für Peer Steinbrück, der ebenfalls sehr außergewöhnliche Tonlagen beherrschte, wie man in der Schweiz, Liechtenstein und Mali feststellte. Für seine neue Rolle hat er zumindest einige Erfahrungen mit Briefumschlägen sammeln können.

Thomas de Maizière: Innenministerium
Gilt als zuverlässiger Notenständer und -umblätterer. Soll seine Kenntnisse mit auch schwierigen Partituren nun im Innenministerium unter Beweis stellen. Das Publikum erhofft von ihm eine wesentlich verträglichere Interpretation des Gesetzesstoffes als sein Vorgänger pflegte.
Read the rest of this entry »

Minister of Interior Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) said a few hours ago in an interview that the law to censor the internet in Germany – with the official reason of fighting child pornography – was passed in order to set the CDU apart from other parties in the final part of the election campaign, and that it contains mistakes and errors.

As long as politicians lie, as long as they at least pretend to do things that are good for the people, they fear us, at least a tiny little bit. But as soon as they actually tell you that they don’t care at all, that they just did what they did because they wanted to be re-elected, as soon as a Dick Cheney actually admits that the US went to Iraq for oil it’s a sign that things not only not go very well, but that things are quite out of control.

Sueddeutsche.de writes:

Der Minister gab handwerkliche Fehler beim sogenannten Zugangserschwerungsgesetz für Stoppschilder im Internet zu. Das Gesetz zum Schutz vor Kinderpornografie sei im Endspurt des Wahlkampfes auch deshalb entstanden, um die CDU gegenüber anderen Parteien abzusetzen.

Unbelievable.

Introduction:

• This post will be updated regularly in the weeks to come
• Explanation of the parties: CDU/CSU are the two conservative, christian parties; SPD = social democrats, FDP = liberals, LINKE = left-winged party, GRÜNE = green party

Overall:

• 1) CDU/CSU: 33.8 (-1.4)
• 2) SPD: 23.0 (-11.2)
• 3) FDP: 14.6 (+4.8)
• 4) LINKE: 11.9 (+3.2)
• 5) GRÜNE: 10.7 (+2.6)
• OTHERS: 6.0 (+2.1)
• PIRATES, included in “Others”: 2.1 (+2.1)

Interesting facts:

• Only 70% of the German people went to vote (-7%)
• CDU/CSU+FDP: 332 / 622 seats (53.38%), a clear majority; it is obvious that our new government did not just win due to the difficult direct mandate system which was declared anti-constitutional a few months back
• FDP, LINKE and GRÜNE achieved the best results in the history of their parties, no need to talk about the SPD on the other hand
• In this election, the German Bundestag was voted. Oversimplified: they propose bills. The bills then go to the Bundesrat (the second chamber), which is the representation of the 18 German counties; in this chamber, SPD-LINKE-GRÜNE currently have the majority – they might just block laws from our new government

Voter migration: Read the rest of this entry »

(this post is a about a website of the German green party trying to get the votes from people who haven’t yet decided which party to vote for)

Noch drei Tage bis zur Wahl. Die Grünen haben eine nette Idee, sich um die unentschlossenen Wähler zu kümmern: Dreitagewach

Mehr als ein Drittel aller Wahlberechtigten entscheiden ganz kurzfristig, welcher Partei sie ihre Stimme geben. Darum sind wir während der letzten 72 Stunden vor der Wahl für alle Unentschlossen da – rund um die Uhr

Ich habe den Grünen mal zwei Fragen eingeschickt:
(1)

Für mich sind die Grünen unwählbar, weil sich über 30 % der Abgeordneten beim Zensursula Gesetz (Internet-Zugangs-Erschwerungs-Gesetz …) enthalten haben.
Wie konnte das passieren? Ich fand deswegen auch den Auftritt der Partei auf der Demonstration in Berlin “Freiheit statt Angst” daneben.

(2)

Die Grünen haben u.a. für folgende Gesetze gestimmt:
* Abschuss von Passagiermaschinen
* Biometrische Merkmale in Reisepässen
* Standortermittlung von Mobiltelefonen
* Wiedereinführung des großen Lauschangriffs
* Schleierfahndung
Wie passt das zusammen mit der Tatsache, dass Sie kurz vor der Wahl das Thema Internet- und Bürgerrechte für sich entdecken?

Antworten: Read the rest of this entry »

by Jana Jarecki

Three days ago, head of the German Ministry for Economic Affairs, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, once more outsourced creating a draft version for a law to the international law firm Linklaters. You might remember the debate whether he should have outsourced writing the draft version of a law regulating financial markets (Gesetz zur Ergänzung des Kreditwesensgeschäftes) to the very law firm or should rather have adviced a ministry to prepare it in house. I’d like to talk about the latter case.

It is common practice in Germany to involve external expertise in the drafting process of a bill. Nonetheless certain questions should be addressed concerning Guttenberg’s Ghostwriters for the financial market law: Did he observe the rules for public tenders? Is outsourcing necessary in this particular case? If so, is Linklaters a good institute to carry out the job?

(i) Very basic, the procedure of searching for a relevant agent to carry out the job has to meet the requirements for any public tender: make it accessible for as much companies as possible in order to get the job done by the most qualified as well as priciest institute. According to Guttenberg, his ministry had inquired several law firms. Not only offered Linklaters to take the job cheapest but also were some of the remaining law firms bound by contracts with other departments. He seemed to have fulfilled this requirement, although I do not see the argumentative value of his second argument.

Read the rest of this entry »