Bilder und Zeiten - Feuilleton - FAZ.NET - Simone de Beauvoir: Eine Verführerin von Kopf zu Kopf
24. November 2007 Simone de Beauvoir wäre am 9. Januar 2008 hundert Jahre alt geworden. Ein guter Anlass, Beauvoir zu lesen, Beauvoir wieder zu lesen. Selbst ich, die ich relativ vertraut bin mit ihrem Werk, entdecke dabei jedes Mal Neues, Überraschendes. Immer wieder hingerissen bin ich von der Klarheit ihres Denkens, der Unteilbarkeit ihres Gerechtigkeitssinns und der Kühnheit ihrer Visionen in den politischen Essays, allen voran „Das andere Geschlecht“. Gerührt bin ich von ihrer Leidenschaft und Verletzlichkeit, die in den Memoiren und Briefen offenkundig wird. Und beschämt bin ich, dass ich zwei ihrer schönsten Bücher bis heute nicht gelesen hatte: „Die Welt der schönen Bilder“ und „Eine gebrochene Frau“. Dabei erschienen diese Romane nur wenige Jahre vor unserer persönlichen Begegnung und Freundschaft. Doch das waren die bewegten Jahre um den Mai '68 und den Aufbruch der Frauenbewegung. Jahre, in denen Beauvoir erklärt hatte, sie wolle keine Literatur mehr schreiben, das scheine ihr nur noch „eitel“ - was falsch war, aber auch unkonventionelle Geister stehen eben nie außerhalb ihrer Zeit.
Beim Wiederlesen bestätigt sich, dass die Literatur, Philosophie, Essays und Memoiren sowie, postum, die Briefe von Simone de Beauvoir eine untrennbare Einheit bilden. Alle Genres bedingen und befruchten sich gegenseitig, ihre Quelle sind Beauvoirs Leben und ihre (noch unveröffentlichten) Tagebücher. „Mein Werk ist mein Leben“, hat sie selbst einmal gesagt. In der Tat: Das eine ist ohne das andere nicht denkbar. Es sind Werk und Leben, die diese einflussreichste weibliche Intellektuelle des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts zum role model für mehrere Frauengenerationen gemacht haben.
Beim Lesen des Gesamtwerkes fällt auf, dass nach den frühen philosophischen Essays und den im und nach dem Krieg veröffentlichten „Ideenromanen“ eine Wende stattfindet in Beauvoirs Werk. In den frühen Romanen sind die ProtagonistInnen und Handlungen noch Träger moralischer Fragen und existentialistischer Überzeugungen. Doch ab Mitte der fünfziger Jahre konstruiert sie die Personen nicht mehr von der Idee her, sondern schlüpft in die Haut ihrer ProtagonistInnen und überlässt ihre Entwicklung dem ganz und gar nicht immer politisch korrekten, widersprüchlichen Leben.
Die Tochter aus gutem Hause
Es beginnt mit ihr selbst, mit ihrem 1958 veröffentlichten ersten und dichtesten Memoiren-Band, dem über ihre Kindheit und Jugend (“Memoiren einer Tochter aus gutem Hause“); es geht weiter mit dem 1964 veröffentlichten Protokoll über die Agonie und den Tod ihrer Mutter; und es reicht bis zu Laurence und Monique, diesen so erschütternd einfühlsam geschilderten „ganz normalen“ Frauenleben (in „Die Welt der schönen Bilder“ und „Eine gebrochene Frau“). Ausgerechnet diese Autorin wird bis heute immer wieder als ignorant gegenüber dem traditionellen Frauenleben oder gar als „frauenfeindlich“ kritisiert. Liest man diese Texte, ist das kaum zu verstehen. Denn das Gegenteil ist der Fall: Sie versteht auf eine fast unheimliche Weise alles.
Aber wer ist sie? Sie ist eine Frau, die sich, geprägt vom neunzehnten Jahrhundert, im zwanzigsten in das einundzwanzigste Jahrhundert hinein schrieb; eine Frau, die zu einer Zeit für uneingeschränkte Gleichberechtigung plädierte, als das noch unerhört war - und die gleichzeitig um ihre „weibliche“ Prägung nur allzu gut wusste. Sie ist eine Frau, die nie ein Mann sein wollte: „Die Frau kann nur dann ein vollständiges Individuum sein, wenn sie auch ein geschlechtlicher Mensch ist“, schreibt Beauvoir im „Anderen Geschlecht“. Denn „auf ihre Weiblichkeit verzichten hieße, auf einen Teil ihrer Menschlichkeit verzichten“.
Sie dürstet nach „männlichen“ Freiheiten
Der Vatertochter Simone war als junges Mädchen wegen des materiellen Abstiegs ihrer großbürgerlichen Familie und der fehlenden Mitgift schon früh die Flucht in die Ehe verbaut. Sie verachtet ihre abhängige, in Passivität verharrende Mutter und begnügt sich nicht mit dem Frausein. Sie dürstet nach „männlichen“ Freiheiten - im Denken wie im Leben. Doch sie bleibt zugleich ein emotional „weiblich“ geprägter Mensch, was sich vor allem in ihrem Verhältnis zu Sartre zeigt. Für seine oft kindlich grausame, emotionale Enthemmtheit als Verführer bringt sie lebenslang ein im Rückblick schwer nachvollziehbares Verständnis auf.
Sie ist 21, er drei Jahre älter, als die beiden auf einer Steinbank am Louvre ihren berühmten Pakt schließen, der in den folgenden Jahrzehnten noch zweimal erneuert werden wird. Der Pakt besagt, dass es sich bei ihrer Beziehung um eine „notwendige Liebe“ handele, die nicht in Frage gestellt werden dürfe und lebenslang Priorität haben solle - die jedoch gleichzeitig „Zufallslieben“ nicht ausschließe. Es war Sartres Idee, er gab den Takt vor. Was ihn gleichzeitig nicht hinderte, Beauvoir in heiklen Situationen, wenn sie verunsichert war, mehrfach einen Heiratsantrag zu machen - den sie jedes Mal ablehnte, im Namen der gemeinsam beschlossenen Freiheit.
Schneller drehendes Frauenkarussell
In den folgenden Jahrzehnten spielten immer wieder „Dritte“ eine Rolle im Leben beider; bei ihr einmal bis zur Schmerzgrenze (im Fall Nelson Algren), bei ihm dreimal (bei Wanda Kosakiewicz, Dolores Vanetti und Arlette Elkaïm). Hinzu kam sein sich immer schneller drehendes Frauenkarussell. Am Lebensende hatte er neben Simone de Beauvoir drei Hauptfrauen - Wanda, Michelle und Arlette -, mit denen er seit Jahrzehnten verbunden war und die alle ökonomisch von ihm abhängig waren; plus bis zuletzt wechselnde Nebenfrauen.
Bei der 34 Jahre jüngeren Arlette Elkaïm, einer algerischen Jüdin, ging Sartre sogar so weit, sie 1965 zu adoptieren. Und da Sartre es nicht für nötig gehalten hatte, ein Testament zu hinterlassen, hatte die Adoption die absehbaren desaströsen Folgen. Arlette Elkaïm missbrauchte nach dem Tod Sartres ihre formale Macht als Adoptivtochter, räumte innerhalb von Tagen die Wohnung Sartres aus, während Beauvoir unter dem Schock des Verlustes ihres „Zwillings“ im Krankenhaus um ihr Leben kämpfte, und ließ die Schlüssel austauschen. Simone de Beauvoir erhielt von ihrem Gefährten kein einziges Erinnerungsstück, nicht einmal den Melkschemel aus dem Elsass, der Sartre lebenslang begleitet hatte.
Es lässt sich durchaus auch Kritisches über die Beziehung der beiden sagen, über die Freiheiten, die er sich nahm, und die Zumutungen, die sie hinnahm. Dennoch sind sie eines der größten Liebespaare des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts und verband die beiden bis zum letzten Atemzug nicht nur ein immenses intellektuelles und politisches Einverständnis, sondern auch eine zärtliche Liebesbeziehung.
Stritten auf Augenhöhe
Das habe ich selbst immer wieder erlebt in den Jahren meiner Freundschaft mit ihnen, ab 1973. Sie waren sich einig oder stritten auf Augenhöhe, und sie gingen unsentimental, aber liebevoll miteinander um. Die unerschütterliche Basis der Beziehung war beider Verstand und Leidenschaft für das Denken, Schreiben und Handeln. Wobei ihr Verstand schon auf der École Normale, der Eliteschule, die beide mit Bravour absolviert hatten, als „männlicher“ galt als seiner - und sie im Rückblick als eine „in der Literatur kaschierte Philosophin“ gilt und er als „philosophierender Schriftsteller“. Also genau das Gegenteil des von ihr propagierten Selbstverständnisses, nach dem er der bedeutendere Philosoph gewesen sei und sie eher die Schriftstellerin.
„Wenn andere Leute mein Wesen zu deuten behaupteten, so taten sie es, indem sie mich als einen Annex ihrer eigenen Welt betrachteten“, sagte Beauvoir. „Sartre hingegen versuchte meinen Platz in meinem eigenen System zu respektieren, er begriff mich im Licht meiner Werte und Projekte.“ Und nach seinem Tod sagte sie zu ihrer Biographin Deirdre Bair: „In den Memoiren habe ich geschrieben, dass, sollte Sartre sich mit mir zu einer bestimmten Stunde eines bestimmten Tages und Jahres an einem weit entfernten Ort verabreden, ich mich im vollen Vertrauen darauf, ihn anzutreffen, dorthin begäbe. Denn auf Sartre konnte ich mich immer absolut verlassen. Nun, das stimmte auch nach so vielen Jahren noch. Trotz allem, was wir durchgemacht hatten - nein, vielleicht gerade deshalb -, konnten wir uns stets aufeinander verlassen. Er würde mich niemals enttäuschen - ich würde ihn niemals im Stich lassen.“ Ersteres traf vielleicht nicht immer ganz zu, zweiteres jedoch uneingeschränkt.
Es stellt sich die Frage, ob Sartre für Beauvoir nicht noch viel mehr war als „nur“ ein Gefährte und Zwilling. War er nicht darüber hinaus eine Art Medium, das ihr, der stummen Frau, erlaubte, sich „männlich“ zu artikulieren? Dafür spricht auch ihre lebenslange intensive Mitarbeit an Sartres Denken und Schreiben. Eines der weiteren Geheimnisse, weshalb der „Pakt“ letztendlich trotz aller Belastungen lebenslang gehalten hat, war wohl auch der geringe Stellenwert der Sexualität zwischen Beauvoir und Sartre. Denn Sartre war, eingestandenermaßen, nie ein großer Liebhaber gewesen, im Gegenteil: Er galt auf diesem Gebiet eher als tolpatschig und unsensibel. Ihn interessierte vor allem das Erobern und Verführen, aber nicht der Akt an sich. In den späten Gesprächen, die Beauvoir in ihrem Buch über Sartres Agonie und Tod veröffentlichte (“Zeremonie des Abschieds“), spricht sie ihn auf seine „Frigidität“ an, und er bestätigt: „Ich war eher ein Frauenmasturbierer.“ Das Dynamit, das Sexualität in einer Beziehung sein kann, war in diesem Fall nur Knetmasse. Auf dem Gebiet also war die Infragestellung der Exklusivität von Sartre kein großer Verlust für Beauvoir.
Eine notwendige Frauenliebe
Im Gegenteil: Die von Sartre vorgegebene offene Beziehung gab auch Beauvoir die Freiheit anderer Liebesbeziehungen. Das begann mit einer zärtlichen Liebschaft mit dem jungen Bost, einem Ex-Schüler und Anhänger von Sartre, ab Ende der dreißiger Jahre; und ging bis zu der leidenschaftlichen Affäre mit Nelson Algren (in der Beauvoir ihren ersten Orgasmus hatte, im Alter von 39 Jahren!), bis hin zu der späten Beziehung mit Sylvie Le Bon, die neben dem kranken Sartre zunehmend Raum griff. Ihre Bisexualität hatte Simone de Beauvoir in den Memoiren nur gestreift, in den Briefen an Sartre jedoch offen thematisiert: von Olga über Bianca bis Sorokine. Dabei fällt auf, dass sie keiner Frau jemals in ihrem Begehren einen so bedeutenden Platz eingeräumt hat wie den in ihrem Leben wichtigen Männern, ja, mehr noch: In den Briefen an Sartre versucht sie, die erotische und emotionale Bedeutung der Frauen herunterzuspielen.
Nur eine Frau hat in ihrem Leben einen vorrangigen Platz eingenommen: Das ist Sylvie Le Bon, die jüngere Philosophielehrerin. Beauvoir begegnete Sylvie 1960 zum ersten Mal, nachdem die damals achtzehnjährige Schülerin sie um eine Unterredung zu ihren philosophischen Schriften gebeten hatte. Die Beziehung zu Sylvie wird ab 1965 enger, als sie mit der nun Dreiundzwanzigjährigen eine Reise nach Korsika macht. Von da an werden die beiden Frauen immer unzertrennlicher und sprechen von „Liebe“ - aber schweigen über Sexualität. In dem Interview, das ich 1978 mit Simone de Beauvoir führte, antwortete sie auf die Frage, ob es Dinge gäbe, die sie in den Memoiren nicht gesagt habe, aber heute schreiben würde: „Ja. Ich hätte gerne eine wirklich sehr ehrliche Bilanz meiner eigenen Sexualität gezogen. Und zwar vom feministischen Standpunkt aus. (. . .) Doch ich werde voraussichtlich heute nicht mehr darüber schreiben, weil von dieser Art von Geständnis nicht nur ich, sondern auch einige Personen, die mir sehr nahestehen, betroffen wären.“
Sylvie füllt ab Ende der siebziger Jahre die Lücke, die der allmählich in die Krankheit gleitende Sartre lässt. Nach dessen Tod adoptiert Beauvoir die 34 Jahre Jüngere, damit sie sich später uneingeschränkt um ihr Erbe kümmern kann. In der Tat ist es Sylvie Le Bon, die in den letzten Jahren Briefe und Tagebücher aufgespürt, Beauvoirs quasi unleserliche Schrift entziffert und die Texte herausgegeben hat.
„Geliebtes kleines Geschöpf“
Als das postume Erscheinen der Beauvoir-Briefe 1990, vier Jahre nach ihrem Tod, enthüllt, dass der „reizende Biber“ (le charmant castor, wie Sartre und die „kleine Familie“ sie nennen) seinem „geliebten kleinen Geschöpf“ (wie sie ihn vorzugsweise anspricht) die Liaisons mit Frauen meist als unbedeutend, ja „lästig“ dargestellt hat, ist eine ihrer frühen Freundinnen, Bianca Bienenfeld (in den Memoiren Védrine), so verletzt, dass sie, ein halbes Jahrhundert später, zur Abrechnung schreitet. Sie veröffentlicht 1993 die „Memoiren eines getäuschten Mädchens“ (“Mémoires d'une jeune fille dérangée“ - in Anspielung auf Beauvoirs „Mémoires d'une jeune fille rangée“). Darin beklagt die Gekränkte sich bitter über die „Skrupellosigkeit“ des allzu freien Paares.
Das war Wasser auf die Mühlen derer, die schon lange dem Mythos Beauvoir/Sartre an den Kragen wollten, an dem sie zuvor selber fleißig mitgestrickt hatten. Nicht nur Beauvoirs Werk sei fragwürdig, hieß es nun, auch ihr Leben sei alles andere als nachahmenswert. Gedemütigt habe sie ein Leben lang Sartres Harem ertragen, und Frauen gegenüber habe sie sich schlimmer verhalten als jeder Kerl. Zu Lebzeiten Sartres war Beauvoir geschützt gewesen durch den Status als „Frau an seiner Seite“. Die Demontage begann prompt nach seinem Tod 1980 und mit Aufkommen des Differentialismus, dieser dem uneingeschränkten Gleichheitsgedanken von Beauvoir diametral entgegengesetzten Überzeugung von einem „wesensmäßigen“ Unterschied zwischen den Geschlechtern, qua Geburt oder Prägung, auf jeden Fall irreversibel. Gerade Linke und Feministinnen, die einst selbst zur adorierenden Mythenbildung beigetragen hatten, rechneten jetzt mit den einst so Verehrten ab. Bis heute sind die Reaktionen gerade intellektueller Frauen auf diese eine Frau, die das Leben von Millionen Frauen beeinflusst und verändert hat, so manches Mal kleinlich und engherzig. Sie scheinen sich einerseits blind mit dem Vorbild zu identifizieren, andererseits das zu menschliche Idol für ihr eigenes Ungenügen zu verurteilen.
Denkerin des universellen Feminismus
Der Konflikt um Simone de Beauvoir hat keineswegs nur psychologische, sondern auch handfeste politische Gründe. Denn die Kritik an der führenden Denkerin des universellen Feminismus ist immer auch eine Kritik am universellen Feminismus. Doch wie auch immer die jeweiligen Moden und Gewichtungen waren und sein werden: Niemand hat so brillant Zeugnis abgelegt über das Frausein im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert und unsere Geschichte - und niemand ist mit solchen Siebenmeilenstiefeln in das 21. Jahrhundert vorangeschritten. Die Neue Frauenbewegung wäre ohne diese eine solitäre Vordenkerin in ihrer Konsequenz nicht denkbar gewesen.
Simone de Beauvoir gehört zur ersten Generation der weiblichen Elite des letzten Jahrhunderts, die Zugang zu der bis dahin ausschließlich Männern vorbehaltenen Bildung hatte. Die Pariser Intellektuelle brach aus der Enge des Bürgertums aus und ging hinein in die Welt. Von Anfang an wollte sie beides sein: Objekt und Subjekt, Frau und Mann, Mensch. Sie wusste um die Prägungen und Realitäten der Geschlechter - aber sie nahm sich dennoch die existentialistische Freiheit der Wahl. Diese Frau wollte sich nicht länger teilen lassen in Kopf oder Körper, in geachtet oder begehrt. „Sie wollte sowohl als Intellektuelle als auch als Frau verführen“, schreibt Toril Moi in ihrer „Psychographie einer Intellektuellen“.
Die Erfahrungen dieser Generation, in der einzelne Pionierinnen glaubten, es bereits geschafft zu haben, ist darum lehrreich für die Enkelinnen, die heute alle einen uneingeschränkten Zugang zu Bildung und Beruf haben. Zumindest in den Demokratien. Und zumindest auf dem Papier. Denn die Enkelinnen der Emanzipation stehen heute vor derselben Aufgabe wie einst Simone de Beauvoir: Theorie und Handeln, Verstand und Gefühl auf einen Nenner zu bringen. Simone de Beauvoir hat es ihnen in einsamer Größe vorgelebt. Sie ist manchmal gescheitert, aber sie hat auch viele Siege davongetragen. Sie hat ganz einfach ihr Leben in die Hand genommen - entschlossen, glücklich zu sein.
Am 1. Dezember erscheint der von Alice Schwarzer herausgegebene Band „Simone de Beauvoir - Ein Lesebuch mit Bildern“ im Rowohlt Verlag. Gerade erschien außerdem „Weggefährtinnen im Gespräch - Interviews 1972-82“ bei Kiepenheuer & Witsch.
Text: F.A.Z., 24.11.2007, Nr. 274 / Seite Z3
Bildmaterial: picture-alliance / dpa, picture-alliance/ dpa, picture-alliance/ dpa/dpaweb
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
Tod einer Charismatikerin - einestages
Tod einer Charismatikerin - einestages
Petra Kelly kämpfte für den Frieden, dafür schulterte sie das Leid der Erde. Politisch war sie damit erfolgreich - als Mensch zerbrach sie daran. Am 19. Oktober 1992 wurden die Leichen der charismatischen Grünen-Mitbegründerin und ihres Lebensgefährten Gert Bastian gefunden: Er hatte sie im Schlaf erschossen und dann sich selbst gerichtet.
Petra Kelly kämpfte für den Frieden, dafür schulterte sie das Leid der Erde. Politisch war sie damit erfolgreich - als Mensch zerbrach sie daran. Am 19. Oktober 1992 wurden die Leichen der charismatischen Grünen-Mitbegründerin und ihres Lebensgefährten Gert Bastian gefunden: Er hatte sie im Schlaf erschossen und dann sich selbst gerichtet.
Streit um Biografie: Günter Grass klagt gegen SS-Vorwurf - Kultur - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten
Streit um Biografie: Günter Grass klagt gegen SS-Vorwurf - Kultur - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten
Günter Grass zieht gegen den Verlag seines eigenen Biografen Michael Jürgs vor Gericht - der hatte behauptet, Grass habe sich freiwillig zur Waffen-SS gemeldet. Der Literaturnobelpreisträger kontert nun mit einer eidesstattlichen Versicherung.
Günter Grass zieht gegen den Verlag seines eigenen Biografen Michael Jürgs vor Gericht - der hatte behauptet, Grass habe sich freiwillig zur Waffen-SS gemeldet. Der Literaturnobelpreisträger kontert nun mit einer eidesstattlichen Versicherung.
Grünen-Parteitag in Nürnberg Das grüne Kamel - Deutschland - sueddeutsche.de
Grünen-Parteitag in Nürnberg Das grüne Kamel - Deutschland - sueddeutsche.de
Ökosozial statt neoliberal: In Nürnberg wollen die Grünen zeigen, dass sie anders sind als die FDP. Die Basis dürstet nach Utopie und Gerechtigkeit.
Ökosozial statt neoliberal: In Nürnberg wollen die Grünen zeigen, dass sie anders sind als die FDP. Die Basis dürstet nach Utopie und Gerechtigkeit.
Grünen-Chef Reinhard Bütikofer ''Ich schließe Schwarz-Grün nicht aus'' - Deutschland - sueddeutsche.de
Grünen-Chef Reinhard Bütikofer ''Ich schließe Schwarz-Grün nicht aus'' - Deutschland - sueddeutsche.de
Der Grünen-Chef über zukünftige Koalitionsoptionen, die Kraft der Opposition und was das alles mit Füchsen, Raben und Hirtenhunden zu tun hat.
Der Grünen-Chef über zukünftige Koalitionsoptionen, die Kraft der Opposition und was das alles mit Füchsen, Raben und Hirtenhunden zu tun hat.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
FTD.de - Deutschland - Nachrichten - Steinmeier proklamiert neue Einigkeit der Koalition
FTD.de - Deutschland - Nachrichten - Steinmeier proklamiert neue Einigkeit der Koalition
Der neue Vizekanzler Frank-Walter Steinmeier will in den kommenden Wochen für ein "etwas geschlosseneres Auftreten der großen Koalition" sorgen. Man könne es sich angesichts der großen Verantwortung für die Menschen in Deutschland und für Europa nicht leisten, die nächsten zwei Jahre Dauerwahlkampf zu führen.
Der neue Vizekanzler Frank-Walter Steinmeier will in den kommenden Wochen für ein "etwas geschlosseneres Auftreten der großen Koalition" sorgen. Man könne es sich angesichts der großen Verantwortung für die Menschen in Deutschland und für Europa nicht leisten, die nächsten zwei Jahre Dauerwahlkampf zu führen.
The sound of success | Economist.com
The sound of success | Economist.com
A special report on Austria
In this special report
Austria's success
The difficult past
Consensus politics
Austria and Europe
A strong economy, for now
Industry's resurgence
Making good times better
Audio interview
Sources and acknowledgments
Offer to readers
Country briefing
Austria
Websites
Austria’s government, WIFO (in German)
A special report on Austria
In this special report
Austria's success
The difficult past
Consensus politics
Austria and Europe
A strong economy, for now
Industry's resurgence
Making good times better
Audio interview
Sources and acknowledgments
Offer to readers
Country briefing
Austria
Websites
Austria’s government, WIFO (in German)
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Neues Angebot für Lokführergewerkschaft | Nachrichten | Deutsche Welle | 21.11.2007
Neues Angebot für Lokführergewerkschaft | Nachrichten | Deutsche Welle | 21.11.2007
FRANKFURT AM MAIN: Die Deutsche Bahn hat der Lokführergewerkschaft GDL ein neues Angebot zur Lösung des festgefahrenen Tarifkonflikts vorgelegt. Es handele sich um eine deutlich verbesserte Offerte, so die Bahn. Die Lokführergewerkschaft erklärte, am Montag entscheiden zu wollen, ob sie neue Verhandlungen aufnehmen werde. Bis dahin gebe es keine weiteren Streiks. Über den Inhalt der neuen Offerte wurde von beiden Seiten Stillschweigen vereinbart. Die Lokführer fordern einen eigenständigen Tarifvertrag und erheblich mehr Lohn.
FRANKFURT AM MAIN: Die Deutsche Bahn hat der Lokführergewerkschaft GDL ein neues Angebot zur Lösung des festgefahrenen Tarifkonflikts vorgelegt. Es handele sich um eine deutlich verbesserte Offerte, so die Bahn. Die Lokführergewerkschaft erklärte, am Montag entscheiden zu wollen, ob sie neue Verhandlungen aufnehmen werde. Bis dahin gebe es keine weiteren Streiks. Über den Inhalt der neuen Offerte wurde von beiden Seiten Stillschweigen vereinbart. Die Lokführer fordern einen eigenständigen Tarifvertrag und erheblich mehr Lohn.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Schekker - „Erde an Frau Merkel“
Schekker - „Erde an Frau Merkel“
Einmal eine ganz dringende Frage an die Kanzlerin stellen? Das ist seit gut einem Jahr möglich: Eine Initiative von Studierenden ermöglicht zwar keine Standleitung in ihr Büro, aber doch immerhin einen direkten Draht ins Bundeskanzleramt, den Bundestag und etliche Landesregierungen.
Einmal eine ganz dringende Frage an die Kanzlerin stellen? Das ist seit gut einem Jahr möglich: Eine Initiative von Studierenden ermöglicht zwar keine Standleitung in ihr Büro, aber doch immerhin einen direkten Draht ins Bundeskanzleramt, den Bundestag und etliche Landesregierungen.
jetzt.de - Eine Web-Idee aus Deutschland für die USA: Direkt zu den Kandidaten
jetzt.de - Eine Web-Idee aus Deutschland für die USA: Direkt zu den Kandidaten
Facebook, YouTube, viele Web-Ideen stammen aus den USA und werden woanders adaptiert. Die Idee von Caveh Valipour Zonooz und seinen Mitstreitern aus Berlin hingegen wird gerade in den USA kopiert. Vielleicht findet sie sogar ihren Weg in eine TV-Debatte zur Präsidentschaftswahl in den USA.
Facebook, YouTube, viele Web-Ideen stammen aus den USA und werden woanders adaptiert. Die Idee von Caveh Valipour Zonooz und seinen Mitstreitern aus Berlin hingegen wird gerade in den USA kopiert. Vielleicht findet sie sogar ihren Weg in eine TV-Debatte zur Präsidentschaftswahl in den USA.
Vorwürfe gegen Merkel Schröder nervt die Union - Deutschland - sueddeutsche.de
Vorwürfe gegen Merkel Schröder nervt die Union - Deutschland - sueddeutsche.de
Altkanzler Gerhard Schröder hat Merkel eine "emotionale Außenpolitik" aufgrund ihrer DDR-Biographie unterstellt. Das regt die Politiker von CDU und CSU mächtig auf - und führt zu scharfen Reaktionen.
Altkanzler Gerhard Schröder hat Merkel eine "emotionale Außenpolitik" aufgrund ihrer DDR-Biographie unterstellt. Das regt die Politiker von CDU und CSU mächtig auf - und führt zu scharfen Reaktionen.
Monday, November 19, 2007
FT.com / Home UK / UK - A colourful chronicle of Germany's past
FT.com / Home UK / UK - A colourful chronicle of Germany's past
A colourful chronicle of Germany's past
By Bertrand Benoit
Published: November 19 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 19 2007 02:00
Two years ago, as Germany's coalition of Social Democrats and Greens was reaching its twilight, a book by Joschka Fischer, its foreign minister, hit the bookshops with The Return of History .
The Financial Time's verdict on the tome - a heavy-going piece of international relations theory - was, to put it politely, mixed. It concluded with the hope that the most colourful politician of the country's post-war era would soon publish his memoirs and let us in on the kitchen secrets of the red-green coalition. Last month, fresh from a year spent teaching in the US, the former Green leader obliged. His chronicle, The Red-Green years , is a tasty treat that was well worth the wait.
First a warning: covering the period from Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's election in 1998 to the September 11 terrorist attacks, the book ends before the mighty German-US fallout over Iraq. Some readers will feel short-changed, but Fischer's insight and talent as a story-teller make having to wait two years for the sequel almost bearable. Yet the period was not uneventful. The first half of the book covers the Nato-led military intervention in Kosovo, the Federal Republic's first war since the Nazi defeat in 1945.
Reading Fischer, one feels almost compassion for the inexperienced team catapulted into office after 16 years of conservative rule. In its first year, it was confronted with the challenge of Kosovo and a recession, and had to chair both the European Union and the Group of Eight industrial nations. "History was not being easy on us," laments Fischer.
There was no shortage of domestic drama either, starting with the resignation of Oskar Lafontaine, SPD chairman and finance minister, from both offices within months of the coalition taking power. Indeed, although The Red-Green Years is billed as a foreign policy account, its juiciest bits relate to Fischer's battles with his own party.
The Greens of the 1990s were a half-reconstructed alliance of pacifist utopians, amateur politicians and ambitious, hard-nosed realists. In the long list of unruly party conferences Fischer presided over - essentially street fights between his "Realos" (realists) and the "Fundis" (fundamentalists) - the May 13 1999 congress in Bielefeld, at the height of Nato's bombing campaign, stands out. Doused in red paint by an outraged militant, Fischer went on to deliver a rousing speech, defeating an anti-war motion from the left that would have forced him to resign as foreign minister. "I was thinking about . . . the long path my party had travelled up to Bielefeld, about the high personal price this travel had cost me, wondering if I could find the strength to carry on. And whether I wanted to," Fischer writes.
As the face of the Greens to the outside world, Fischer felt a lonely, misunderstood figure in a party whose national leadership "was emotionally always alien to me and remains so to this day". One lesson that resonates is the fact that the Greens' grudging acceptance of foreign military interventions - just like the SPD's painful conversion to economic reforms in Mr Schröder's second term - could only be won through decisive leadership. Its absence may explain both parties' descent into populism today.
In foreign policy terms, Kosovo's implications reached far beyond the Balkans. It set the precedent that allowed Germany to join the US-led war in Afghanistan after 9/11. But it also established tough criteria as to the legitimacy of military operations. These and the scars left by the debate go a long to way towards explaining Fischer and Schröder's categorical opposition to the war in Iraq.
After so much drama, the pace inevitably slackens as Fischer moves to the travails of the EU. In his "Humboldt" speech of May 12 2000 calling for a united federal Europe, Fischer set out the ideas that would eventually lead to the drafting of an EU constitution, an ambitious project that ended in failure after its rejection by French and Dutch voters in 2005.
It is tempting to see this defeat, which Fischer took as a personal blow, as a metaphor for the man's waning influence later in his term. Schröder's gradual hijacking of EU policy left him with little else to do but contemplate the deadly downward spiral of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This hardly works to the detriment of the book. Fischer's enlightening portrayal of Schröder, a man endowed with unique leadership qualities, boundless cynicism and flashes of extraordinary political lucidity, is only one of the facets that make The Red Green Years a worthwhile read. So are the countless anecdotes and the uniqueness of the voice . Berlin has turned a little greyer since Fischer's retirement as an active politician but it has gained a precious chronicler of its recent past.
The writer is the FT's Berlin bureau chief
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
A colourful chronicle of Germany's past
By Bertrand Benoit
Published: November 19 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 19 2007 02:00
Two years ago, as Germany's coalition of Social Democrats and Greens was reaching its twilight, a book by Joschka Fischer, its foreign minister, hit the bookshops with The Return of History .
The Financial Time's verdict on the tome - a heavy-going piece of international relations theory - was, to put it politely, mixed. It concluded with the hope that the most colourful politician of the country's post-war era would soon publish his memoirs and let us in on the kitchen secrets of the red-green coalition. Last month, fresh from a year spent teaching in the US, the former Green leader obliged. His chronicle, The Red-Green years , is a tasty treat that was well worth the wait.
First a warning: covering the period from Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's election in 1998 to the September 11 terrorist attacks, the book ends before the mighty German-US fallout over Iraq. Some readers will feel short-changed, but Fischer's insight and talent as a story-teller make having to wait two years for the sequel almost bearable. Yet the period was not uneventful. The first half of the book covers the Nato-led military intervention in Kosovo, the Federal Republic's first war since the Nazi defeat in 1945.
Reading Fischer, one feels almost compassion for the inexperienced team catapulted into office after 16 years of conservative rule. In its first year, it was confronted with the challenge of Kosovo and a recession, and had to chair both the European Union and the Group of Eight industrial nations. "History was not being easy on us," laments Fischer.
There was no shortage of domestic drama either, starting with the resignation of Oskar Lafontaine, SPD chairman and finance minister, from both offices within months of the coalition taking power. Indeed, although The Red-Green Years is billed as a foreign policy account, its juiciest bits relate to Fischer's battles with his own party.
The Greens of the 1990s were a half-reconstructed alliance of pacifist utopians, amateur politicians and ambitious, hard-nosed realists. In the long list of unruly party conferences Fischer presided over - essentially street fights between his "Realos" (realists) and the "Fundis" (fundamentalists) - the May 13 1999 congress in Bielefeld, at the height of Nato's bombing campaign, stands out. Doused in red paint by an outraged militant, Fischer went on to deliver a rousing speech, defeating an anti-war motion from the left that would have forced him to resign as foreign minister. "I was thinking about . . . the long path my party had travelled up to Bielefeld, about the high personal price this travel had cost me, wondering if I could find the strength to carry on. And whether I wanted to," Fischer writes.
As the face of the Greens to the outside world, Fischer felt a lonely, misunderstood figure in a party whose national leadership "was emotionally always alien to me and remains so to this day". One lesson that resonates is the fact that the Greens' grudging acceptance of foreign military interventions - just like the SPD's painful conversion to economic reforms in Mr Schröder's second term - could only be won through decisive leadership. Its absence may explain both parties' descent into populism today.
In foreign policy terms, Kosovo's implications reached far beyond the Balkans. It set the precedent that allowed Germany to join the US-led war in Afghanistan after 9/11. But it also established tough criteria as to the legitimacy of military operations. These and the scars left by the debate go a long to way towards explaining Fischer and Schröder's categorical opposition to the war in Iraq.
After so much drama, the pace inevitably slackens as Fischer moves to the travails of the EU. In his "Humboldt" speech of May 12 2000 calling for a united federal Europe, Fischer set out the ideas that would eventually lead to the drafting of an EU constitution, an ambitious project that ended in failure after its rejection by French and Dutch voters in 2005.
It is tempting to see this defeat, which Fischer took as a personal blow, as a metaphor for the man's waning influence later in his term. Schröder's gradual hijacking of EU policy left him with little else to do but contemplate the deadly downward spiral of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This hardly works to the detriment of the book. Fischer's enlightening portrayal of Schröder, a man endowed with unique leadership qualities, boundless cynicism and flashes of extraordinary political lucidity, is only one of the facets that make The Red Green Years a worthwhile read. So are the countless anecdotes and the uniqueness of the voice . Berlin has turned a little greyer since Fischer's retirement as an active politician but it has gained a precious chronicler of its recent past.
The writer is the FT's Berlin bureau chief
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Tarifkonflikt bei der Bahn GDL und Bahn bereit zu neuen Gesprächen - Wirtschaft - sueddeutsche.de
Tarifkonflikt bei der Bahn GDL und Bahn bereit zu neuen Gesprächen - Wirtschaft - sueddeutsche.de
Im festgefahrenen Tarifstreit bei der Bahn könnte es in Kürze wieder offizielle Verhandlungen zwischen dem Konzernvorstand und den Lokführern geben. GDL-Chef Schell lehnte ein Gesprächsangebot der Bahn für Montag zwar ab - schlug aber dann ein Treffen für Dienstag vor.
Im festgefahrenen Tarifstreit bei der Bahn könnte es in Kürze wieder offizielle Verhandlungen zwischen dem Konzernvorstand und den Lokführern geben. GDL-Chef Schell lehnte ein Gesprächsangebot der Bahn für Montag zwar ab - schlug aber dann ein Treffen für Dienstag vor.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Streit um Volkswagen Machtkampf zwischen Wiedeking und Piëch - Wirtschaft - sueddeutsche.de
Streit um Volkswagen Machtkampf zwischen Wiedeking und Piëch - Wirtschaft - sueddeutsche.de
Porsche-Chef Wiedeking soll massive Veränderungen bei Volkswagen planen. Damit käme er VW-Aufsichtsratschef Piëch in die Quere. Und schon fällt das Wort "Kriegserklärung".
Porsche-Chef Wiedeking soll massive Veränderungen bei Volkswagen planen. Damit käme er VW-Aufsichtsratschef Piëch in die Quere. Und schon fällt das Wort "Kriegserklärung".
Saturday, November 17, 2007
FT.com / Home UK / UK - Germany's test over rail strike
FT.com / Home UK / UK - Germany's test over rail strike
Germany's test over rail strike
By Hugh Williamson in Berlin
Published: November 17 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 17 2007 02:00
Millions of weary German commuters struggled to get home last night at the end of the worst phase in a rail strike that is becoming a big test of Germany's trusted industry-wide labour relations system.
This week's action by 6,000 members of the GDL train drivers' trade union has shut a car factory, disrupted ports, left thousands of passengers stranded and raised worries among shopkeepers that Christmas deliveries could be affected if - as seems likely - the strike continues later this month.
The protest - the largest in the country's railway history - is unusual as Germany is relatively strike-free.
Every year Germany loses only about two working days to strikes per thousand employees, compared with about seven in the US and 13 in Britain, according to a Swiss research group.
The consensus view for decades in Germany - shared by business, trade union leaders and politicians - is that it is best for wage stability and the economy if labour contracts are negotiated for entire industries or, in the case of Deutsche Bahn, for the entire state-owned rail company.
The alternative, where specialised groups of em-ployees sign separate labour contracts, could spark wage inflation and stir workplace tensions, critics argue.
Yet such a contract is exactly what the GDL wants. Its leaders complain that train drivers' interests have not been fully represented by the larger rail workers' unions in negotiations over the past 10 years, during which DB has more than halved the total number of employees to 195,000.
Rail drivers have lost their civil servant status and suffered significant pay cuts.
Other specialist unions, of pilots, doctors and air-traffic controllers, already have separate contracts - and have often won generous pay deals - but it has been the GDL's protests that have made the biggest impact, and not all negatively.
Polls show that at least 40 per cent of Germans support the GDL, which is seen as plucky in standing up for low-paid workers against the mighty DB.
The GDL has threatened that indefinite strikes are possible if DB does not table a new offer by Monday. DB indicated this was unlikely. The two sides are due to meet tomorrow, not at the negotiating table but on a television talkshow.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Germany's test over rail strike
By Hugh Williamson in Berlin
Published: November 17 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 17 2007 02:00
Millions of weary German commuters struggled to get home last night at the end of the worst phase in a rail strike that is becoming a big test of Germany's trusted industry-wide labour relations system.
This week's action by 6,000 members of the GDL train drivers' trade union has shut a car factory, disrupted ports, left thousands of passengers stranded and raised worries among shopkeepers that Christmas deliveries could be affected if - as seems likely - the strike continues later this month.
The protest - the largest in the country's railway history - is unusual as Germany is relatively strike-free.
Every year Germany loses only about two working days to strikes per thousand employees, compared with about seven in the US and 13 in Britain, according to a Swiss research group.
The consensus view for decades in Germany - shared by business, trade union leaders and politicians - is that it is best for wage stability and the economy if labour contracts are negotiated for entire industries or, in the case of Deutsche Bahn, for the entire state-owned rail company.
The alternative, where specialised groups of em-ployees sign separate labour contracts, could spark wage inflation and stir workplace tensions, critics argue.
Yet such a contract is exactly what the GDL wants. Its leaders complain that train drivers' interests have not been fully represented by the larger rail workers' unions in negotiations over the past 10 years, during which DB has more than halved the total number of employees to 195,000.
Rail drivers have lost their civil servant status and suffered significant pay cuts.
Other specialist unions, of pilots, doctors and air-traffic controllers, already have separate contracts - and have often won generous pay deals - but it has been the GDL's protests that have made the biggest impact, and not all negatively.
Polls show that at least 40 per cent of Germans support the GDL, which is seen as plucky in standing up for low-paid workers against the mighty DB.
The GDL has threatened that indefinite strikes are possible if DB does not table a new offer by Monday. DB indicated this was unlikely. The two sides are due to meet tomorrow, not at the negotiating table but on a television talkshow.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Friday, November 16, 2007
VW-Affäre Eine Spur führt zu Piëch - Wirtschaft - sueddeutsche.de
VW-Affäre Eine Spur führt zu Piëch - Wirtschaft - sueddeutsche.de
Der Aufsichtsratschef von VW muss Anfang Januar vor Gericht auftreten. Ein vertrauliches Papier, das seine Unterschrift trägt, könnte für dem Milliardär und Porsche-Großaktionär gefährlich werden
Der Aufsichtsratschef von VW muss Anfang Januar vor Gericht auftreten. Ein vertrauliches Papier, das seine Unterschrift trägt, könnte für dem Milliardär und Porsche-Großaktionär gefährlich werden
Bahnstreik – Der Osten ruft um Hilfe Güterverkehr massiv behindert
FAZ.NET - epaper
Bahnstreik – Der Osten ruft um Hilfe Güterverkehr massiv behindert
Bahn verlangt Schadenersatz von GDL / Aufsichtsrat unterstützt Mehdorn
enn. BERLIN, 15. November. Millionen von Bahnreisenden in Deutschland haben am Donnerstag die Auswirkungen des schwersten Streiks in der Geschichte der Deutschen Bahn zu spüren bekommen. Die Gewerkschaft Deutscher Lokomotivführer (GDL) dehnte ihren Arbeitskampf in der Nacht zum Donnerstag vom Güterverkehr auf den Personenverkehr aus. Rund 1400 Lokführer beteiligten sich nach GDL-Angaben an dem Ausstand. Im Fernverkehr fuhren seit dem Morgen nach Bahnangaben zunächst noch zwei Drittel der Züge nach Plan, vor allem die ICE-Züge. Die Bahn sprach von einem „reduzierten, aber zuverlässigen Angebot“. Im Regionalverkehr hätten sich die Arbeitsniederlegungen unterschiedlich stark ausgewirkt, teilte die Bahn mit. In vielen Gegenden sei die Hälfte der Züge gefahren; in den neuen Ländern hingegen seien rund 85 Prozent der Züge stehen geblieben. Hier setzte die Bahn verstärkt Busse im Schienenersatzverkehr ein. Einschränkungen gab es auch im S-Bahn-Verkehr. In den großen Bahnhöfen zählte die Bahn weniger Reisende als üblich. Viele Kunden informierten sich vorher über die aktuellen Verbindungen oder wichen auf andere Verkehrsmittel aus, hieß es zur Erklärung. An diesem Freitag müssen die Bahnkunden mit ähnlichen Verzögerungen und Ausfällen rechnen. Der Streik soll noch bis Samstagmorgen, zwei Uhr andauern.
Die Deutsche Bahn verklagte derweil die GDL auf fünf Millionen Euro Schadenersatz. Dabei geht es um die Folgen des Streiks im Regionalverkehr vom 10. Juli. Der Aufsichtsrat der Bahn stärkte in seiner Sondersitzung am Donnerstag Bahnchef Mehdorn in seiner Haltung, der Forderung der GDL nach einem eigenständigen Tarifvertrag für die Lokführer nicht nachzugeben.
Die Bahn teilte weiter mit, im Güterverkehr werde die Lage „immer kritischer“. In Ostdeutschland könnten nur noch versorgungsrelevante Züge fahren. Um für die westdeutschen Bundesländer eine Grund- und für Ostdeutschland eine Minimalversorgung sicherzustellen, würden keine weiteren Transportaufträge von und nach Ostdeutschland mehr angenommen. Der sächsische Finanzminister Tillich (CDU) äußerte sich besorgt. Er sagte, wenn im Westen nur 30 Prozent, im Osten jedoch bis zu 90 Prozent der Züge ausfielen, treffe der Streik die ostdeutschen Kunden und vor allem die ostdeutsche Wirtschaft besonders hart. (Fortsetzung Seite 2, siehe Seite 3.)
Mehr zum Thema im Internet auf unseren Seiten www.faz.net/bahnstreik
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung vom 16.11.2007 Seite 1
Bahnstreik – Der Osten ruft um Hilfe Güterverkehr massiv behindert
Bahn verlangt Schadenersatz von GDL / Aufsichtsrat unterstützt Mehdorn
enn. BERLIN, 15. November. Millionen von Bahnreisenden in Deutschland haben am Donnerstag die Auswirkungen des schwersten Streiks in der Geschichte der Deutschen Bahn zu spüren bekommen. Die Gewerkschaft Deutscher Lokomotivführer (GDL) dehnte ihren Arbeitskampf in der Nacht zum Donnerstag vom Güterverkehr auf den Personenverkehr aus. Rund 1400 Lokführer beteiligten sich nach GDL-Angaben an dem Ausstand. Im Fernverkehr fuhren seit dem Morgen nach Bahnangaben zunächst noch zwei Drittel der Züge nach Plan, vor allem die ICE-Züge. Die Bahn sprach von einem „reduzierten, aber zuverlässigen Angebot“. Im Regionalverkehr hätten sich die Arbeitsniederlegungen unterschiedlich stark ausgewirkt, teilte die Bahn mit. In vielen Gegenden sei die Hälfte der Züge gefahren; in den neuen Ländern hingegen seien rund 85 Prozent der Züge stehen geblieben. Hier setzte die Bahn verstärkt Busse im Schienenersatzverkehr ein. Einschränkungen gab es auch im S-Bahn-Verkehr. In den großen Bahnhöfen zählte die Bahn weniger Reisende als üblich. Viele Kunden informierten sich vorher über die aktuellen Verbindungen oder wichen auf andere Verkehrsmittel aus, hieß es zur Erklärung. An diesem Freitag müssen die Bahnkunden mit ähnlichen Verzögerungen und Ausfällen rechnen. Der Streik soll noch bis Samstagmorgen, zwei Uhr andauern.
Die Deutsche Bahn verklagte derweil die GDL auf fünf Millionen Euro Schadenersatz. Dabei geht es um die Folgen des Streiks im Regionalverkehr vom 10. Juli. Der Aufsichtsrat der Bahn stärkte in seiner Sondersitzung am Donnerstag Bahnchef Mehdorn in seiner Haltung, der Forderung der GDL nach einem eigenständigen Tarifvertrag für die Lokführer nicht nachzugeben.
Die Bahn teilte weiter mit, im Güterverkehr werde die Lage „immer kritischer“. In Ostdeutschland könnten nur noch versorgungsrelevante Züge fahren. Um für die westdeutschen Bundesländer eine Grund- und für Ostdeutschland eine Minimalversorgung sicherzustellen, würden keine weiteren Transportaufträge von und nach Ostdeutschland mehr angenommen. Der sächsische Finanzminister Tillich (CDU) äußerte sich besorgt. Er sagte, wenn im Westen nur 30 Prozent, im Osten jedoch bis zu 90 Prozent der Züge ausfielen, treffe der Streik die ostdeutschen Kunden und vor allem die ostdeutsche Wirtschaft besonders hart. (Fortsetzung Seite 2, siehe Seite 3.)
Mehr zum Thema im Internet auf unseren Seiten www.faz.net/bahnstreik
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung vom 16.11.2007 Seite 1
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Dorre Duitse Bodem
Leuk artikel in de Volkskrant Bijlage over het beperkte succes van Duitse popmuziek.
Germany's government | Dropping the co-pilot | Economist.com
Germany's government | Dropping the co-pilot | Economist.com
Germany's government
Dropping the co-pilot
Nov 15th 2007 | BERLIN
From The Economist print edition
The political consequences of an unpolitical resignation
FOR once, the official line had the ring of truth. Franz Müntefering's wife has cancer, so he had compelling personal reasons to resign as labour minister and vice-chancellor of the “grand coalition” on November 13th. Yet politics also played a role, and the decision will have significant political consequences.
Mr Müntefering was a key architect of the coalition between his Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and was widely seen as its stabilising force. He had both the trust of the chancellor and the respect of his party, which feels increasingly disadvantaged as the CDU's junior partner.
Yet he ended up too reform-minded for the SPD and too radical for the CDU. At its party convention last month, the SPD voted for longer unemployment benefits for older workers, which would be a partial rollback of the Agenda 2010 reforms that Mr Müntefering helped to push through in 2003, under the SPD-led government of Gerhard Schröder. Hours before his resignation, in an all-night coalition meeting, Ms Merkel rejected his plea for a minimum wage in the postal service. Mr Müntefering said he was “deeply disappointed”. The SPD accused Ms Merkel of breaking her word and surrendering to the business lobby. Mr Müntefering must have felt let down on all sides.
His resignation leaves the coalition even more bedraggled. The SPD's chairman, Kurt Beck, did not step into his place mainly because he wants the freedom to prepare his party (and himself) for the federal election due by September 2009. The new vice-chancellor, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is no lightweight—he was Mr Schröder's chief of staff, is Germany's second-most popular politician after Ms Merkel and will remain foreign minister. But he lacks Mr Müntefering's clout within the SPD and has become publicly testy about Ms Merkel's foreign policy. The chancellor is more interested in grabbing headlines by rebuking Russia and China for anti-democratic practices than using quiet diplomacy to discourage them, he has suggested. The two may well clash. Olaf Scholz, promoted from party whip to be labour minister, is a labour lawyer who has none of Mr Müntefering's prestige.
The mix of compromise and stalemate produced by the coalition's late-night tussle may be a foretaste of what is to come. Although it rejected the postal minimum wage, the CDU bowed to the SPD's demand for longer unemployment benefits for older workers. The coalition found enough cash to cut payroll taxes sharply, which should spur job creation. But internal strife has left Deutsche Bahn in limbo. The railway, the federal government's largest enterprise, faced the biggest strike in its history this week. It needs fresh capital, but the SPD refuses to consider raising this by issuing voting shares. It is not clear if it will accept a compromise suggested by the (Social Democratic) finance minister, Peer Steinbrück, under which the tracks would remain federal property but the trains would be partially privatised.
An ambitious government would find plenty to do in its remaining two years in office. It spends €60 billion-80 billion ($85 billion-115 billion) on social-security programmes which pay people not to work. That money could be better spent on education or infrastructure, says Hilmar Schneider of the Institute for the Study of Labour in Bonn. Health-care financing remains a mess. But the coalition is increasingly incapable of rising to such challenges. The risk, as a committee of economic wise men declared recently, is that many of the gains of the past few years may be thrown away.
Germany's government
Dropping the co-pilot
Nov 15th 2007 | BERLIN
From The Economist print edition
The political consequences of an unpolitical resignation
FOR once, the official line had the ring of truth. Franz Müntefering's wife has cancer, so he had compelling personal reasons to resign as labour minister and vice-chancellor of the “grand coalition” on November 13th. Yet politics also played a role, and the decision will have significant political consequences.
Mr Müntefering was a key architect of the coalition between his Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and was widely seen as its stabilising force. He had both the trust of the chancellor and the respect of his party, which feels increasingly disadvantaged as the CDU's junior partner.
Yet he ended up too reform-minded for the SPD and too radical for the CDU. At its party convention last month, the SPD voted for longer unemployment benefits for older workers, which would be a partial rollback of the Agenda 2010 reforms that Mr Müntefering helped to push through in 2003, under the SPD-led government of Gerhard Schröder. Hours before his resignation, in an all-night coalition meeting, Ms Merkel rejected his plea for a minimum wage in the postal service. Mr Müntefering said he was “deeply disappointed”. The SPD accused Ms Merkel of breaking her word and surrendering to the business lobby. Mr Müntefering must have felt let down on all sides.
His resignation leaves the coalition even more bedraggled. The SPD's chairman, Kurt Beck, did not step into his place mainly because he wants the freedom to prepare his party (and himself) for the federal election due by September 2009. The new vice-chancellor, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, is no lightweight—he was Mr Schröder's chief of staff, is Germany's second-most popular politician after Ms Merkel and will remain foreign minister. But he lacks Mr Müntefering's clout within the SPD and has become publicly testy about Ms Merkel's foreign policy. The chancellor is more interested in grabbing headlines by rebuking Russia and China for anti-democratic practices than using quiet diplomacy to discourage them, he has suggested. The two may well clash. Olaf Scholz, promoted from party whip to be labour minister, is a labour lawyer who has none of Mr Müntefering's prestige.
The mix of compromise and stalemate produced by the coalition's late-night tussle may be a foretaste of what is to come. Although it rejected the postal minimum wage, the CDU bowed to the SPD's demand for longer unemployment benefits for older workers. The coalition found enough cash to cut payroll taxes sharply, which should spur job creation. But internal strife has left Deutsche Bahn in limbo. The railway, the federal government's largest enterprise, faced the biggest strike in its history this week. It needs fresh capital, but the SPD refuses to consider raising this by issuing voting shares. It is not clear if it will accept a compromise suggested by the (Social Democratic) finance minister, Peer Steinbrück, under which the tracks would remain federal property but the trains would be partially privatised.
An ambitious government would find plenty to do in its remaining two years in office. It spends €60 billion-80 billion ($85 billion-115 billion) on social-security programmes which pay people not to work. That money could be better spent on education or infrastructure, says Hilmar Schneider of the Institute for the Study of Labour in Bonn. Health-care financing remains a mess. But the coalition is increasingly incapable of rising to such challenges. The risk, as a committee of economic wise men declared recently, is that many of the gains of the past few years may be thrown away.
A Potsdam story | When east meets west | Economist.com
A Potsdam story | When east meets west | Economist.com
A Potsdam story
When east meets west
Nov 15th 2007 | POTSDAM
From The Economist print edition
A revealing argument about a footpath
THE footpath by the Griebnitzsee, in Potsdam, has seen a lot of history. Kings and kaisers lived around here. Harry Truman ordered the bombing of Hiroshima from a lakeside villa in 1945 while attending the Potsdam conference. His neighbours were Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill (later replaced by Clement Attlee). The Berlin Wall ran along the Griebnitzsee after 1961. The meandering lakeside trails were turned into a corridor for border guards and their dogs. When the wall fell, cyclists and pedestrians took over.
History has not ended quite yet. With German unification, the waterfront mansions acquired rich new occupants, many of them Wessis who saw the path as their private property. Last month they escalated a low-intensity conflict with those they deem to be trespassers by barring the way with plastic tape and hiring private security guards, whom the Potsdam police soon removed. The city, backed by most of its 150,000 citizens, wants the footpath to be a public park. That would be an assault on property rights, say the owners. “Maybe some people want to enjoy the footpath,” says Hans Ensing, a Dutch developer who owns one of three houses built by a modernist, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. “But a larger group wants to enjoy basic human rights.” If need be, he will go to the European human-rights court.
In the early 20th century New Babelsberg, as the area was then known, served as Berlin's version of the Hamptons, populated in summer by a “bankers' train” bearing (often Jewish) financiers and other professionals. After the Nazis expelled the Jews, their homes were taken on in some cases by stars at the Babelsberg film studios. The communists kept up the film connection but stamped out the glamour: a film and television school occupied several villas. Unification brought a new bourgeoisie—and a messy property register.
Heirs of displaced Jews are entitled to reclaim plots right down to the water's edge. Most have sold these to the new owners (Mr Ensing's house was built for a Dresdner Bank director, Georg Mosler). The federal government took over the rest of the buffer strip along the Wall, but some owners bought bits adjoining their plots cheaply. Of 80 owners along the footpath, some 35 now have rights to the water's edge. In exchange for a proper right of way, the city is offering to let them enlarge their gardens and restore the boathouses that once lined the lake. But some ten owners are still at odds with the city.
For some old-timers, this is a reprise of the class war that made communism necessary in the first place. “Thousands of people use this footpath,” says one strolling pensioner, who misses the East German regime. “It's not just for capitalists born with golden spoons in their mouths.” From Mr Ensing's point of view, Potsdam's property grab is the behaviour of a “disguised dictatorship”.
Such polarisation is not the norm in Potsdam. The ex-communist Left Party is the largest on the city council, but the mayor is a Wessi. Universities and sexy industries like media and biotech keep the population young and the economy humming. Potsdam is not emptying out like so many other east German cities; its population is growing by 1,000 a year. A recent survey named it the country's child-friendliest city.
As the footpath feud suggests, the cultures of eastern and western Germany may not have melded yet, but the young are more easygoing. Lisa Teichmann, a young lawyer from Brandenburg, suggests there are points on both sides. Mr Ensing has offered, if his rights are upheld, to restore Mies's original wall. But most Potsdamers are tired of walls.
A Potsdam story
When east meets west
Nov 15th 2007 | POTSDAM
From The Economist print edition
A revealing argument about a footpath
THE footpath by the Griebnitzsee, in Potsdam, has seen a lot of history. Kings and kaisers lived around here. Harry Truman ordered the bombing of Hiroshima from a lakeside villa in 1945 while attending the Potsdam conference. His neighbours were Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill (later replaced by Clement Attlee). The Berlin Wall ran along the Griebnitzsee after 1961. The meandering lakeside trails were turned into a corridor for border guards and their dogs. When the wall fell, cyclists and pedestrians took over.
History has not ended quite yet. With German unification, the waterfront mansions acquired rich new occupants, many of them Wessis who saw the path as their private property. Last month they escalated a low-intensity conflict with those they deem to be trespassers by barring the way with plastic tape and hiring private security guards, whom the Potsdam police soon removed. The city, backed by most of its 150,000 citizens, wants the footpath to be a public park. That would be an assault on property rights, say the owners. “Maybe some people want to enjoy the footpath,” says Hans Ensing, a Dutch developer who owns one of three houses built by a modernist, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. “But a larger group wants to enjoy basic human rights.” If need be, he will go to the European human-rights court.
In the early 20th century New Babelsberg, as the area was then known, served as Berlin's version of the Hamptons, populated in summer by a “bankers' train” bearing (often Jewish) financiers and other professionals. After the Nazis expelled the Jews, their homes were taken on in some cases by stars at the Babelsberg film studios. The communists kept up the film connection but stamped out the glamour: a film and television school occupied several villas. Unification brought a new bourgeoisie—and a messy property register.
Heirs of displaced Jews are entitled to reclaim plots right down to the water's edge. Most have sold these to the new owners (Mr Ensing's house was built for a Dresdner Bank director, Georg Mosler). The federal government took over the rest of the buffer strip along the Wall, but some owners bought bits adjoining their plots cheaply. Of 80 owners along the footpath, some 35 now have rights to the water's edge. In exchange for a proper right of way, the city is offering to let them enlarge their gardens and restore the boathouses that once lined the lake. But some ten owners are still at odds with the city.
For some old-timers, this is a reprise of the class war that made communism necessary in the first place. “Thousands of people use this footpath,” says one strolling pensioner, who misses the East German regime. “It's not just for capitalists born with golden spoons in their mouths.” From Mr Ensing's point of view, Potsdam's property grab is the behaviour of a “disguised dictatorship”.
Such polarisation is not the norm in Potsdam. The ex-communist Left Party is the largest on the city council, but the mayor is a Wessi. Universities and sexy industries like media and biotech keep the population young and the economy humming. Potsdam is not emptying out like so many other east German cities; its population is growing by 1,000 a year. A recent survey named it the country's child-friendliest city.
As the footpath feud suggests, the cultures of eastern and western Germany may not have melded yet, but the young are more easygoing. Lisa Teichmann, a young lawyer from Brandenburg, suggests there are points on both sides. Mr Ensing has offered, if his rights are upheld, to restore Mies's original wall. But most Potsdamers are tired of walls.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Nach dem Müntefering-Rücktritt Kalt, eiskalt, Merkel - Deutschland - sueddeutsche.de
Mit dem Rücktritt Franz Münteferings geht ein leidlich gedeihliches Miteinander der Koalitionspartner zu Ende. Die Große Koalition ist praktisch zerbrochen. Die Schuld daran trägt die Bundeskanzlerin.
Ein Kommentar von Heribert Prantl
Dies ist das Ende der Großen Koalition. Man weiß nur nicht, wie lange es sich noch hinziehen wird. Wenn es lang geht, kann es bis zum Jahr 2009 dauern, bis zum regulären Ende der Legislaturperiode also; aber Wetten darauf sind riskant.
Zu Ende ist jedenfalls ein leidlich gedeihliches Miteinander der Koalitionspartner, am Ende ist das notwendige Minimum an Vertrauen zwischen SPD und Union, am Ende sind Güte und Qualität der Koalitionsarbeit. Die Große Koalition ist de facto zerbrochen, de jure noch nicht; und zwischen dem faktischen und dem rechtlichen Exitus liegt nun ein langer Wahlkampf.
Eingeläutet hat den Wahlkampf nicht Vizekanzler Franz Müntefering, sondern Kanzlerin Angela Merkel: Sie hat ein politisches Kernanliegen Münteferings, die Einführung des Mindestlohns bei den kleinen Briefzustellern und den Briefsortierern, dermaßen abgekanzelt, dass der sich getäuscht, enttäuscht, brüskiert und verraten fühlte; sein Mindestlohn-Vorschlag war schon ein Kompromissangebot an den Koalitionspartner gewesen.
Ein Kommentar von Heribert Prantl
Dies ist das Ende der Großen Koalition. Man weiß nur nicht, wie lange es sich noch hinziehen wird. Wenn es lang geht, kann es bis zum Jahr 2009 dauern, bis zum regulären Ende der Legislaturperiode also; aber Wetten darauf sind riskant.
Zu Ende ist jedenfalls ein leidlich gedeihliches Miteinander der Koalitionspartner, am Ende ist das notwendige Minimum an Vertrauen zwischen SPD und Union, am Ende sind Güte und Qualität der Koalitionsarbeit. Die Große Koalition ist de facto zerbrochen, de jure noch nicht; und zwischen dem faktischen und dem rechtlichen Exitus liegt nun ein langer Wahlkampf.
Eingeläutet hat den Wahlkampf nicht Vizekanzler Franz Müntefering, sondern Kanzlerin Angela Merkel: Sie hat ein politisches Kernanliegen Münteferings, die Einführung des Mindestlohns bei den kleinen Briefzustellern und den Briefsortierern, dermaßen abgekanzelt, dass der sich getäuscht, enttäuscht, brüskiert und verraten fühlte; sein Mindestlohn-Vorschlag war schon ein Kompromissangebot an den Koalitionspartner gewesen.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Müntefering gibt alle Ämter ab | Deutschland | Deutsche Welle | 13.11.2007
Müntefering gibt alle Ämter ab | Deutschland | Deutsche Welle | 13.11.2007
Die Nachricht kam völlig überraschend: Arbeitsminister Franz Müntefering hat aus privaten Gründen seinen Rücktritt bekannt gegeben. Neuer Bundesarbeitsminister wird Olaf Scholz. Vizekanzler wird Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Die Nachricht kam völlig überraschend: Arbeitsminister Franz Müntefering hat aus privaten Gründen seinen Rücktritt bekannt gegeben. Neuer Bundesarbeitsminister wird Olaf Scholz. Vizekanzler wird Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Kurt Beck und die Große Koalition Über den Tisch gezogen - Deutschland - sueddeutsche.de
Kurt Beck und die Große Koalition Über den Tisch gezogen - Deutschland - sueddeutsche.de
Die SPD von Kurt Beck musste vergangene Nacht mächtig Federn lassen. Die Ergebnisse als Erfolg für den Parteichef zu deuten, kostet einige Mühe.
Es hätte ein großer Abend für Kurt Beck werden können, ein Abend an dem er endlich der Welt hätte zeigen können, was für ein großer Vorsitzender er ist. Wäre alles glatt gegangen, Deutschland hätte den Postmindestlohn, ein ordentlich verlängertes Arbeitslosengeld I und eine Bahn- privatisierung.
Die SPD von Kurt Beck musste vergangene Nacht mächtig Federn lassen. Die Ergebnisse als Erfolg für den Parteichef zu deuten, kostet einige Mühe.
Es hätte ein großer Abend für Kurt Beck werden können, ein Abend an dem er endlich der Welt hätte zeigen können, was für ein großer Vorsitzender er ist. Wäre alles glatt gegangen, Deutschland hätte den Postmindestlohn, ein ordentlich verlängertes Arbeitslosengeld I und eine Bahn- privatisierung.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Tarifstreit bei der Bahn Neue Streikwelle ab Mittwoch ''wahrscheinlich'' - Wirtschaft - sueddeutsche.de
Tarifstreit bei der Bahn Neue Streikwelle ab Mittwoch ''wahrscheinlich'' - Wirtschaft - sueddeutsche.de
Im Tarifstreit bei der Bahn wird die Lokführergewerkschaft GDL voraussichtlich ab Mittwoch streiken - und dann sowohl im Güter- als auch im Fernverkehr.
Im Tarifstreit bei der Bahn wird die Lokführergewerkschaft GDL voraussichtlich ab Mittwoch streiken - und dann sowohl im Güter- als auch im Fernverkehr.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Verhältnis zwischen Deutschland und Amerika Dear Mr. President ... - Deutschland - sueddeutsche.de
Verhältnis zwischen Deutschland und Amerika Dear Mr. President ... - Deutschland - sueddeutsche.de
Angela Merkel besucht US-Präsident Bush auf seiner Ranch in Crawford - ein privater Besuch von immenser Symbolik. Die Kanzlerin sollte dort einen Rat der Pop-Sängerin Pink befolgen.
Angela Merkel besucht US-Präsident Bush auf seiner Ranch in Crawford - ein privater Besuch von immenser Symbolik. Die Kanzlerin sollte dort einen Rat der Pop-Sängerin Pink befolgen.
Friday, November 09, 2007
RGE - Europe EconoMonitor
RGE - Europe EconoMonitor
The Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter once wrote on Marx' economic theory that "...Marx' economic ideas are embedded into a variety of very hot (in German: "dampfende") phrases which gives them a temperature which is far from the own temperature" (from "Kapitalismus, Sozialismus und Demokratie", own translation). The same can be said about the structural reform debate in Germany.
The Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter once wrote on Marx' economic theory that "...Marx' economic ideas are embedded into a variety of very hot (in German: "dampfende") phrases which gives them a temperature which is far from the own temperature" (from "Kapitalismus, Sozialismus und Demokratie", own translation). The same can be said about the structural reform debate in Germany.
RGE - The German Recovery: Tripple whammy ahead for investment
RGE - The German Recovery: Tripple whammy ahead for investment
This week has seen another number of downward revisions of the growth outlook for the German economy and in consequence for EMU as well. The council of economic advisors ("Sachverständigenrat") is now only forecasting a GDP growth for the German economy of 1.9 percent in 2008, the EU commission cut its forecast yesterday to 2.1 percent.
This week has seen another number of downward revisions of the growth outlook for the German economy and in consequence for EMU as well. The council of economic advisors ("Sachverständigenrat") is now only forecasting a GDP growth for the German economy of 1.9 percent in 2008, the EU commission cut its forecast yesterday to 2.1 percent.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
FT.com / Home UK / UK - Green Germany
FT.com / Home UK / UK - Green Germany
Green Germany
By Bertrand Benoit
Published: November 8 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 8 2007 02:00
Germany is strengthening its pioneering role in the renewable energies sector, writes Bertrand Benoit in Berlin . Renewable energies will account for 14 per cent of all electricity produced in Germany this year, according to new estimates.
The forecast, published yesterday by the federation of energy and water companies, showed that the country already exceeded European Union-wide objectives for 10 per cent of all electricity to be generated from renewable resources by 2010. Subsidies last year of €3.2bn (£2.3bn) helped establish the country's lead.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Green Germany
By Bertrand Benoit
Published: November 8 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 8 2007 02:00
Germany is strengthening its pioneering role in the renewable energies sector, writes Bertrand Benoit in Berlin . Renewable energies will account for 14 per cent of all electricity produced in Germany this year, according to new estimates.
The forecast, published yesterday by the federation of energy and water companies, showed that the country already exceeded European Union-wide objectives for 10 per cent of all electricity to be generated from renewable resources by 2010. Subsidies last year of €3.2bn (£2.3bn) helped establish the country's lead.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
FT.com / Books / Non-Fiction - Germany’s Greek tragedy
FT.com / Books / Non-Fiction - Germany’s Greek tragedy
Germany’s Greek tragedy
Review by Michael Levitin
Published: November 3 2007 00:44 | Last updated: November 3 2007 00:44
Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy
By Eric D. Weitz
Princeton University Press £17.95 432 pages
FT bookshop price: £14.37
In the waning days of the first world war, with two million German soldiers dead and more than twice that many injured, a sailors’ mutiny in the northern port city of Kiel kicked off a revolution that would destroy imperial Germany and set the republic on a visionary, democratic course. As a result, striking miners won fewer working hours, factory hands got higher wages, and social improvements after the war ranged from universal healthcare to financial support for working mothers.
The early advances of the Weimar Republic, which was born in 1919 and died with the Nazi takeover in 1933, laid the foundations of the modern social safety net and, as Eric D. Weitz argues in Weimar Germany, there was nothing inevitable about its dissolution and Hitler’s rise to power.
“Weimar did not just collapse. It was pushed over the precipice,” Weitz argues, by an established right wing that had been usurping its democratic functions long before the Nazis arrived on the scene. And indeed, after probing into the creative spirit and modern pathos of Germany in the Golden Twenties, we see it as something much more.
It is impossible to talk about post-1918 Germany without focusing on its political and financial instability – from the early public backlash against Versailles reparations to the hyper-inflation and Depression years that dogged the country later. Weitz covers this ground clearly and in sharp detail, breaking down the complex tug-of-war between communists, democrats and conservatives into three parts: 1919-23 when the country was left of centre, 1924-29 when it moved to the centre-right, and 1929-33 when it became outright authoritarian.
But more gripping to Weitz (and to this reviewer) is the artistic and intellectual ferment that Weimar embodied – a cultural explosion he chronicles with a passionate, persuasive voice: “The hyperactive vitality of Weimar culture … derived its intensity from the act of revolution, from the psychological sense of engagement, the heady enthusiasm, the notion that barriers had been broken and all things were possible.”
To construct a bibliography of Weimar’s mythic cast of characters would be too great a task, so Weitz dedicates the middle portion of his book to revisiting a select group whose contributions represent perhaps the greatest genius in Weimar culture: from Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, to Laszlo Moholy-Nagy in photography, Martin Heidegger in philosophy, Thomas Mann in literature, and Brecht and Weill in theatre.
Weitz might have broken Weimar Germany into bite-sized chapters, but he wins points for his no-frills language that transports us back to the racy, cosmopolitan atmosphere of 1920s Berlin – and for saving his best for last.
In the book’s resonant closure about the rise of authoritarianism, Weitz seems indirectly to hold a mirror up to America’s own political catastrophe in the post-9/11 Bush years: “The threats to democracy are not always from enemies abroad,” he writes. “They can come from those within who espouse the language of democracy.”
There’s a deep, almost pathological reason why we’re still fascinated with Weimar today. “We are drawn to the Greek tragedy of its history,” he says, “the star-crossed birth, the conflicted life, the utter disaster as the curtain falls.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Germany’s Greek tragedy
Review by Michael Levitin
Published: November 3 2007 00:44 | Last updated: November 3 2007 00:44
Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy
By Eric D. Weitz
Princeton University Press £17.95 432 pages
FT bookshop price: £14.37
In the waning days of the first world war, with two million German soldiers dead and more than twice that many injured, a sailors’ mutiny in the northern port city of Kiel kicked off a revolution that would destroy imperial Germany and set the republic on a visionary, democratic course. As a result, striking miners won fewer working hours, factory hands got higher wages, and social improvements after the war ranged from universal healthcare to financial support for working mothers.
The early advances of the Weimar Republic, which was born in 1919 and died with the Nazi takeover in 1933, laid the foundations of the modern social safety net and, as Eric D. Weitz argues in Weimar Germany, there was nothing inevitable about its dissolution and Hitler’s rise to power.
“Weimar did not just collapse. It was pushed over the precipice,” Weitz argues, by an established right wing that had been usurping its democratic functions long before the Nazis arrived on the scene. And indeed, after probing into the creative spirit and modern pathos of Germany in the Golden Twenties, we see it as something much more.
It is impossible to talk about post-1918 Germany without focusing on its political and financial instability – from the early public backlash against Versailles reparations to the hyper-inflation and Depression years that dogged the country later. Weitz covers this ground clearly and in sharp detail, breaking down the complex tug-of-war between communists, democrats and conservatives into three parts: 1919-23 when the country was left of centre, 1924-29 when it moved to the centre-right, and 1929-33 when it became outright authoritarian.
But more gripping to Weitz (and to this reviewer) is the artistic and intellectual ferment that Weimar embodied – a cultural explosion he chronicles with a passionate, persuasive voice: “The hyperactive vitality of Weimar culture … derived its intensity from the act of revolution, from the psychological sense of engagement, the heady enthusiasm, the notion that barriers had been broken and all things were possible.”
To construct a bibliography of Weimar’s mythic cast of characters would be too great a task, so Weitz dedicates the middle portion of his book to revisiting a select group whose contributions represent perhaps the greatest genius in Weimar culture: from Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, to Laszlo Moholy-Nagy in photography, Martin Heidegger in philosophy, Thomas Mann in literature, and Brecht and Weill in theatre.
Weitz might have broken Weimar Germany into bite-sized chapters, but he wins points for his no-frills language that transports us back to the racy, cosmopolitan atmosphere of 1920s Berlin – and for saving his best for last.
In the book’s resonant closure about the rise of authoritarianism, Weitz seems indirectly to hold a mirror up to America’s own political catastrophe in the post-9/11 Bush years: “The threats to democracy are not always from enemies abroad,” he writes. “They can come from those within who espouse the language of democracy.”
There’s a deep, almost pathological reason why we’re still fascinated with Weimar today. “We are drawn to the Greek tragedy of its history,” he says, “the star-crossed birth, the conflicted life, the utter disaster as the curtain falls.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Tarifkonflikt bei der Bahn ''Ein bisschen mehr Streik'' - Wirtschaft - sueddeutsche.de
Tarifkonflikt bei der Bahn ''Ein bisschen mehr Streik'' - Wirtschaft - sueddeutsche.de
Die Lokführer ziehen die Daumenschrauben an: So wie es derzeit aussieht, könnte von Donnerstag an gestreikt werden. Wie lange der Ausstand dauern soll, ist aber noch völlig offen.
Die Lokführer ziehen die Daumenschrauben an: So wie es derzeit aussieht, könnte von Donnerstag an gestreikt werden. Wie lange der Ausstand dauern soll, ist aber noch völlig offen.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
FT.com / Home UK / UK - SPD gains fail to allay fears over Beck's focus
FT.com / Home UK / UK - SPD gains fail to allay fears over Beck's focus
SPD gains fail to allay fears over Beck's focus
By Bertrand Benoit in Berlin
Published: November 3 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 3 2007 02:00
Germany's long-suffering Social Democrats may still be a long way from luring back their wayward voters but the party has taken a first step towards rebuilding its damaged credentials, according to pollsters.
Last weekend's party conference earned Kurt Beck, the SPD chairman, mixed press reviews, largely be-cause of his unfocused two-hour speech. Yet analysts agree that on balance, the conference - dominated by a shift to a more confidently leftwing message - was a success.
"Party conferences are designed for card-carrying members," said Andrea Wolf of pollsters Forschungsgruppe Wahlen. "But they also have an impact on the broader electorate." In this respect, Mr Beck managed to convey an impression of cohesion, she said, "which is an absolute prerequisite to winning elections".
The SPD has been at the bottom of popularity league tables since it joined the Christian Democrat-led "grand coalition" of Angela Merkel, the chancellor.
Most polls give the SPD 25-30 per cent to the CDU's solid 40 per cent. Mr Beck's personal rating is less than half that of Ms Merkel and even SPD members think that if elected chancellor he would not do a better job than the CDU leader.
In an attempt to drag the party out of this hole, Mr Beck has adopted a more vigorously leftwing stance, calling for a reversal of the ambitious economic reforms introduced by Gerhard Schröder, the last SPD chancellor, and launching scathing attacks against the CDU.
Although pollsters insist it is too early to judge whether the leftwards shift is wooing back voters and members - both of whom have deserted the party in droves following Mr Schröder's reforms - they note that the party is registering its first modest popularity gains in months.
A poll by research group Forsa, published this week, showed a modest rise in Mr Beck's personal ratings and a stabilisation in the SPD's popularity.
However, SPD reformists have expressed concern at his tone, questioning the economic wisdom of demolishing the last SPD-led government's reforms. One SPD cabinet minister says Mr Beck is focusing too much on proposals popular among the grassroots, damaging the party's wider appeal. The fear is that the SPD could undermine whatever economic competence voters see in it.
"The SPD is making the same old mistake it has always made, by confusing party delegates and voters," says Manfred Güllner, head of the Forsa research group. "A party conference may help draw cheers from the delegates but ultimately it will scare away voters.
"The SPD has 11m voters behind it right now. But to win an election it needs at least 20m, which is what Schröder got in 1998," he says. "Re-ideologisation is not the way to reach those extra 10m. It will scare them away."
Others think Mr Beck has few short-term alternatives, cornered as his party is between the radical Left Party - a one-year-old grouping that has thrived on the discontent caused by Mr Schröder's reforms - and a CDU that has toned down its market-friendly discourse.
As Reinhard Schlinckert, director of the Dimap polling group, says: "Beck's top priority should be to prevent the Left Party consolidating its niche left of the SPD. But this can only be phase one. Once he has the party be-hind him, he must broaden its appeal."
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
SPD gains fail to allay fears over Beck's focus
By Bertrand Benoit in Berlin
Published: November 3 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 3 2007 02:00
Germany's long-suffering Social Democrats may still be a long way from luring back their wayward voters but the party has taken a first step towards rebuilding its damaged credentials, according to pollsters.
Last weekend's party conference earned Kurt Beck, the SPD chairman, mixed press reviews, largely be-cause of his unfocused two-hour speech. Yet analysts agree that on balance, the conference - dominated by a shift to a more confidently leftwing message - was a success.
"Party conferences are designed for card-carrying members," said Andrea Wolf of pollsters Forschungsgruppe Wahlen. "But they also have an impact on the broader electorate." In this respect, Mr Beck managed to convey an impression of cohesion, she said, "which is an absolute prerequisite to winning elections".
The SPD has been at the bottom of popularity league tables since it joined the Christian Democrat-led "grand coalition" of Angela Merkel, the chancellor.
Most polls give the SPD 25-30 per cent to the CDU's solid 40 per cent. Mr Beck's personal rating is less than half that of Ms Merkel and even SPD members think that if elected chancellor he would not do a better job than the CDU leader.
In an attempt to drag the party out of this hole, Mr Beck has adopted a more vigorously leftwing stance, calling for a reversal of the ambitious economic reforms introduced by Gerhard Schröder, the last SPD chancellor, and launching scathing attacks against the CDU.
Although pollsters insist it is too early to judge whether the leftwards shift is wooing back voters and members - both of whom have deserted the party in droves following Mr Schröder's reforms - they note that the party is registering its first modest popularity gains in months.
A poll by research group Forsa, published this week, showed a modest rise in Mr Beck's personal ratings and a stabilisation in the SPD's popularity.
However, SPD reformists have expressed concern at his tone, questioning the economic wisdom of demolishing the last SPD-led government's reforms. One SPD cabinet minister says Mr Beck is focusing too much on proposals popular among the grassroots, damaging the party's wider appeal. The fear is that the SPD could undermine whatever economic competence voters see in it.
"The SPD is making the same old mistake it has always made, by confusing party delegates and voters," says Manfred Güllner, head of the Forsa research group. "A party conference may help draw cheers from the delegates but ultimately it will scare away voters.
"The SPD has 11m voters behind it right now. But to win an election it needs at least 20m, which is what Schröder got in 1998," he says. "Re-ideologisation is not the way to reach those extra 10m. It will scare them away."
Others think Mr Beck has few short-term alternatives, cornered as his party is between the radical Left Party - a one-year-old grouping that has thrived on the discontent caused by Mr Schröder's reforms - and a CDU that has toned down its market-friendly discourse.
As Reinhard Schlinckert, director of the Dimap polling group, says: "Beck's top priority should be to prevent the Left Party consolidating its niche left of the SPD. But this can only be phase one. Once he has the party be-hind him, he must broaden its appeal."
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
FT.com / Home UK / UK - An aloof 'Miss World'
FT.com / Home UK / UK - An aloof 'Miss World'
An aloof 'Miss World'
By Bertrand Benoit
Published: November 3 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 3 2007 02:00
Three days ago in Mumbai, Angela Merkel, clad in her trademark orange blazer, sat down with a group of women from a nearby village for a chat about microcredits and how these had changed their lives. Were the village's men involved in deciding how to invest the small loans, she asked. Of course not, came the answer. "Anyway," a woman added, "when the men gather, it always ends in disputes."
Germany's chancellor knows this all too well. Back in Berlin, and with barely enough time to recover from the jetlag, she will chair a meeting of her coalition's leading representatives tomorrow - a circle composed exclusively of men, most of them yearning for a fight.
Feted as "Miss World" by the popular Bild tabloid five months ago for her handling of Germany's twin Group of Eight and European Union presidency, Ms Merkel, who celebrates her second year as chancellor next month, has returned to the less flattering task of steering her unruly coalition at home.
The alliance of rival Christian and Social Democrats is coming under strain. The SPD, the junior partner, has launched frontal attacks on Ms Merkel and her CDU, and sought to prop up its failing popularity ratings with a marked leftwards shift in its discourse. Economists, meanwhile, are moaning about the ruling parties' leftwards drift, the government's inaction in the economic policy field and attempts to roll back the courageous yet unpopular economic reforms launched by Gerhard Schröder, Ms Merkel's predecessor. The chancellor herself is getting in the line of fire. Analysts are growing impatient and puzzled at the silence from the chancellery. As senior and junior members of the coalition squabble over the future course of economic policy, Ms Merkel appears to be floating above the tussle, aloof and disengaged.
A motion adopted at the SPD party conference last weekend that torpedoed the government's planned privatisation of the Deutsche Bahn railway operator has yet to draw a single word from the chancellor. While touring India, she refused to comment on SPD demands for longer unemployment benefits, legal curbs on temping agencies, exemptions from the higher retirement age and the re-introduction of a tax subsidy for commuters scrapped in January - some of which are up for discussion at tomorrow's meeting. Yet she found time to praise the international football federation's choice of Germany as host of the next women's world cup.
"The SPD is running amok, the house is burning and the chancellor flies to India," says Dirk Niebel, secretary-general of the opposition Free Democratic Party. "Either she wanted to be chancellor and is now resting on her laurels, or she has already set her sights on the next election. I hope the latter is true, but there is a big danger that damaging policy decisions will be made in the meantime."
Even her foreign policy, long immune to attacks, is drawing abuse. Her decision to invite the Dalai Lama to the chancellery last month, which led the Chinese government to cancel a string of bilateral events, was "tactless", according to Jürgen Hambrecht, chairman of the chemicals group BASF. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, her SPD foreign minister known for his diplomatic self-restraint, exploded last weekend, labelling Ms Merkel's demonstrative focus on human rights as "show-window foreign policy". Critics see it as provocative and harmful to Germany's economic interests.
Economic liberals are also uncomfortable about the chancellor's silence. A free-marketer who ran for election in 2005 on a platform of tough economic reforms, she seems to be quietly acquiescing as her own CDU drifts to the left, aping the SPD's new-found enthusiasm for "social justice".
Yet Ms Merkel is obviously doing something right, at least in the eyes of ordinary Germans. Two years into office, she has yet to drop from the top position in the ranking of Germany's best-liked politicians. Such popularity - unheard of for a postwar chancellor two years in the job - has something to do with Germany's healthy economy, say pollsters, which, after touching bottom in 2005 with more than 5m jobseekers, has now more people in work than at any time since the end of the war. Ms Merkel's insistence on human rights is also popular - more than 80 per cent of Germans supported the decision to entertain the Tibetan spiritual leader at the chancellery rather than in private, as Mr Steinmeier had suggested.
So are her down-to-earth ways. When not touring the world or ruling the country, the chancellor may be spotted in the aisles of the Edeka supermarket in the Friedrichstrasse railway station, half way between her office and her flat. Junior chancellery officials are full of praise for how she deals with the staff. "If you've worked hard and went the extra mile, even as an underling, she may ask you to drop by for a cup of coffee," says one person familiar with the inner workings of the chancellery.
Yet analysts say there is more to Ms Merkel's popularity. Her reluctance to intervene in the day-to-day political fights, they say, is less indecisiveness than political tactic. "She is a good student of Helmut Kohl [Germany's longest-serving chancellor and her mentor], who was adept at sitting out controversies," says Peter Loesche, a veteran political commentator. "As party chairman and chancellor, especially of a grand coalition, you are extremely exposed. You should always wait for debates to crystallise, for the strongest camp to emerge, before speaking your mind."
But is Ms Merkel's sphinx-like leadership good for Germany? Advisers admit that she saw her near-defeat at the last election as an indictment of her blood-and-tears campaign. "The lesson is you cannot win an election with a hardcore reform programme," says one. One chancellery official says she should be judged not by her words - or lack thereof - but by her actions. She may have to compromise with the SPD and left-leaners in her party on symbols, but he insists that she will not endorse any measure that would blow a hole in the budget or hinder employment. Given the exotic policy ideas circulating in the ruling parties, economists such as Holger Schmieding of Bank of America say they would be happy with two years of political standstill.
As Prof Loesche, puts it, Ms Merkel has lost neither soul nor conviction, "but the sad truth is, the only way to do politics as head of a grand coalition is by muddling through".
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
An aloof 'Miss World'
By Bertrand Benoit
Published: November 3 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 3 2007 02:00
Three days ago in Mumbai, Angela Merkel, clad in her trademark orange blazer, sat down with a group of women from a nearby village for a chat about microcredits and how these had changed their lives. Were the village's men involved in deciding how to invest the small loans, she asked. Of course not, came the answer. "Anyway," a woman added, "when the men gather, it always ends in disputes."
Germany's chancellor knows this all too well. Back in Berlin, and with barely enough time to recover from the jetlag, she will chair a meeting of her coalition's leading representatives tomorrow - a circle composed exclusively of men, most of them yearning for a fight.
Feted as "Miss World" by the popular Bild tabloid five months ago for her handling of Germany's twin Group of Eight and European Union presidency, Ms Merkel, who celebrates her second year as chancellor next month, has returned to the less flattering task of steering her unruly coalition at home.
The alliance of rival Christian and Social Democrats is coming under strain. The SPD, the junior partner, has launched frontal attacks on Ms Merkel and her CDU, and sought to prop up its failing popularity ratings with a marked leftwards shift in its discourse. Economists, meanwhile, are moaning about the ruling parties' leftwards drift, the government's inaction in the economic policy field and attempts to roll back the courageous yet unpopular economic reforms launched by Gerhard Schröder, Ms Merkel's predecessor. The chancellor herself is getting in the line of fire. Analysts are growing impatient and puzzled at the silence from the chancellery. As senior and junior members of the coalition squabble over the future course of economic policy, Ms Merkel appears to be floating above the tussle, aloof and disengaged.
A motion adopted at the SPD party conference last weekend that torpedoed the government's planned privatisation of the Deutsche Bahn railway operator has yet to draw a single word from the chancellor. While touring India, she refused to comment on SPD demands for longer unemployment benefits, legal curbs on temping agencies, exemptions from the higher retirement age and the re-introduction of a tax subsidy for commuters scrapped in January - some of which are up for discussion at tomorrow's meeting. Yet she found time to praise the international football federation's choice of Germany as host of the next women's world cup.
"The SPD is running amok, the house is burning and the chancellor flies to India," says Dirk Niebel, secretary-general of the opposition Free Democratic Party. "Either she wanted to be chancellor and is now resting on her laurels, or she has already set her sights on the next election. I hope the latter is true, but there is a big danger that damaging policy decisions will be made in the meantime."
Even her foreign policy, long immune to attacks, is drawing abuse. Her decision to invite the Dalai Lama to the chancellery last month, which led the Chinese government to cancel a string of bilateral events, was "tactless", according to Jürgen Hambrecht, chairman of the chemicals group BASF. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, her SPD foreign minister known for his diplomatic self-restraint, exploded last weekend, labelling Ms Merkel's demonstrative focus on human rights as "show-window foreign policy". Critics see it as provocative and harmful to Germany's economic interests.
Economic liberals are also uncomfortable about the chancellor's silence. A free-marketer who ran for election in 2005 on a platform of tough economic reforms, she seems to be quietly acquiescing as her own CDU drifts to the left, aping the SPD's new-found enthusiasm for "social justice".
Yet Ms Merkel is obviously doing something right, at least in the eyes of ordinary Germans. Two years into office, she has yet to drop from the top position in the ranking of Germany's best-liked politicians. Such popularity - unheard of for a postwar chancellor two years in the job - has something to do with Germany's healthy economy, say pollsters, which, after touching bottom in 2005 with more than 5m jobseekers, has now more people in work than at any time since the end of the war. Ms Merkel's insistence on human rights is also popular - more than 80 per cent of Germans supported the decision to entertain the Tibetan spiritual leader at the chancellery rather than in private, as Mr Steinmeier had suggested.
So are her down-to-earth ways. When not touring the world or ruling the country, the chancellor may be spotted in the aisles of the Edeka supermarket in the Friedrichstrasse railway station, half way between her office and her flat. Junior chancellery officials are full of praise for how she deals with the staff. "If you've worked hard and went the extra mile, even as an underling, she may ask you to drop by for a cup of coffee," says one person familiar with the inner workings of the chancellery.
Yet analysts say there is more to Ms Merkel's popularity. Her reluctance to intervene in the day-to-day political fights, they say, is less indecisiveness than political tactic. "She is a good student of Helmut Kohl [Germany's longest-serving chancellor and her mentor], who was adept at sitting out controversies," says Peter Loesche, a veteran political commentator. "As party chairman and chancellor, especially of a grand coalition, you are extremely exposed. You should always wait for debates to crystallise, for the strongest camp to emerge, before speaking your mind."
But is Ms Merkel's sphinx-like leadership good for Germany? Advisers admit that she saw her near-defeat at the last election as an indictment of her blood-and-tears campaign. "The lesson is you cannot win an election with a hardcore reform programme," says one. One chancellery official says she should be judged not by her words - or lack thereof - but by her actions. She may have to compromise with the SPD and left-leaners in her party on symbols, but he insists that she will not endorse any measure that would blow a hole in the budget or hinder employment. Given the exotic policy ideas circulating in the ruling parties, economists such as Holger Schmieding of Bank of America say they would be happy with two years of political standstill.
As Prof Loesche, puts it, Ms Merkel has lost neither soul nor conviction, "but the sad truth is, the only way to do politics as head of a grand coalition is by muddling through".
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Friday, November 02, 2007
FTD.de - Deutschland - Nachrichten - Beck holt SPD aus Umfragetief
FTD.de - Deutschland - Nachrichten - Beck holt SPD aus Umfragetief
Für ihre Einigung beim Parteitag wird die SPD belohnt. Die Sozialdemokraten erreichen bei der Sonntagsfrage erstmals wieder die 30-Prozent-Marke. Der Vorschlag des Tempolimits auf deutschen Autobahnen spaltet die Bevölkerung allerdings wie kein anderer.
Für ihre Einigung beim Parteitag wird die SPD belohnt. Die Sozialdemokraten erreichen bei der Sonntagsfrage erstmals wieder die 30-Prozent-Marke. Der Vorschlag des Tempolimits auf deutschen Autobahnen spaltet die Bevölkerung allerdings wie kein anderer.
FT.com / World - SPD gains fail to allay doubts
FT.com / World - SPD gains fail to allay doubts
SPD gains fail to allay doubts
By Bertrand Benoit in Berlin
Published: November 2 2007 19:12 | Last updated: November 2 2007 19:12
Germany’s long-suffering Social Democrats may still be a long way from luring back their wayward voters but the party has taken a first step towards rebuilding its damaged credentials, according to pollsters.
Last weekend’s party conference earned Kurt Beck, the SPD chairman, mixed press reviews, largely because of his unfocused two-hour speech. Yet analysts agree that on balance, the conference – dominated by a shift to a more confidently leftwing message – was a success.
“Party conferences are designed for card-carrying members,” said Andrea Wolf of Forschungsgruppe Wahlen pollsters. “But they also have an impact on the broader electorate.” In this respect, Mr Beck managed to convey an impression of internal cohesion, she said, “which is an absolute prerequisite to winning elections”.
The SPD has been at the bottom of popularity league tables since it joined the Christian Democrat-led “grand coalition” of Angela Merkel, the chancellor.
Most polls give the SPD 25-30 per cent to the CDU’s solid 40 per cent. Mr Beck’s personal rating is less than half that of Ms Merkel and even SPD members think that if elected chancellor he would not do a better job than the CDU leader.
In an attempt to drag the party out of this hole, Mr Beck has adopted a more vigorously leftwing stance, calling for a reversal of the ambitious economic reforms introduced by Gerhard Schröder, the last SPD chancellor, and launching scathing attacks against the CDU.
Although pollsters insist it is too early to judge whether the leftwards shift is wooing back voters and members – both of whom have deserted the party in droves following Mr Schröder’s reforms – they note that the party is registering its first modest popularity gains in months.
A poll by Forsa research group, published this week, showed a modest rise in Mr Beck’s personal ratings and a stabilisation in the SPD’s popularity.
However, SPD reformists have expressed concern at his tone, questioning the economic wisdom of demolishing the last SPD-led government’s reforms. One SPD cabinet minister says Mr Beck is focusing too much on proposals popular among the grassroots, damaging the party’s wider appeal. The fear is that the SPD could undermine whatever economic competence voters see in it.
“The SPD is making the same old mistake it has always made, by confusing party delegates and voters,” says Manfred Güllner, head of the Forsa research group. “A party conference may help draw cheers from the delegates but ultimately it will scare away voters.
“The SPD has 11m voters behind it right now. But to win an election it needs at least 20m, which is what Schröder got in 1998,” he says. “Re-ideologisation is not the way to reach those extra 10m. It will scare them away.”
Others think Mr Beck has few short-term alternatives, cornered as his party is between the radical Left party – a one-year-old grouping that has thrived on the discontent caused by Mr Schröder’s reforms – and a CDU that has toned down its market-friendly discourse.
As Reinhard Schlinckert, director of the Dimap polling group, says: “Beck’s top priority should be to prevent the Left Party consolidating its niche left of the SPD. But this can only be phase one. Once he has the party behind him, he must broaden its appeal to the outside.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
SPD gains fail to allay doubts
By Bertrand Benoit in Berlin
Published: November 2 2007 19:12 | Last updated: November 2 2007 19:12
Germany’s long-suffering Social Democrats may still be a long way from luring back their wayward voters but the party has taken a first step towards rebuilding its damaged credentials, according to pollsters.
Last weekend’s party conference earned Kurt Beck, the SPD chairman, mixed press reviews, largely because of his unfocused two-hour speech. Yet analysts agree that on balance, the conference – dominated by a shift to a more confidently leftwing message – was a success.
“Party conferences are designed for card-carrying members,” said Andrea Wolf of Forschungsgruppe Wahlen pollsters. “But they also have an impact on the broader electorate.” In this respect, Mr Beck managed to convey an impression of internal cohesion, she said, “which is an absolute prerequisite to winning elections”.
The SPD has been at the bottom of popularity league tables since it joined the Christian Democrat-led “grand coalition” of Angela Merkel, the chancellor.
Most polls give the SPD 25-30 per cent to the CDU’s solid 40 per cent. Mr Beck’s personal rating is less than half that of Ms Merkel and even SPD members think that if elected chancellor he would not do a better job than the CDU leader.
In an attempt to drag the party out of this hole, Mr Beck has adopted a more vigorously leftwing stance, calling for a reversal of the ambitious economic reforms introduced by Gerhard Schröder, the last SPD chancellor, and launching scathing attacks against the CDU.
Although pollsters insist it is too early to judge whether the leftwards shift is wooing back voters and members – both of whom have deserted the party in droves following Mr Schröder’s reforms – they note that the party is registering its first modest popularity gains in months.
A poll by Forsa research group, published this week, showed a modest rise in Mr Beck’s personal ratings and a stabilisation in the SPD’s popularity.
However, SPD reformists have expressed concern at his tone, questioning the economic wisdom of demolishing the last SPD-led government’s reforms. One SPD cabinet minister says Mr Beck is focusing too much on proposals popular among the grassroots, damaging the party’s wider appeal. The fear is that the SPD could undermine whatever economic competence voters see in it.
“The SPD is making the same old mistake it has always made, by confusing party delegates and voters,” says Manfred Güllner, head of the Forsa research group. “A party conference may help draw cheers from the delegates but ultimately it will scare away voters.
“The SPD has 11m voters behind it right now. But to win an election it needs at least 20m, which is what Schröder got in 1998,” he says. “Re-ideologisation is not the way to reach those extra 10m. It will scare them away.”
Others think Mr Beck has few short-term alternatives, cornered as his party is between the radical Left party – a one-year-old grouping that has thrived on the discontent caused by Mr Schröder’s reforms – and a CDU that has toned down its market-friendly discourse.
As Reinhard Schlinckert, director of the Dimap polling group, says: “Beck’s top priority should be to prevent the Left Party consolidating its niche left of the SPD. But this can only be phase one. Once he has the party behind him, he must broaden its appeal to the outside.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
sueddeutsche.de Streit um Betreuungsgeld Steinbrück stemmt sich gegen von der Leyen - Deutschland
sueddeutsche.de Streit um Betreuungsgeld Steinbrück stemmt sich gegen von der Leyen - Deutschland
Das von Familienministerin von der Leyen überraschend in ihren Gesetzesentwurf aufgenommene Betreuungsgeld wird von Finanzminister Steinbrück entschieden abgelehnt. Auch in der CDU sind nicht alle über den Schwenk der Ministerin glücklich.
Das von Familienministerin von der Leyen überraschend in ihren Gesetzesentwurf aufgenommene Betreuungsgeld wird von Finanzminister Steinbrück entschieden abgelehnt. Auch in der CDU sind nicht alle über den Schwenk der Ministerin glücklich.
sueddeutsche.de Streit in der Koalition Die wichtigsten Streitpunkte - Deutschland
sueddeutsche.de Streit in der Koalition Die wichtigsten Streitpunkte - Deutschland
Ob Betreuungsgeld, Mindestlohn oder Arbeitslosengeld - die Positionen der Koalitionspartner SPD und CDU sind in vielen Punkten meilenweit voneinander entfernt. Eine Übersicht von Christoph Schäfer.
Ob Betreuungsgeld, Mindestlohn oder Arbeitslosengeld - die Positionen der Koalitionspartner SPD und CDU sind in vielen Punkten meilenweit voneinander entfernt. Eine Übersicht von Christoph Schäfer.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
FT.com / Home UK / UK - Germany's best hope - or a man without substance?
FT.com / Home UK / UK - Germany's best hope - or a man without substance?
Germany's best hope - or a man without substance?
By Bertrand Benoit
Published: November 1 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 1 2007 02:00
After two numbing years of "grand coalition", drama has returned to German politics in the rounded shape of Kurt Beck, the Social Democratic party chairman and the man who could drag the country's oldest party back from the abyss.
Or could he? Put to close scrutiny, and contrary to what is becoming mainstream opinion in Berlin, the rise of Mr Beck looks very much like a mirage - a failure of leadership masquerading as a renaissance for a battered organisation that has seen four chairmen come and go in three years. Over the past few weeks, Mr Beck has inaugurated a marked leftward shift in the SPD's discourse. This earned him a consecration worthy of Fidel Castro at the party's conference last weekend, where - after a Castro-like two-hour speech - he was confirmed in office with 95.5 per cent of the votes.
The centrist Süddeutsche Zeitung crowned the bearded Rhinelander the legitimate heir to August Bebel, co-founder of the SPD, and Willy Brandt, its greatest chancellor. By returning ideals - some would say ideology - to the party's message and ending its flirtation with economic liberalism, the paper reasoned, Mr Beck had reaffirmed its identity. Party members like to compare him with another Rhinelander: Helmut Kohl, the former Christian Democratic chancellor who, scorned as a junior politician for his awkwardness, went on to become Germany's longest serving leader.
Pollsters even think they have detected signs of life in the SPD's ratings since the conference. A one-point gain may seem modest, but it could signal a change of trend in the party's fortunes, which have declined since Gerhard Schröder, the last SPD chancellor, scraped back into office in 2002.
Plagued by disputes over Mr Schröder's economic reforms, the SPD has since lost virtually all regional elections. Members have left in droves, many to the radical Left party, and the SPD's rating has been stuck for months at about 25 per cent, a full 15 points below the Christian Democrats'.
Given how the party has suffered under the "grand coalition", another indecisive outcome at the next election could put the party leadership under pressure to go for a three-way coalition with the Greens and the Left party, bringing the heirs to East Germany's Communists back to power for the first time since unification. Several SPD grandees, including Klaus Wowereit, the popular Berlin mayor, are already calling for such an alliance.
One obvious, though not decisive, flaw in the theory about Mr Beck being the SPD's first decisive leader since Mr Schröder is his all too obvious lack of conviction as a tough-talking left-winger. As state premier of Rhineland-Palatinate, he ruled together with the free-market Free Democrats between 1994 and 2006 - they declined to join his government last year after the SPD won a rare absolute majority.
His leftward turn was a centrist politician's tactical manoeuvre born of panic at the party's plunging popularity. Given this lack of credibility, it is no wonder that the SPD's junior cadres did not, in fact, rally behind their leaders at the party conference. The SPD executive board suffered two defeats when the congress voted in favour of a general speed limit and tougher environmental rules. Delegates also forced it to convene an extraordinary party conference should the government go ahead with rail privatisation.
The suggestion by Norbert Röttgen, one of the CDU's top men in parliament, that Mr Beck had opened a Pandora's box he may find impossible to control was a mere statement of fact.
This is where the comparison with Mr Kohl fails. Mr Beck may share the elder statesman's earthy accent and endearing lack of charisma, but he has shown none of his - and, for that matter, Chancellor Angela Merkel's - ruthless skills at eradicating in-house criticism. Opinion polls show a majority of card-carrying SPD members still trust Ms Merkel more as a chancellor than they would their own chairman.
In a recent Financial Times interview, another German-speaking politician said leadership was "about bringing people along. If 30 per cent of the people are for one thing and 70 per cent are against it, and if you are absolutely convinced it's the right thing to do, then it's your job to lead the people."
This snippet of wisdom came from Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of California. Mr Beck could do worse than take the action hero's advice instead of pandering to a new radicalism whose unruly waters could easily sweep him away.
The writer is the FT's Berlin bureau chief
Germany's best hope - or a man without substance?
By Bertrand Benoit
Published: November 1 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 1 2007 02:00
After two numbing years of "grand coalition", drama has returned to German politics in the rounded shape of Kurt Beck, the Social Democratic party chairman and the man who could drag the country's oldest party back from the abyss.
Or could he? Put to close scrutiny, and contrary to what is becoming mainstream opinion in Berlin, the rise of Mr Beck looks very much like a mirage - a failure of leadership masquerading as a renaissance for a battered organisation that has seen four chairmen come and go in three years. Over the past few weeks, Mr Beck has inaugurated a marked leftward shift in the SPD's discourse. This earned him a consecration worthy of Fidel Castro at the party's conference last weekend, where - after a Castro-like two-hour speech - he was confirmed in office with 95.5 per cent of the votes.
The centrist Süddeutsche Zeitung crowned the bearded Rhinelander the legitimate heir to August Bebel, co-founder of the SPD, and Willy Brandt, its greatest chancellor. By returning ideals - some would say ideology - to the party's message and ending its flirtation with economic liberalism, the paper reasoned, Mr Beck had reaffirmed its identity. Party members like to compare him with another Rhinelander: Helmut Kohl, the former Christian Democratic chancellor who, scorned as a junior politician for his awkwardness, went on to become Germany's longest serving leader.
Pollsters even think they have detected signs of life in the SPD's ratings since the conference. A one-point gain may seem modest, but it could signal a change of trend in the party's fortunes, which have declined since Gerhard Schröder, the last SPD chancellor, scraped back into office in 2002.
Plagued by disputes over Mr Schröder's economic reforms, the SPD has since lost virtually all regional elections. Members have left in droves, many to the radical Left party, and the SPD's rating has been stuck for months at about 25 per cent, a full 15 points below the Christian Democrats'.
Given how the party has suffered under the "grand coalition", another indecisive outcome at the next election could put the party leadership under pressure to go for a three-way coalition with the Greens and the Left party, bringing the heirs to East Germany's Communists back to power for the first time since unification. Several SPD grandees, including Klaus Wowereit, the popular Berlin mayor, are already calling for such an alliance.
One obvious, though not decisive, flaw in the theory about Mr Beck being the SPD's first decisive leader since Mr Schröder is his all too obvious lack of conviction as a tough-talking left-winger. As state premier of Rhineland-Palatinate, he ruled together with the free-market Free Democrats between 1994 and 2006 - they declined to join his government last year after the SPD won a rare absolute majority.
His leftward turn was a centrist politician's tactical manoeuvre born of panic at the party's plunging popularity. Given this lack of credibility, it is no wonder that the SPD's junior cadres did not, in fact, rally behind their leaders at the party conference. The SPD executive board suffered two defeats when the congress voted in favour of a general speed limit and tougher environmental rules. Delegates also forced it to convene an extraordinary party conference should the government go ahead with rail privatisation.
The suggestion by Norbert Röttgen, one of the CDU's top men in parliament, that Mr Beck had opened a Pandora's box he may find impossible to control was a mere statement of fact.
This is where the comparison with Mr Kohl fails. Mr Beck may share the elder statesman's earthy accent and endearing lack of charisma, but he has shown none of his - and, for that matter, Chancellor Angela Merkel's - ruthless skills at eradicating in-house criticism. Opinion polls show a majority of card-carrying SPD members still trust Ms Merkel more as a chancellor than they would their own chairman.
In a recent Financial Times interview, another German-speaking politician said leadership was "about bringing people along. If 30 per cent of the people are for one thing and 70 per cent are against it, and if you are absolutely convinced it's the right thing to do, then it's your job to lead the people."
This snippet of wisdom came from Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of California. Mr Beck could do worse than take the action hero's advice instead of pandering to a new radicalism whose unruly waters could easily sweep him away.
The writer is the FT's Berlin bureau chief
FT.com / Home UK / UK - Germany's best hope - or a man without substance?
FT.com / Home UK / UK - Germany's best hope - or a man without substance?
Germany's best hope - or a man without substance?
By Bertrand Benoit
Published: November 1 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 1 2007 02:00
After two numbing years of "grand coalition", drama has returned to German politics in the rounded shape of Kurt Beck, the Social Democratic party chairman and the man who could drag the country's oldest party back from the abyss.
Or could he? Put to close scrutiny, and contrary to what is becoming mainstream opinion in Berlin, the rise of Mr Beck looks very much like a mirage - a failure of leadership masquerading as a renaissance for a battered organisation that has seen four chairmen come and go in three years. Over the past few weeks, Mr Beck has inaugurated a marked leftward shift in the SPD's discourse. This earned him a consecration worthy of Fidel Castro at the party's conference last weekend, where - after a Castro-like two-hour speech - he was confirmed in office with 95.5 per cent of the votes.
The centrist Süddeutsche Zeitung crowned the bearded Rhinelander the legitimate heir to August Bebel, co-founder of the SPD, and Willy Brandt, its greatest chancellor. By returning ideals - some would say ideology - to the party's message and ending its flirtation with economic liberalism, the paper reasoned, Mr Beck had reaffirmed its identity. Party members like to compare him with another Rhinelander: Helmut Kohl, the former Christian Democratic chancellor who, scorned as a junior politician for his awkwardness, went on to become Germany's longest serving leader.
Pollsters even think they have detected signs of life in the SPD's ratings since the conference. A one-point gain may seem modest, but it could signal a change of trend in the party's fortunes, which have declined since Gerhard Schröder, the last SPD chancellor, scraped back into office in 2002.
Plagued by disputes over Mr Schröder's economic reforms, the SPD has since lost virtually all regional elections. Members have left in droves, many to the radical Left party, and the SPD's rating has been stuck for months at about 25 per cent, a full 15 points below the Christian Democrats'.
Given how the party has suffered under the "grand coalition", another indecisive outcome at the next election could put the party leadership under pressure to go for a three-way coalition with the Greens and the Left party, bringing the heirs to East Germany's Communists back to power for the first time since unification. Several SPD grandees, including Klaus Wowereit, the popular Berlin mayor, are already calling for such an alliance.
One obvious, though not decisive, flaw in the theory about Mr Beck being the SPD's first decisive leader since Mr Schröder is his all too obvious lack of conviction as a tough-talking left-winger. As state premier of Rhineland-Palatinate, he ruled together with the free-market Free Democrats between 1994 and 2006 - they declined to join his government last year after the SPD won a rare absolute majority.
His leftward turn was a centrist politician's tactical manoeuvre born of panic at the party's plunging popularity. Given this lack of credibility, it is no wonder that the SPD's junior cadres did not, in fact, rally behind their leaders at the party conference. The SPD executive board suffered two defeats when the congress voted in favour of a general speed limit and tougher environmental rules. Delegates also forced it to convene an extraordinary party conference should the government go ahead with rail privatisation.
The suggestion by Norbert Röttgen, one of the CDU's top men in parliament, that Mr Beck had opened a Pandora's box he may find impossible to control was a mere statement of fact.
This is where the comparison with Mr Kohl fails. Mr Beck may share the elder statesman's earthy accent and endearing lack of charisma, but he has shown none of his - and, for that matter, Chancellor Angela Merkel's - ruthless skills at eradicating in-house criticism. Opinion polls show a majority of card-carrying SPD members still trust Ms Merkel more as a chancellor than they would their own chairman.
In a recent Financial Times interview, another German-speaking politician said leadership was "about bringing people along. If 30 per cent of the people are for one thing and 70 per cent are against it, and if you are absolutely convinced it's the right thing to do, then it's your job to lead the people."
This snippet of wisdom came from Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of California. Mr Beck could do worse than take the action hero's advice instead of pandering to a new radicalism whose unruly waters could easily sweep him away.
The writer is the FT's Berlin bureau chief
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Germany's best hope - or a man without substance?
By Bertrand Benoit
Published: November 1 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 1 2007 02:00
After two numbing years of "grand coalition", drama has returned to German politics in the rounded shape of Kurt Beck, the Social Democratic party chairman and the man who could drag the country's oldest party back from the abyss.
Or could he? Put to close scrutiny, and contrary to what is becoming mainstream opinion in Berlin, the rise of Mr Beck looks very much like a mirage - a failure of leadership masquerading as a renaissance for a battered organisation that has seen four chairmen come and go in three years. Over the past few weeks, Mr Beck has inaugurated a marked leftward shift in the SPD's discourse. This earned him a consecration worthy of Fidel Castro at the party's conference last weekend, where - after a Castro-like two-hour speech - he was confirmed in office with 95.5 per cent of the votes.
The centrist Süddeutsche Zeitung crowned the bearded Rhinelander the legitimate heir to August Bebel, co-founder of the SPD, and Willy Brandt, its greatest chancellor. By returning ideals - some would say ideology - to the party's message and ending its flirtation with economic liberalism, the paper reasoned, Mr Beck had reaffirmed its identity. Party members like to compare him with another Rhinelander: Helmut Kohl, the former Christian Democratic chancellor who, scorned as a junior politician for his awkwardness, went on to become Germany's longest serving leader.
Pollsters even think they have detected signs of life in the SPD's ratings since the conference. A one-point gain may seem modest, but it could signal a change of trend in the party's fortunes, which have declined since Gerhard Schröder, the last SPD chancellor, scraped back into office in 2002.
Plagued by disputes over Mr Schröder's economic reforms, the SPD has since lost virtually all regional elections. Members have left in droves, many to the radical Left party, and the SPD's rating has been stuck for months at about 25 per cent, a full 15 points below the Christian Democrats'.
Given how the party has suffered under the "grand coalition", another indecisive outcome at the next election could put the party leadership under pressure to go for a three-way coalition with the Greens and the Left party, bringing the heirs to East Germany's Communists back to power for the first time since unification. Several SPD grandees, including Klaus Wowereit, the popular Berlin mayor, are already calling for such an alliance.
One obvious, though not decisive, flaw in the theory about Mr Beck being the SPD's first decisive leader since Mr Schröder is his all too obvious lack of conviction as a tough-talking left-winger. As state premier of Rhineland-Palatinate, he ruled together with the free-market Free Democrats between 1994 and 2006 - they declined to join his government last year after the SPD won a rare absolute majority.
His leftward turn was a centrist politician's tactical manoeuvre born of panic at the party's plunging popularity. Given this lack of credibility, it is no wonder that the SPD's junior cadres did not, in fact, rally behind their leaders at the party conference. The SPD executive board suffered two defeats when the congress voted in favour of a general speed limit and tougher environmental rules. Delegates also forced it to convene an extraordinary party conference should the government go ahead with rail privatisation.
The suggestion by Norbert Röttgen, one of the CDU's top men in parliament, that Mr Beck had opened a Pandora's box he may find impossible to control was a mere statement of fact.
This is where the comparison with Mr Kohl fails. Mr Beck may share the elder statesman's earthy accent and endearing lack of charisma, but he has shown none of his - and, for that matter, Chancellor Angela Merkel's - ruthless skills at eradicating in-house criticism. Opinion polls show a majority of card-carrying SPD members still trust Ms Merkel more as a chancellor than they would their own chairman.
In a recent Financial Times interview, another German-speaking politician said leadership was "about bringing people along. If 30 per cent of the people are for one thing and 70 per cent are against it, and if you are absolutely convinced it's the right thing to do, then it's your job to lead the people."
This snippet of wisdom came from Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of California. Mr Beck could do worse than take the action hero's advice instead of pandering to a new radicalism whose unruly waters could easily sweep him away.
The writer is the FT's Berlin bureau chief
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
sueddeutsche.de Betreuungsgeld Von der Leyen soll eingeknickt sein - Deutschland
sueddeutsche.de Betreuungsgeld Von der Leyen soll eingeknickt sein - Deutschland
Kehrtwende im Familienministerium: Das von der CSU geforderte Betreuungsgeld für häusliche Erziehung beurteilte Ministerin von der Leyen bislang als "bildungspolitische Katastrophe" - nun soll sie es trotzdem in ihren Gesetzentwurf aufgenommen haben.
Kehrtwende im Familienministerium: Das von der CSU geforderte Betreuungsgeld für häusliche Erziehung beurteilte Ministerin von der Leyen bislang als "bildungspolitische Katastrophe" - nun soll sie es trotzdem in ihren Gesetzentwurf aufgenommen haben.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
FT.com / Columnists / Wolfgang Munchau - Germany is homing in on better times
FT.com / Columnists / Wolfgang Munchau - Germany is homing in on better times
Germany is homing in on better times
By Wolfgang Munchau
Published: October 28 2007 20:26 | Last updated: October 28 2007 20:26
When I first came to live in London about 25 years ago, Germany was widely considered a more advanced economy than the UK. In the mid-1990s these perceptions began to reverse. During the course of the next decade, I would expect to see yet another reversal – in favour of Germany.
No, I am not going to leap to a defence of the Rhineland model. I remain sceptical about Germany’s long-term economic performance. The country relies too heavily on manufacturing exports. It lacks a modern service economy and is committed to an antiquated financial sector.
But while Germany has its fair share of structural problems, so does the UK, and these are likely to become evident in the next five years. Perhaps the biggest structural problem of the UK is an over-reliance on personal debt and a built-in tendency towards speculative housing bubbles. Britain has owed much of its 15-year spell of good economic growth to an unprecedented credit and housing binge that has lasted abnormally long. While the economic policy regime has undoubtedly improved since the UK’s exit from the European exchange rate mechanism in 1992, it has been helped greatly by global disinflation since then.
In a note for the Policy Exchange think-tank, Oliver Marc Hartwich, Brian Lipson and Holger Schmieding take a critical look at the UK’s economic performance and conclude that it has been strongly influenced by rising debt, rising property prices and a progressively loose fiscal policy.
From 1992 to 2006 the real growth in UK gross domestic product was 49 per cent, they write, while personal debt, in real terms, rose almost three times faster than real GDP growth. Another important factor was home equity withdrawals, which totalled £256bn in today’s prices between 2001 and 2006, according to their study.
While the UK enjoyed a house price boom on an unprecedented scale, Germany suffered from a decline in real house prices, which started a few years after unification. By the middle of this decade, property prices in Germany had bottomed out and begun slowly to rise again. Compared with most capital cities in the western world, Berlin has almost unbelievably low house prices. For the price of one house in London, you get about five in Berlin.
While German prices have started to rise again, UK prices have begun to fall in some regions. I would expect a real decline in UK property prices on a scale similar to the US, where prices are falling fast. All the important UK housing indictors, such as rent-to-value ratios and income multiples, suggest that UK properties are unsustainably overvalued.
As Daniel Gros, director of the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, has reminded us in a recent survey on house price bubbles in Europe, housing cycles are very long – long enough even for rational people to form irrational expectations. The boom was driven by cheap money and abundant credit and it was sustained by an irrational belief that prices would rise for ever in real terms. The downturn is driven by the same process in reverse: expensive money, a credit squeeze and an equally irrational belief about how far prices can drop.
People who lived in the UK during the late 1980s and early 1990s may remember how a period of exuberant optimism quickly turned into economic defeatism. I suspect we may be at a similar junction.
The house price bubble is, of course, not a specific UK problem. There are also bubbles in Spain and Ireland, though both countries have been running persistently strong fiscal surpluses, unlike the UK, and are in a better position to compensate for the coming housing downturn.
An interesting chart produced by Mr Gros shows that, in spite of the lacklustre performance of German property, the housing market in the eurozone as a whole has grown almost as much as US house prices over the last 15 years. Because Germany accounts for about a third of the eurozone economy, this suggests that house price inflation elsewhere in the eurozone must have been extreme. And so it was. The real dividing line is not between the Anglo-Saxon and continental European economies, but right through the eurozone itself.
The reversal of economic fortunes, between Germany on the one side, and the UK, Spain and Ireland on the other, tells us little about the long-term performance of these countries. Germany will still need substantial economic reforms and will not be able to rely solely on its recent competitive improvements. But in the medium term, Germany will benefit from having a housing depression behind it. In the UK, Spain and Ireland, it is only just starting. For the UK in particular, the next few years look pretty grim.
Send your comments to munchau@eurointelligence.com
Germany is homing in on better times
By Wolfgang Munchau
Published: October 28 2007 20:26 | Last updated: October 28 2007 20:26
When I first came to live in London about 25 years ago, Germany was widely considered a more advanced economy than the UK. In the mid-1990s these perceptions began to reverse. During the course of the next decade, I would expect to see yet another reversal – in favour of Germany.
No, I am not going to leap to a defence of the Rhineland model. I remain sceptical about Germany’s long-term economic performance. The country relies too heavily on manufacturing exports. It lacks a modern service economy and is committed to an antiquated financial sector.
But while Germany has its fair share of structural problems, so does the UK, and these are likely to become evident in the next five years. Perhaps the biggest structural problem of the UK is an over-reliance on personal debt and a built-in tendency towards speculative housing bubbles. Britain has owed much of its 15-year spell of good economic growth to an unprecedented credit and housing binge that has lasted abnormally long. While the economic policy regime has undoubtedly improved since the UK’s exit from the European exchange rate mechanism in 1992, it has been helped greatly by global disinflation since then.
In a note for the Policy Exchange think-tank, Oliver Marc Hartwich, Brian Lipson and Holger Schmieding take a critical look at the UK’s economic performance and conclude that it has been strongly influenced by rising debt, rising property prices and a progressively loose fiscal policy.
From 1992 to 2006 the real growth in UK gross domestic product was 49 per cent, they write, while personal debt, in real terms, rose almost three times faster than real GDP growth. Another important factor was home equity withdrawals, which totalled £256bn in today’s prices between 2001 and 2006, according to their study.
While the UK enjoyed a house price boom on an unprecedented scale, Germany suffered from a decline in real house prices, which started a few years after unification. By the middle of this decade, property prices in Germany had bottomed out and begun slowly to rise again. Compared with most capital cities in the western world, Berlin has almost unbelievably low house prices. For the price of one house in London, you get about five in Berlin.
While German prices have started to rise again, UK prices have begun to fall in some regions. I would expect a real decline in UK property prices on a scale similar to the US, where prices are falling fast. All the important UK housing indictors, such as rent-to-value ratios and income multiples, suggest that UK properties are unsustainably overvalued.
As Daniel Gros, director of the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, has reminded us in a recent survey on house price bubbles in Europe, housing cycles are very long – long enough even for rational people to form irrational expectations. The boom was driven by cheap money and abundant credit and it was sustained by an irrational belief that prices would rise for ever in real terms. The downturn is driven by the same process in reverse: expensive money, a credit squeeze and an equally irrational belief about how far prices can drop.
People who lived in the UK during the late 1980s and early 1990s may remember how a period of exuberant optimism quickly turned into economic defeatism. I suspect we may be at a similar junction.
The house price bubble is, of course, not a specific UK problem. There are also bubbles in Spain and Ireland, though both countries have been running persistently strong fiscal surpluses, unlike the UK, and are in a better position to compensate for the coming housing downturn.
An interesting chart produced by Mr Gros shows that, in spite of the lacklustre performance of German property, the housing market in the eurozone as a whole has grown almost as much as US house prices over the last 15 years. Because Germany accounts for about a third of the eurozone economy, this suggests that house price inflation elsewhere in the eurozone must have been extreme. And so it was. The real dividing line is not between the Anglo-Saxon and continental European economies, but right through the eurozone itself.
The reversal of economic fortunes, between Germany on the one side, and the UK, Spain and Ireland on the other, tells us little about the long-term performance of these countries. Germany will still need substantial economic reforms and will not be able to rely solely on its recent competitive improvements. But in the medium term, Germany will benefit from having a housing depression behind it. In the UK, Spain and Ireland, it is only just starting. For the UK in particular, the next few years look pretty grim.
Send your comments to munchau@eurointelligence.com
Saturday, October 27, 2007
sueddeutsche.de Literatur Schriftsteller Martin Mosebach erhält Büchner-Preis - Kultur
sueddeutsche.de Literatur Schriftsteller Martin Mosebach erhält Büchner-Preis - Kultur
Der Frankfurter Schriftsteller Martin Mosebach ist mit dem Georg-Büchner-Preis ausgezeichnet worden, der als der bedeutendste deutsche Literaturpreis gilt. Die Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung würdigte Mosebach als "glanzvollen Stilisten".
Der Frankfurter Schriftsteller Martin Mosebach ist mit dem Georg-Büchner-Preis ausgezeichnet worden, der als der bedeutendste deutsche Literaturpreis gilt. Die Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung würdigte Mosebach als "glanzvollen Stilisten".
sueddeutsche.de Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller ''Die Firma sitzt ständig mit am Familientisch'' - Wirtschaft
sueddeutsche.de Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller ''Die Firma sitzt ständig mit am Familientisch'' - Wirtschaft
Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller, Chefin des Maschinenbau-Unternehmens Trumpf, über den Generationswechsel, den Kodex der Familie und die Lehren von Erich Kästner.
Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller, Chefin des Maschinenbau-Unternehmens Trumpf, über den Generationswechsel, den Kodex der Familie und die Lehren von Erich Kästner.
sueddeutsche.de Kanzlerin kritisiert Wirtschaft Merkel will mehr Top-Managerinnen - Deutschland
sueddeutsche.de Kanzlerin kritisiert Wirtschaft Merkel will mehr Top-Managerinnen - Deutschland
Die deutsche Wirtschaft muss nach Ansicht von Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel mehr Frauen in Führungspositionen bringen. Auf dem Bundesdelegiertentag der Frauen-Union forderte die Kanzlerin mit Nachdruck mehr Möglichkeiten für junge Frauen.
Die deutsche Wirtschaft muss nach Ansicht von Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel mehr Frauen in Führungspositionen bringen. Auf dem Bundesdelegiertentag der Frauen-Union forderte die Kanzlerin mit Nachdruck mehr Möglichkeiten für junge Frauen.
sueddeutsche.de Kurswechsel der SPD Bebel! Brandt! Beck. - Deutschland
sueddeutsche.de Kurswechsel der SPD Bebel! Brandt! Beck. - Deutschland
Aus Furcht vor dem drohenden Parteisterben hat SPD-Parteichef Beck sich für einen Kurswechsel entschieden, der Risiken birgt. Trotzdem darf eine SPD, die sich um eine neue Sozialpolitik müht, stolz sein.
Aus Furcht vor dem drohenden Parteisterben hat SPD-Parteichef Beck sich für einen Kurswechsel entschieden, der Risiken birgt. Trotzdem darf eine SPD, die sich um eine neue Sozialpolitik müht, stolz sein.
Friday, October 26, 2007
sueddeutsche.de Vor dem SPD-Parteitag Die Kunst des Chamäleons - Deutschland
sueddeutsche.de Vor dem SPD-Parteitag Die Kunst des Chamäleons - Deutschland
Während der Streit mit Vizekanzler Müntefering die öffentliche Debatte dominiert, hat Parteichef Beck hinter den Kulissen fast unbemerkt eine Korrektur des SPD-Grundsatzprogramms erreicht: Die Sozialdemokraten sollen wieder sozialer sein.
Während der Streit mit Vizekanzler Müntefering die öffentliche Debatte dominiert, hat Parteichef Beck hinter den Kulissen fast unbemerkt eine Korrektur des SPD-Grundsatzprogramms erreicht: Die Sozialdemokraten sollen wieder sozialer sein.
Kommentar zum SPD-Parteitag: Vorwärts Genossen, es geht zurück! - Politik - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten
Kommentar zum SPD-Parteitag: Vorwärts Genossen, es geht zurück! - Politik - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten
Die SPD wird auf ihrem Hamburger Parteitag die Agenda 2010 zurückdrehen. Vielleicht kann sie damit sogar politisch Boden gut machen. Kurt Becks Rolle Rückwärts ist dennoch keine linke Antwort auf die Probleme in Deutschland.
Die SPD wird auf ihrem Hamburger Parteitag die Agenda 2010 zurückdrehen. Vielleicht kann sie damit sogar politisch Boden gut machen. Kurt Becks Rolle Rückwärts ist dennoch keine linke Antwort auf die Probleme in Deutschland.
SPD-Parteitag: Boss Beck menschelt wieder - Politik - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten
SPD-Parteitag: Boss Beck menschelt wieder - Politik - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten
Standing Ovations, Blumen, Jubel - mit übergroßer Mehrheit wurde Kurt Beck als SPD-Chef wiedergewählt. Doch auch nach dem Triumph im parteiinternen Machtkampf mit Vizekanzler Müntefering bleiben Zweifel. Seine Rede zur Zukunft der SPD enttäuschte, der Kurs bleibt unklar.
Standing Ovations, Blumen, Jubel - mit übergroßer Mehrheit wurde Kurt Beck als SPD-Chef wiedergewählt. Doch auch nach dem Triumph im parteiinternen Machtkampf mit Vizekanzler Müntefering bleiben Zweifel. Seine Rede zur Zukunft der SPD enttäuschte, der Kurs bleibt unklar.
Bund - Politik - FAZ.NET - Wiedergewählt mit 95,5 Prozent: SPD schart sich um Beck
Bund - Politik - FAZ.NET - Wiedergewählt mit 95,5 Prozent: SPD schart sich um Beck
26. Oktober 2007 Der SPD-Bundesparteitag in Hamburg hat am Freitag Kurt Beck mit großer Mehrheit als Vorsitzenden wiedergewählt. Der rheinland-pfälzische Ministerpräsident erhielt 483 von 506 gültigen Stimmen. Es gab 6 Enthaltungen, 17 votierten gegen ihn. Das entspricht einer Zustimmung von 95,5 Prozent.
26. Oktober 2007 Der SPD-Bundesparteitag in Hamburg hat am Freitag Kurt Beck mit großer Mehrheit als Vorsitzenden wiedergewählt. Der rheinland-pfälzische Ministerpräsident erhielt 483 von 506 gültigen Stimmen. Es gab 6 Enthaltungen, 17 votierten gegen ihn. Das entspricht einer Zustimmung von 95,5 Prozent.
sueddeutsche.de SPD-Parteitag Standing Ovations für Altkanzler Schröder - Deutschland
sueddeutsche.de SPD-Parteitag Standing Ovations für Altkanzler Schröder - Deutschland
Mit Grußworten des Hamburger Spitzenkandidaten Naumann und von Altkanzler Schröder hat der dreitägige SPD-Bundesparteitag in Hamburg begonnen. Die Partei scheint mit ihrem alten Chef versöhnt.
Mit Grußworten des Hamburger Spitzenkandidaten Naumann und von Altkanzler Schröder hat der dreitägige SPD-Bundesparteitag in Hamburg begonnen. Die Partei scheint mit ihrem alten Chef versöhnt.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
sueddeutsche.de SPD-Streit zum Arbeitslosengeld I Müntefering zweifelt an Finanzierbarkeit - Deutschland
sueddeutsche.de SPD-Streit zum Arbeitslosengeld I Müntefering zweifelt an Finanzierbarkeit - Deutschland
Wenige Tage vor dem SPD-Parteitag gehen die Diskussionen um Veränderungen an der Agenda 2010 weiter. Vizekanzler Müntefering knüpft die Umsetzung eines verlängerten Arbeitslosengeldes I an die Finanzierbarkeit - die Hessen-SPD stellt derweil bereits weitere Forderungen auf.
Wenige Tage vor dem SPD-Parteitag gehen die Diskussionen um Veränderungen an der Agenda 2010 weiter. Vizekanzler Müntefering knüpft die Umsetzung eines verlängerten Arbeitslosengeldes I an die Finanzierbarkeit - die Hessen-SPD stellt derweil bereits weitere Forderungen auf.
sueddeutsche.de Tokio Hotel Mehr als ein Phänomen - Leben & Stil
sueddeutsche.de Tokio Hotel Mehr als ein Phänomen - Leben & Stil
Französische Kinder lernen die deutsche Sprache, um die Texte verstehen zu können, die Band wird für zwei Awards bei dem MTV-Awards nominiert. Tokio Hotel hat sich etabliert - zu Recht.
Französische Kinder lernen die deutsche Sprache, um die Texte verstehen zu können, die Band wird für zwei Awards bei dem MTV-Awards nominiert. Tokio Hotel hat sich etabliert - zu Recht.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
FTD.de - Deutschland - Nachrichten - Beck erklärt ALG-I-Streit für beendet
FTD.de - Deutschland - Nachrichten - Beck erklärt ALG-I-Streit für beendet
Der SPD-Vorstand hat sich im Streit über das Arbeitslosengeld I mit großer Mehrheit hinter Parteichef Kurt Beck gestellt. Geht es nach Beck, ist die wochenlange parteiinterne Diskussion damit beendet. Aber die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Koalitionspartner steht noch bevor.
Der SPD-Vorstand hat sich im Streit über das Arbeitslosengeld I mit großer Mehrheit hinter Parteichef Kurt Beck gestellt. Geht es nach Beck, ist die wochenlange parteiinterne Diskussion damit beendet. Aber die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Koalitionspartner steht noch bevor.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Gespräch mit Andrea Nahles ''Das ist ein bisschen wie Almauftrieb'' - Deutschland - sueddeutsche.de
Gespräch mit Andrea Nahles ''Das ist ein bisschen wie Almauftrieb'' - Deutschland - sueddeutsche.de
Andrea Nahles, designierte SPD-Vizechefin, über das Gute und das Schlechte an der Agenda 2010, die neue Macht von Kurt Beck, Aufschwung für alle, den Parteitag und Schulspeisungen.
Andrea Nahles, designierte SPD-Vizechefin, über das Gute und das Schlechte an der Agenda 2010, die neue Macht von Kurt Beck, Aufschwung für alle, den Parteitag und Schulspeisungen.
Lissabon EU-Reformvertrag steht - Ausland - sueddeutsche.de
Lissabon EU-Reformvertrag steht - Ausland - sueddeutsche.de
19.10.2007
Lissabon
EU-Reformvertrag steht
Der EU-Reformvertrag steht: Nach sechs Jahren des Ringens haben sich die Staats- und Regierungschefs der Europäischen Union in der Nacht zum Freitag auf einen Vertragstext verständigt. Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel bezeichnete die Einigung, die beim Gipfel in Lissabon erzielt wurde, als "großen Erfolg".
19.10.2007
Lissabon
EU-Reformvertrag steht
Der EU-Reformvertrag steht: Nach sechs Jahren des Ringens haben sich die Staats- und Regierungschefs der Europäischen Union in der Nacht zum Freitag auf einen Vertragstext verständigt. Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel bezeichnete die Einigung, die beim Gipfel in Lissabon erzielt wurde, als "großen Erfolg".
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Business in Germany | Locusts in lederhosen | Economist.com
Business in Germany | Locusts in lederhosen | Economist.com
Locusts in lederhosen
Oct 18th 2007 | FRANKFURT
From The Economist print edition
German bosses are learning from private equity
TWO years ago Germany was gripped by a fierce debate over whether aggressive private-equity investors—dubbed “locusts” by a politician—were good or bad for the country. An activist fund from London blocked Deutsche Börse's bid for the London Stock Exchange and caused the departure of its chief executive, Werner Seifert, and its chairman. Mr Seifert wrote a vitriolic book, “Invasion of the Locusts”, catching the mood of the time. Since then, however, German bosses have learned from the locusts. They are making their own raids and using private-equity techniques to ginger up German companies.
Next week the European Court of Justice is expected to order the German government to abolish the Volkswagen law of 1960. This limits the voting rights of any single VW shareholder to 20%, protecting Germany's biggest carmaker from being taken over. Lifting this cap will allow Porsche, which already owns 31% of the shares, to win control.
Wendelin Wiedeking, chief executive of Porsche, began building a stake in VW two years ago. He plans to put the two carmakers under the same holding company, called Porsche Automobil Holding. In doing so, he would dilute the power of VW's workforce. Co-determination, the practice of giving workers a big say in the management of German firms, is probably the oddest feature of the country for foreign investors. Only three members of the merged company's 12-strong supervisory board would represent VW workers, compared with ten out of 20 at VW now.
Mr Wiedeking's strategy is the most obviously locust-like among German executives, but there are other examples. Eckhard Cordes, a former executive at DaimlerChrysler, a car firm, is riding roughshod into Metro, a retail group. He has the backing of the company's biggest shareholders—and these are not scary private-equity firms but two wealthy German families. Thomas Middelhoff, chief executive of Arcandor, another retailer, executed a private-equityish restructuring two years ago, loading the firm with debt then flogging assets to pay it off. Now he is in the mood to buy bits of other retail companies. Last year Manfred Wennemer, chief executive of Continental, a car-parts supplier, successfully repelled some potential private-equity buyers but seems to have learned a thing or two from them. This year his firm took on a pile of debt to buy Siemens VDO, an auto-electronics firm, for €11.4 billion ($16.2 billion).
More change is on its way. Nine of the 30 biggest listed German companies which make up the DAX stockmarket index have recently changed their chief executive or will do so soon. The new bosses are expected to shake things up. At Siemens, a giant engineering company, Peter Löscher will streamline the conglomerate's nine divisions into three. At BMW, Norbert Reithofer is expected to start a new brand of car to add to the group's BMWs, Minis and Rolls-Royces. At RWE, a power company, Jürgen Grossmann is likely to make use of the acquisition expertise he gained buying a division of Klöckner, a steelmaker, in 1993.
A new corporate structure, the Societas Europaea (SE), which has been adopted by Porsche Automobil Holding, could help German companies break further away from co-determination. Big firms must now have not only a management board but also a supervisory board of 20 members, half of them workers' representatives. Changing to SE status allows firms to negotiate a cut in workers' representation or even to do away with a supervisory board altogether. Allianz, a big insurer, was the first big company to move to the new structure, followed by Fresenius Medical Care. BASF, a chemicals company, plans to make the change next year.
In two years the names in the DAX could look very different, and not just because the initials AG (for Aktiengesellschaft) are replaced by SE. A big sell-out to foreign locusts is far less likely now, because German companies have learned to do the job themselves.
Copyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
Locusts in lederhosen
Oct 18th 2007 | FRANKFURT
From The Economist print edition
German bosses are learning from private equity
TWO years ago Germany was gripped by a fierce debate over whether aggressive private-equity investors—dubbed “locusts” by a politician—were good or bad for the country. An activist fund from London blocked Deutsche Börse's bid for the London Stock Exchange and caused the departure of its chief executive, Werner Seifert, and its chairman. Mr Seifert wrote a vitriolic book, “Invasion of the Locusts”, catching the mood of the time. Since then, however, German bosses have learned from the locusts. They are making their own raids and using private-equity techniques to ginger up German companies.
Next week the European Court of Justice is expected to order the German government to abolish the Volkswagen law of 1960. This limits the voting rights of any single VW shareholder to 20%, protecting Germany's biggest carmaker from being taken over. Lifting this cap will allow Porsche, which already owns 31% of the shares, to win control.
Wendelin Wiedeking, chief executive of Porsche, began building a stake in VW two years ago. He plans to put the two carmakers under the same holding company, called Porsche Automobil Holding. In doing so, he would dilute the power of VW's workforce. Co-determination, the practice of giving workers a big say in the management of German firms, is probably the oddest feature of the country for foreign investors. Only three members of the merged company's 12-strong supervisory board would represent VW workers, compared with ten out of 20 at VW now.
Mr Wiedeking's strategy is the most obviously locust-like among German executives, but there are other examples. Eckhard Cordes, a former executive at DaimlerChrysler, a car firm, is riding roughshod into Metro, a retail group. He has the backing of the company's biggest shareholders—and these are not scary private-equity firms but two wealthy German families. Thomas Middelhoff, chief executive of Arcandor, another retailer, executed a private-equityish restructuring two years ago, loading the firm with debt then flogging assets to pay it off. Now he is in the mood to buy bits of other retail companies. Last year Manfred Wennemer, chief executive of Continental, a car-parts supplier, successfully repelled some potential private-equity buyers but seems to have learned a thing or two from them. This year his firm took on a pile of debt to buy Siemens VDO, an auto-electronics firm, for €11.4 billion ($16.2 billion).
More change is on its way. Nine of the 30 biggest listed German companies which make up the DAX stockmarket index have recently changed their chief executive or will do so soon. The new bosses are expected to shake things up. At Siemens, a giant engineering company, Peter Löscher will streamline the conglomerate's nine divisions into three. At BMW, Norbert Reithofer is expected to start a new brand of car to add to the group's BMWs, Minis and Rolls-Royces. At RWE, a power company, Jürgen Grossmann is likely to make use of the acquisition expertise he gained buying a division of Klöckner, a steelmaker, in 1993.
A new corporate structure, the Societas Europaea (SE), which has been adopted by Porsche Automobil Holding, could help German companies break further away from co-determination. Big firms must now have not only a management board but also a supervisory board of 20 members, half of them workers' representatives. Changing to SE status allows firms to negotiate a cut in workers' representation or even to do away with a supervisory board altogether. Allianz, a big insurer, was the first big company to move to the new structure, followed by Fresenius Medical Care. BASF, a chemicals company, plans to make the change next year.
In two years the names in the DAX could look very different, and not just because the initials AG (for Aktiengesellschaft) are replaced by SE. A big sell-out to foreign locusts is far less likely now, because German companies have learned to do the job themselves.
Copyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
DIW: Wirtschaftswachstum bleibt robust | Wirtschaft | Deutsche Welle | 16.10.2007
DIW: Wirtschaftswachstum bleibt robust | Wirtschaft | Deutsche Welle | 16.10.2007
Das Wirtschaftswachstum in Deutschland bleibt Experten zufolge zwar auch in den kommenden beiden Jahren robust, fällt im Vergleich zu 2007 aber etwas ab. Ungewiss sei, wie viel von dem Boom bei Arbeitnehmern ankomme.
Das Wirtschaftswachstum in Deutschland bleibt Experten zufolge zwar auch in den kommenden beiden Jahren robust, fällt im Vergleich zu 2007 aber etwas ab. Ungewiss sei, wie viel von dem Boom bei Arbeitnehmern ankomme.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
The German left | Troubled times | Economist.com
The German left | Troubled times | Economist.com
The German left
Troubled times
Oct 11th 2007 | BERLIN AND DUISBURG
From The Economist print edition
Why the rise of the Left Party has cast the Social Democrats into a gloom
Get article background
ASK Ralf Pietras why the Left Party is growing in Duisburg and he offers a ready answer. The coal mines are exhausted, steel is forged by machine and old folk scavenge for bottles to reclaim the deposits. Duisburg, a gritty town at the junction of the Rhine and the Ruhr, has lost 35,000 good jobs in 15 years. In such adversity, the Left Party thrives. Its local membership has quintupled since it began in 2005, to 330. Mr Pietras, spokesman of the Duisburg branch, dreams of 1,000. The local Social Democratic Party (SPD), which ruled the city for 56 years until 2004, has lost half its membership in two decades.
Frighteningly for the SPD, this is a national trend. It has been governing in Berlin, from 1998 to 2005 under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, since then as the junior partner in Angela Merkel's “grand coalition”. But as the Left Party gnaws away at its working-class base, the SPD is starting to panic. The clearest sign is a call by the SPD's boss, Kurt Beck, to extend the period for paying unemployment benefit to older workers. Franz Müntefering, the SPD vice-chancellor under Ms Merkel, has denounced the idea as a “U-turn” from reforms enacted by the Schröder government. The press is speculating that his resignation may be imminent. Mr Beck threatens the foundations of the grand coalition, the Christian Democrats claim.
Why is a small party founded by east German former communists causing national ructions? One reason is that the economic upswing has left so many Germans behind. Unemployment is at its lowest level since the early 1990s, thanks partly to the reforms that Mr Beck now wants to roll back. But many of the new jobs offer lower pay and less security than those lost during the downturn, notes Markus Grabka of DIW, a research institute in Berlin. Relative poverty has jumped, with 17% of Germans earning less than 60% of the median in 2005, up from 12% in 1999. Income-tax cuts have helped the rich; the middle class has shrunk.
On these matters the Left Party is saying what most Germans seem to be thinking. According to one recent poll, 82% of Germans want to lower the retirement age from 67 (reversing another reform), two-thirds want a minimum wage and 72% think the grand coalition should do more to promote social justice. Half want German troops out of Afghanistan, but the Left Party is the only one that unqualifiedly agrees. Unlike the Greens and the Free Democrats, it has no reason to flirt with either party in the grand coalition (the SPD refuses to consider it as a potential partner at federal level). It likes to claim it is Germany's only real opposition party.
This has come about mostly by luck. The Left Party is the third incarnation of East Germany's Socialist Unity Party, which had 2.3m members when the regime collapsed in 1989. It struggled back to life as the Party of Democratic Socialism, trying to be a normal party by catering to Ossis who felt swamped by unification. The Left Party is still strongest in the east: it wins almost a quarter of votes in the six eastern states, has been in a coalition in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania and is now the SPD's partner in the city of Berlin.
It was a bust-up within the SPD that gave the Left Party its purchase in the west. Social Democrats dismayed by Mr Schröder's reforms broke away to form Alternative Labour and Social Justice (WASG), which fought alongside the PDS in the 2005 election. Between them they took almost 9% of the vote. They formally merged into the Left Party in June.
This hybrid works mainly because there is no risk of its assuming national responsibilities anytime soon. It has two leaders: Lothar Bisky, a film-studies professor from Brandenburg (though Gregor Gysi is the party's true eastern star), and Oskar Lafontaine, a firebrand from Saarland given to populist rhetoric, who was once SPD chairman. The SPD loathes Mr Lafontaine for abruptly quitting as Mr Schröder's finance minister in 1999. It has just published “Oskar's World”, a supposedly incriminating compendium of remarks by and about him.
The Left Party's policy documents drip with hostility to capitalism. It leans toward pacifism in foreign policy and against the hawkish European Central Bank. The long-term goal, says Dietmar Bartsch, its general secretary, is “another society” to be achieved by “evolution, not revolution”. Higher taxes and lower defence spending would bring greater equality.
The party's eastern wing has communist remnants (and a libertarian strain, exemplified by Saxony's Julia Bonk, who favours a “right to get high”). But its leaders have been sobered by proximity to power. In the city of Berlin, the Left Party has abetted austerity measures such as pay cuts for public workers that would be deemed heresy in parts of the SPD. Such decisions show that “we are not merely a fair-weather party,” says Harald Wolf, Berlin's economy minister.
Pragmatism is less evident in the former WASG, which is dominated by the politics of protest. Though less inclined to call themselves socialists, the westerners care less about fiscal responsibility. Lacking experience in power, they are unwilling to get it by compromise. André Brie, an eastern moderniser, recently warned westerners (and some easterners) against “black and white thinking” reminiscent of communist times. The Left Party's democratic credentials are often questioned, but Dan Hough says in a new book* that its leaders are all democrats. The main obstacles to co-operation with the SPD in the west are Mr Lafontaine and the stigma of the party's communist past.
The Left Party's short-term aims are thus modest. In most western states its vote is close to the 5% level needed to get into the legislature. It has already cracked Bremen's and could enter up to three more next year. Even in fertile Duisburg, the SPD's shrunken membership still dwarfs that of the Left Party and it dominates the local media, complains Mr Pietras. Hence the immediate ambition, says Mr Bartsch, “to shift the axis of politics to the left.”
The SPD's troubles suggest this may be happening. That does not guarantee the Left Party a bright future. It could be hurt by a more populist SPD, by greater prosperity (incomes have picked up during the revival of the past two years) or by its own internal contradictions. But it could also evolve into a permanent candidate for coalition with the SPD (and perhaps the Greens), including at federal level. The risk then would be of losing what makes it distinctive. But the SPD's panic may not truly subside until the Left Party becomes a potential partner, not a competitor.
* “The Left Party in Contemporary German Politics”, by Dan Hough, Michael Koss and Jonathan Olsen. Palgrave Macmillan, $74.95 and £50
The German left
Troubled times
Oct 11th 2007 | BERLIN AND DUISBURG
From The Economist print edition
Why the rise of the Left Party has cast the Social Democrats into a gloom
Get article background
ASK Ralf Pietras why the Left Party is growing in Duisburg and he offers a ready answer. The coal mines are exhausted, steel is forged by machine and old folk scavenge for bottles to reclaim the deposits. Duisburg, a gritty town at the junction of the Rhine and the Ruhr, has lost 35,000 good jobs in 15 years. In such adversity, the Left Party thrives. Its local membership has quintupled since it began in 2005, to 330. Mr Pietras, spokesman of the Duisburg branch, dreams of 1,000. The local Social Democratic Party (SPD), which ruled the city for 56 years until 2004, has lost half its membership in two decades.
Frighteningly for the SPD, this is a national trend. It has been governing in Berlin, from 1998 to 2005 under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, since then as the junior partner in Angela Merkel's “grand coalition”. But as the Left Party gnaws away at its working-class base, the SPD is starting to panic. The clearest sign is a call by the SPD's boss, Kurt Beck, to extend the period for paying unemployment benefit to older workers. Franz Müntefering, the SPD vice-chancellor under Ms Merkel, has denounced the idea as a “U-turn” from reforms enacted by the Schröder government. The press is speculating that his resignation may be imminent. Mr Beck threatens the foundations of the grand coalition, the Christian Democrats claim.
Why is a small party founded by east German former communists causing national ructions? One reason is that the economic upswing has left so many Germans behind. Unemployment is at its lowest level since the early 1990s, thanks partly to the reforms that Mr Beck now wants to roll back. But many of the new jobs offer lower pay and less security than those lost during the downturn, notes Markus Grabka of DIW, a research institute in Berlin. Relative poverty has jumped, with 17% of Germans earning less than 60% of the median in 2005, up from 12% in 1999. Income-tax cuts have helped the rich; the middle class has shrunk.
On these matters the Left Party is saying what most Germans seem to be thinking. According to one recent poll, 82% of Germans want to lower the retirement age from 67 (reversing another reform), two-thirds want a minimum wage and 72% think the grand coalition should do more to promote social justice. Half want German troops out of Afghanistan, but the Left Party is the only one that unqualifiedly agrees. Unlike the Greens and the Free Democrats, it has no reason to flirt with either party in the grand coalition (the SPD refuses to consider it as a potential partner at federal level). It likes to claim it is Germany's only real opposition party.
This has come about mostly by luck. The Left Party is the third incarnation of East Germany's Socialist Unity Party, which had 2.3m members when the regime collapsed in 1989. It struggled back to life as the Party of Democratic Socialism, trying to be a normal party by catering to Ossis who felt swamped by unification. The Left Party is still strongest in the east: it wins almost a quarter of votes in the six eastern states, has been in a coalition in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania and is now the SPD's partner in the city of Berlin.
It was a bust-up within the SPD that gave the Left Party its purchase in the west. Social Democrats dismayed by Mr Schröder's reforms broke away to form Alternative Labour and Social Justice (WASG), which fought alongside the PDS in the 2005 election. Between them they took almost 9% of the vote. They formally merged into the Left Party in June.
This hybrid works mainly because there is no risk of its assuming national responsibilities anytime soon. It has two leaders: Lothar Bisky, a film-studies professor from Brandenburg (though Gregor Gysi is the party's true eastern star), and Oskar Lafontaine, a firebrand from Saarland given to populist rhetoric, who was once SPD chairman. The SPD loathes Mr Lafontaine for abruptly quitting as Mr Schröder's finance minister in 1999. It has just published “Oskar's World”, a supposedly incriminating compendium of remarks by and about him.
The Left Party's policy documents drip with hostility to capitalism. It leans toward pacifism in foreign policy and against the hawkish European Central Bank. The long-term goal, says Dietmar Bartsch, its general secretary, is “another society” to be achieved by “evolution, not revolution”. Higher taxes and lower defence spending would bring greater equality.
The party's eastern wing has communist remnants (and a libertarian strain, exemplified by Saxony's Julia Bonk, who favours a “right to get high”). But its leaders have been sobered by proximity to power. In the city of Berlin, the Left Party has abetted austerity measures such as pay cuts for public workers that would be deemed heresy in parts of the SPD. Such decisions show that “we are not merely a fair-weather party,” says Harald Wolf, Berlin's economy minister.
Pragmatism is less evident in the former WASG, which is dominated by the politics of protest. Though less inclined to call themselves socialists, the westerners care less about fiscal responsibility. Lacking experience in power, they are unwilling to get it by compromise. André Brie, an eastern moderniser, recently warned westerners (and some easterners) against “black and white thinking” reminiscent of communist times. The Left Party's democratic credentials are often questioned, but Dan Hough says in a new book* that its leaders are all democrats. The main obstacles to co-operation with the SPD in the west are Mr Lafontaine and the stigma of the party's communist past.
The Left Party's short-term aims are thus modest. In most western states its vote is close to the 5% level needed to get into the legislature. It has already cracked Bremen's and could enter up to three more next year. Even in fertile Duisburg, the SPD's shrunken membership still dwarfs that of the Left Party and it dominates the local media, complains Mr Pietras. Hence the immediate ambition, says Mr Bartsch, “to shift the axis of politics to the left.”
The SPD's troubles suggest this may be happening. That does not guarantee the Left Party a bright future. It could be hurt by a more populist SPD, by greater prosperity (incomes have picked up during the revival of the past two years) or by its own internal contradictions. But it could also evolve into a permanent candidate for coalition with the SPD (and perhaps the Greens), including at federal level. The risk then would be of losing what makes it distinctive. But the SPD's panic may not truly subside until the Left Party becomes a potential partner, not a competitor.
* “The Left Party in Contemporary German Politics”, by Dan Hough, Michael Koss and Jonathan Olsen. Palgrave Macmillan, $74.95 and £50
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Projekt Gutenberg-DE - Kultur - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten
Projekt Gutenberg-DE - Kultur - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten
Kurt Tucholsky
Kurzer Abriß der Nationalökonomie
Nationalökonomie ist, wenn die Leute sich wundern, warum sie kein Geld haben. Das hat mehrere Gründe, die feinsten sind die wissenschaftlichen Gründe, doch können solche durch Notverordnungen aufgehoben werden. Über die ältere Nationalökonomie kann man ja nur lachen und dürfen wir selbe daher mit Stillschweigen übergehn. Sie regierte von 715 vor Christo bis zum Jahre 1 nach Marx. Seitdem ist die Frage völlig gelöst: die Leute haben zwar immer noch kein Geld, wissen aber wenigstens, warum.
Kurt Tucholsky
Kurzer Abriß der Nationalökonomie
Nationalökonomie ist, wenn die Leute sich wundern, warum sie kein Geld haben. Das hat mehrere Gründe, die feinsten sind die wissenschaftlichen Gründe, doch können solche durch Notverordnungen aufgehoben werden. Über die ältere Nationalökonomie kann man ja nur lachen und dürfen wir selbe daher mit Stillschweigen übergehn. Sie regierte von 715 vor Christo bis zum Jahre 1 nach Marx. Seitdem ist die Frage völlig gelöst: die Leute haben zwar immer noch kein Geld, wissen aber wenigstens, warum.
FTD.de - Handel + Dienstleister - Nachrichten - Bahn fährt harten Kurs
FTD.de - Handel + Dienstleister - Nachrichten - Bahn fährt harten Kurs
Der Konflikt zwischen Lokführern spitzt sich weiter zu: Die Bahn lehnt Zugeständnisse im Tarifstreit mit der Gewerkschaft GDL strikt ab. Auch die Bundesregierung will sich raushalten. Nun erwägen die Lokführer, künftig ohne Vorwarnung zu streiken.
Der Konflikt zwischen Lokführern spitzt sich weiter zu: Die Bahn lehnt Zugeständnisse im Tarifstreit mit der Gewerkschaft GDL strikt ab. Auch die Bundesregierung will sich raushalten. Nun erwägen die Lokführer, künftig ohne Vorwarnung zu streiken.
Merkel: "Es war ein sehr bewegender Moment für mich" | Welt | Deutsche Welle | 06.10.2007
Merkel: "Es war ein sehr bewegender Moment für mich" | Welt | Deutsche Welle | 06.10.2007
Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel hat sich nach ihrem ersten persönlichen Treffen mit dem ehemaligen südafrikanischen Präsidenten Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg sichtlich bewegt gezeigt.
Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel hat sich nach ihrem ersten persönlichen Treffen mit dem ehemaligen südafrikanischen Präsidenten Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg sichtlich bewegt gezeigt.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Barclays gibt Kampf um ABN AMRO auf | Wirtschaft | Deutsche Welle | 05.10.2007
Barclays gibt Kampf um ABN AMRO auf | Wirtschaft | Deutsche Welle | 05.10.2007
Nach einem langen Übernahmekampf hat die britische Großbank Barclays ihr Angebot für den niederländischen Konkurrenten ABN AMRO zurückgezogen. Damit ist der Weg frei für das Konsortium um die Royal Bank of Scotland.
Nach einem langen Übernahmekampf hat die britische Großbank Barclays ihr Angebot für den niederländischen Konkurrenten ABN AMRO zurückgezogen. Damit ist der Weg frei für das Konsortium um die Royal Bank of Scotland.
Friday, October 05, 2007
Ein Chronist deutscher Geschichte | Buch | Deutsche Welle | 05.10.2007
Ein Chronist deutscher Geschichte | Buch | Deutsche Welle | 05.10.2007
Er war einer der beliebtesten und am stärksten verbreiteten deutschen Gegenwartsautoren: der Schriftsteller Walter Kempowski. Er verstarb im Alter von 78 Jahren.
Er war einer der beliebtesten und am stärksten verbreiteten deutschen Gegenwartsautoren: der Schriftsteller Walter Kempowski. Er verstarb im Alter von 78 Jahren.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Tarifautonomie: Bahn-Streik versetzt Verkehrspolitiker in Alarmstimmung - Wirtschaft - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten
Tarifautonomie: Bahn-Streik versetzt Verkehrspolitiker in Alarmstimmung - Wirtschaft - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten
Pendler im Bahn-Chaos, Güterzüge, die ihr Ziel nicht erreichen: Der für Freitag vorgesehene bundesweite Streik der Lokführer schreckt die Verkehrsexperten der Parteien auf. Jetzt mischt sich die Politik in den Arbeitskampf ein - und fordert von den Tarifparteien, endlich Frieden zu schließen.
Pendler im Bahn-Chaos, Güterzüge, die ihr Ziel nicht erreichen: Der für Freitag vorgesehene bundesweite Streik der Lokführer schreckt die Verkehrsexperten der Parteien auf. Jetzt mischt sich die Politik in den Arbeitskampf ein - und fordert von den Tarifparteien, endlich Frieden zu schließen.
Joschka Fischers Buchvorstellung: "Eine Abrechnung sieht anders aus" - Politik - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten
Joschka Fischers Buchvorstellung: "Eine Abrechnung sieht anders aus" - Politik - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten
Der selbsternannte letzte Live-Rock'n'Roller der deutschen Politik hat heute sein erstes Soloalbum vorgestellt: Die Memoiren seiner Außenminister-Jahre, Band eins. Joschka Fischer genießt seine neue Rolle als unabhängiger Großkommentator und Elder Statesman.
Der selbsternannte letzte Live-Rock'n'Roller der deutschen Politik hat heute sein erstes Soloalbum vorgestellt: Die Memoiren seiner Außenminister-Jahre, Band eins. Joschka Fischer genießt seine neue Rolle als unabhängiger Großkommentator und Elder Statesman.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Kurz vor dem Streik: Bahn-Belegschaft schlägt sich auf Seite der Lokführer - Wirtschaft - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten
Kurz vor dem Streik: Bahn-Belegschaft schlägt sich auf Seite der Lokführer - Wirtschaft - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten
Die Stimmung in der Bahn-Belegschaft kippt: Bisher standen die Lokführer mit ihrer Forderung nach einem eigenen Tarifvertrag ziemlich isoliert da. Doch jetzt solidarisieren sich immer mehr Mitarbeiter mit der Gewerkschaft GDL - aus Ärger über die Konzernleitung.
Die Stimmung in der Bahn-Belegschaft kippt: Bisher standen die Lokführer mit ihrer Forderung nach einem eigenen Tarifvertrag ziemlich isoliert da. Doch jetzt solidarisieren sich immer mehr Mitarbeiter mit der Gewerkschaft GDL - aus Ärger über die Konzernleitung.
FT.com / Companies / Financial services - Deutsche Bank shares rise in spite of losses
FT.com / Companies / Financial services - Deutsche Bank shares rise in spite of losses
Deutsche Bank shares rise in spite of losses
By Chris Hughes and Gillian Tett in London and Ivar Simensen in Frankfurt
Published: October 3 2007 10:08 | Last updated: October 3 2007 10:08
Deutsche Bank on Wednesday became the latest big investment bank to see its shares rise after revealing it had suffered billions of dollars worth of losses in the recent credit turmoil.
In spite of announcing that its investment banking unit would post a third-quarter pre-tax loss of up to €350m, after €2.2bn ($3.1bn) of charges relating to leveraged loans, structured credit products and trading, shares in the German bank closed up 2 per cent as investors welcomed clarification of the extent of its losses.
However, Deutsche also said third-quarter net profits for the group would top €1.4bn, boosted by tax credits. It also reiterated its pre-tax profits target for 2008. However, Jeremy Sigee, analyst at Citi, said the announcement represented a profit warning.
Josef Ackermann, chairman of Deutsche’s management board, said the group saw “substantial opportunities in investment banking after this period of correction”.
The comments were made ahead of an investor conference hosted by Merrill Lynch in London, where Brady Dougan, chief executive of Credit Suisse, echoed Mr Ackermann’s optimism by predicting that his bank could gain market share from rivals once the credit squeeze eased.
Deutsche’s clarification came in the wake of Monday’s profit warnings from rivals Citigroup, UBS and Credit Suisse. These have given investors confidence that the financial cost of the credit crisis is becoming measurable after weeks of uncertainty.
UBS gained 1.4 per cent Wednesday, closing at SFr67.35, while Credit Suisse closed up 1.1 per cent at SFr81.55. US peers including Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase were also up in early trading.
The global sector is up 2.5 per cent this week.
The rally continued against a backdrop of continued weak sentiment in the money markets, in spite of the vast volume of liquidity that central banks have pumped into the system in recent weeks.
Huw van Steenis, analyst at Morgan Stanley, said the banks’ disclosure, coupled with expectations of rate cuts, was attracting long-only investors to increase their exposure to banks. This was forcing hedge funds to close short positions.
“The market views the writedowns at the investment banks cathartically,” he said. “UBS’s profit warning was an inflection point for European banks.”
Robert Law, banks analyst at Lehman Brothers, said: “The capital market banks have taken marks on their exposure and that builds confidence.
“One of the biggest issues with the sector has been that people haven’t really known where these exposures are, and how much they are.”
But others questioned the market’s newfound confidence.
Steve Russell, investment director at Ruffer, the London-based asset manager, said: “The worse the news is, the more the market goes up. As uncertainty is reduced, it should make sense to attempt some bottom-fishing – but we think it is far too early to do so.
“The real issue is that a whole area of [capital markets] banking business is now closed off for a long time. There’s a big elephant of a credit crunch around the corner and we haven’t seen anyone adjust their earnings forecasts for that.”
Crispin Odey, founder of Odey Asset Management, the London-based hedge fund, said hedge funds that had bet that banks’ shares would continue to fall were having a ”really painful” week. “Everyone involved in the interbank market can’t believe how strong the equity markets are,” he said.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Deutsche Bank shares rise in spite of losses
By Chris Hughes and Gillian Tett in London and Ivar Simensen in Frankfurt
Published: October 3 2007 10:08 | Last updated: October 3 2007 10:08
Deutsche Bank on Wednesday became the latest big investment bank to see its shares rise after revealing it had suffered billions of dollars worth of losses in the recent credit turmoil.
In spite of announcing that its investment banking unit would post a third-quarter pre-tax loss of up to €350m, after €2.2bn ($3.1bn) of charges relating to leveraged loans, structured credit products and trading, shares in the German bank closed up 2 per cent as investors welcomed clarification of the extent of its losses.
However, Deutsche also said third-quarter net profits for the group would top €1.4bn, boosted by tax credits. It also reiterated its pre-tax profits target for 2008. However, Jeremy Sigee, analyst at Citi, said the announcement represented a profit warning.
Josef Ackermann, chairman of Deutsche’s management board, said the group saw “substantial opportunities in investment banking after this period of correction”.
The comments were made ahead of an investor conference hosted by Merrill Lynch in London, where Brady Dougan, chief executive of Credit Suisse, echoed Mr Ackermann’s optimism by predicting that his bank could gain market share from rivals once the credit squeeze eased.
Deutsche’s clarification came in the wake of Monday’s profit warnings from rivals Citigroup, UBS and Credit Suisse. These have given investors confidence that the financial cost of the credit crisis is becoming measurable after weeks of uncertainty.
UBS gained 1.4 per cent Wednesday, closing at SFr67.35, while Credit Suisse closed up 1.1 per cent at SFr81.55. US peers including Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase were also up in early trading.
The global sector is up 2.5 per cent this week.
The rally continued against a backdrop of continued weak sentiment in the money markets, in spite of the vast volume of liquidity that central banks have pumped into the system in recent weeks.
Huw van Steenis, analyst at Morgan Stanley, said the banks’ disclosure, coupled with expectations of rate cuts, was attracting long-only investors to increase their exposure to banks. This was forcing hedge funds to close short positions.
“The market views the writedowns at the investment banks cathartically,” he said. “UBS’s profit warning was an inflection point for European banks.”
Robert Law, banks analyst at Lehman Brothers, said: “The capital market banks have taken marks on their exposure and that builds confidence.
“One of the biggest issues with the sector has been that people haven’t really known where these exposures are, and how much they are.”
But others questioned the market’s newfound confidence.
Steve Russell, investment director at Ruffer, the London-based asset manager, said: “The worse the news is, the more the market goes up. As uncertainty is reduced, it should make sense to attempt some bottom-fishing – but we think it is far too early to do so.
“The real issue is that a whole area of [capital markets] banking business is now closed off for a long time. There’s a big elephant of a credit crunch around the corner and we haven’t seen anyone adjust their earnings forecasts for that.”
Crispin Odey, founder of Odey Asset Management, the London-based hedge fund, said hedge funds that had bet that banks’ shares would continue to fall were having a ”really painful” week. “Everyone involved in the interbank market can’t believe how strong the equity markets are,” he said.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Monday, October 01, 2007
FT.com / Home UK / UK - End of an era in Germany as Stoiber steps aside
FT.com / Home UK / UK - End of an era in Germany as Stoiber steps aside
End of an era in Germany as Stoiber steps aside
By Hugh Williamson in Berlin
Published: October 1 2007 03:00 | Last updated: October 1 2007 03:00
An era in German politics ended at the weekend when Edmund Stoiber exited national politics, leaving the future of wealthy Bavaria in the hands of the country's toughest law-and-order -politician.
Mr Stoiber, premier of the southern German state since 1993, was central in building one of Europe's most powerful regional economies, attracting thousands of hi-tech, engineering and media companies and reducing unemployment to half the national average.
Delegates from his Christian Social Union gave him a warm send-off at a weekend congress in Munich even though his departure - first announced in January - was tinged with anger. He was forced to step down earlier than planned after mishandling a scandal and alienating many CSU members.
The 66-year old urged the party to remain the "flag-bearer" in Germany of conservative, pro-family values.
Mr Stoiber - who in national elections in 2002 came within 6,000 votes of toppling former chancellor Gerhard Schröder - is due to take up an unpaid post heading European Union efforts to cut red tape.
He will be replaced as premier by Günther Beckstein, Bavarian interior minister since 1993, who is well known for his regular calls for tougher security laws and tighter controls on -foreigners.
Mr Stoiber handed leadership of the CSU to Erwin Huber, the Bavarian economics minister, who won a rare election run-off for the post, fending off bids from Horst Seehofer, national farming minister, and Gabriele Pauli, whose anti-Stoiber campaign in January triggered his exit.
A smooth political transition in Bavaria is crucial for Angela Merkel, German chancellor, and her Christian Democrats - the CSU's larger sister party - if she is to win re-election in 2009. The CSU regularly gains more than 50 per cent of votes in Bavaria, compared with 30-40 per cent for the CDU, but support dipped this year after the turmoil over Mr Stoiber's departure.
The chancellor praised Mr Stoiber at the CSU congress, but will be relieved that one of her most powerful political irritants has stepped aside.
Mr Beckstein - due to be elected premier on October 9 - promised "continuity" with Mr Stoiber's mix of liberal economic policy and arch-conservative social values.
In the short term any changes will be more in style than substance. Despite his tough image Mr Beckstein has a more genial, inclusive approach than the austere Mr Stoiber, who lacks Bavaria's famous joviality. Mr Huber, a former tax inspector seen as competent but uncharismatic, promised to retain the CSU's absolute majority, in place since 1962, in state elections next year.
In the longer term the two men - rivals until a few months ago - may struggle to maintain Mr Stoiber's impressive record. His decisions in recent years to sell off most of the state's assets and introduce long-term austerity measures leave them with only limited room for manoeuvre. Mr Stoiber's pledge, only days before stepping down, that Bavaria would help build a high-tech rail link from Munich airport to the centre of the regional capital could also prove costly.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
End of an era in Germany as Stoiber steps aside
By Hugh Williamson in Berlin
Published: October 1 2007 03:00 | Last updated: October 1 2007 03:00
An era in German politics ended at the weekend when Edmund Stoiber exited national politics, leaving the future of wealthy Bavaria in the hands of the country's toughest law-and-order -politician.
Mr Stoiber, premier of the southern German state since 1993, was central in building one of Europe's most powerful regional economies, attracting thousands of hi-tech, engineering and media companies and reducing unemployment to half the national average.
Delegates from his Christian Social Union gave him a warm send-off at a weekend congress in Munich even though his departure - first announced in January - was tinged with anger. He was forced to step down earlier than planned after mishandling a scandal and alienating many CSU members.
The 66-year old urged the party to remain the "flag-bearer" in Germany of conservative, pro-family values.
Mr Stoiber - who in national elections in 2002 came within 6,000 votes of toppling former chancellor Gerhard Schröder - is due to take up an unpaid post heading European Union efforts to cut red tape.
He will be replaced as premier by Günther Beckstein, Bavarian interior minister since 1993, who is well known for his regular calls for tougher security laws and tighter controls on -foreigners.
Mr Stoiber handed leadership of the CSU to Erwin Huber, the Bavarian economics minister, who won a rare election run-off for the post, fending off bids from Horst Seehofer, national farming minister, and Gabriele Pauli, whose anti-Stoiber campaign in January triggered his exit.
A smooth political transition in Bavaria is crucial for Angela Merkel, German chancellor, and her Christian Democrats - the CSU's larger sister party - if she is to win re-election in 2009. The CSU regularly gains more than 50 per cent of votes in Bavaria, compared with 30-40 per cent for the CDU, but support dipped this year after the turmoil over Mr Stoiber's departure.
The chancellor praised Mr Stoiber at the CSU congress, but will be relieved that one of her most powerful political irritants has stepped aside.
Mr Beckstein - due to be elected premier on October 9 - promised "continuity" with Mr Stoiber's mix of liberal economic policy and arch-conservative social values.
In the short term any changes will be more in style than substance. Despite his tough image Mr Beckstein has a more genial, inclusive approach than the austere Mr Stoiber, who lacks Bavaria's famous joviality. Mr Huber, a former tax inspector seen as competent but uncharismatic, promised to retain the CSU's absolute majority, in place since 1962, in state elections next year.
In the longer term the two men - rivals until a few months ago - may struggle to maintain Mr Stoiber's impressive record. His decisions in recent years to sell off most of the state's assets and introduce long-term austerity measures leave them with only limited room for manoeuvre. Mr Stoiber's pledge, only days before stepping down, that Bavaria would help build a high-tech rail link from Munich airport to the centre of the regional capital could also prove costly.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
