In August 2022, during the energy crisis, Winfried Kretschmann, the Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg, gave advice on saving energy. In a newspaper interview he said: “Auch der Waschlappen ist eine brauchbare Erfindung.” The washcloth is also a useful invention.
The Budget Security Plan
In North Rhine-Westphalia, a municipality that uses up its reserves beyond limits set by law must draw up a Haushaltssicherungskonzept, a budget security plan. The plan must show how the budget will be balanced again by the tenth year at the latest. The supervisory authority must approve it.
Without that approval, the municipality may not publish its budget. A research institute of the University of Münster writes that such plans are part of everyday life for municipalities. In practice they are felt as “erdrosselnd”, strangling.
An Efficiency Study for Every Measure
The Federal Budget Code requires that the principles of Wirtschaftlichkeit und Sparsamkeit, economy and thrift, be observed when the budget is drawn up and carried out. It adds: “Für alle finanzwirksamen Maßnahmen sind angemessene Wirtschaftlichkeitsuntersuchungen durchzuführen.” Every measure that costs money needs an appropriate study of its economy.
A 2024 paper of the Bundestag’s research service names choices that such a study compares: renting or buying, doing a task with the agency’s own staff or with outside providers. Aspects that cannot be expressed in money must also be considered.
World Savings Day
At the end of October, German children carry their filled piggy banks to the bank. The occasion is the Weltspartag, World Savings Day. Banks and savings banks often hand out small gifts, such as money boxes, cuddly toys, games and books.
The day was created in 1924 by delegates from 27 countries. The German savings banks first celebrated it on 31 October 1925. Since then it has promoted the idea of saving.
Buying Cheap Twice
Wer billig kauft, kauft zweimal. — Whoever buys cheap buys twice.
Qualität hat ihren Preis. — Quality has its price.
Qualität setzt sich durch. — Quality prevails.
Words for a Fix That Will Not Last
die Flickschusterei — cobbler’s patching. DWDS: an improper, improvised repair, and also an attempt to improve a bad situation that does not bring the hoped-for result. Die Zeit wrote in 2008 of making a few new shoes for once, statt Flickschusterei, instead of patching.
das Stückwerk — piecework, something incomplete. Seine Bemühungen blieben nur Stückwerk, his efforts remained only piecework.
mit heißer Nadel genäht — sewn with a hot needle, done in a hurry and therefore without care.
Wer billig kauft, kauft zweimal. — Whoever buys cheap buys twice.
einen Mangel abstellen — to stop a defect, to remove it.
Work Preparation
Arbeitsvorbereitung, work preparation, is a fixed term in German manufacturing and construction. In construction, it is the planning stage that coordinates resources, tasks and work steps, so that the work on site runs efficiently and without disruption. The construction reference work Bauprofessor calls careful work preparation decisive for the success of a building project.
It warns that leaving it out can cost five percent or more of the result on a site. In industry, Arbeitsvorbereiter, work preparer, is a job title of its own. One way into the job is a twelve-week course to become a REFA technician.
The Nuclear Agreement and Its Price
On 14 June 2000, the federal government and the energy companies agreed on ending nuclear power in Germany. The agreement is known as the Atomkonsens, the nuclear consensus. It was signed on 11 June 2001, and in 2002 it was secured in law. In 2010, a new government extended the running times of the plants.
This became known as the Ausstieg aus dem Ausstieg, the exit from the exit. After the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, the government reversed course again. On 6 December 2016, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the new law was largely compatible with the Basic Law. But the companies had to be compensated.
The court said that trust in the electricity quantities granted in 2002 deserved particular protection. Investments made in justified trust in the 2010 extension also had to be compensated. In 2021, the government and the four companies signed a contract. The companies received 2.428 billion euros, and in return they ended all lawsuits over the phase-out.
The state was free to change the agreement. The court made it pay for what the companies had relied on.
The Price of Public Broadcasting
Every German household pays the Rundfunkbeitrag, the broadcasting fee. Its amount is set in three steps. The public broadcasters report their financial needs. An independent commission, the KEF, checks whether the needs were calculated in line with the principles of economy and thrift. Then the state parliaments must adopt the figure.
For 2021 the KEF proposed a rise of 86 cents, from 17.50 euros to 18.36 euros a month. Fifteen states approved it. Saxony-Anhalt did not. On 20 July 2021, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that this violated the freedom of broadcasting, and the court ordered the fee of 18.36 euros to apply provisionally.
A state may depart from the commission’s figure only with the agreement of all the states. In November 2024, ARD and ZDF went to court again, seeking 18.94 euros from 2025. The court heard the case on 23 June 2026. As of October 2026, it had not yet ruled.
The Elbphilharmonie
Hamburg’s concert hall on the Elbe was first planned to be finished in 2010. The city’s share of the cost was first calculated at 77 million euros. In the end, construction cost about 866 million euros, and the first concerts took place on 11 January 2017.
A committee of inquiry of the Hamburg parliament examined what had gone wrong. It found that when the work was put out to tender in 2006 and the contract was signed in 2007, the planning noch nicht weit genug fortgeschritten gewesen, had not yet advanced far enough.