Germany’s Council of Economic Experts, the Sachverständigenrat, was created by a law of 14 August 1963. Its task is to present the overall economic situation and its foreseeable development. The bill first foresaw a general ban on recommendations. Parliament softened it before the law passed, so the council may not recommend specific economic or social policy measures. Its job is diagnosis, and the choice of measures is left to politics. In 1978 the trade union journal Gewerkschaftliche Monatshefte accused the council of violating its legal mandate, and critics still say it regularly ignores the ban.