In May 2013 the Bundesrat, the chamber of the federal states, adopted a draft ordinance against mental stress at work. In August 2014 Labor Minister Andrea Nahles said: Es gibt unbestritten einen Zusammenhang zwischen Dauererreichbarkeit und der Zunahme von psychischen Erkrankungen. There is an undisputed link between constant reachability and the rise in mental illness. She had the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health examine whether limits for stress could be defined. The press called the plan an Anti-Stress-Verordnung. The employers’ federation BDA rejected it. In 2020 the Left Party in the Bundestag was still calling for such an ordinance.
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The Health Card Planned for 2006
A German law of 2003 aimed to introduce the electronic health insurance card on 1 January 2006, with a full security and data protection concept and field tests. At a congress at the time, some participants already called the schedule untenable. Only from 1 January 2015 was the card the sole valid proof of insurance. In November 2015 an opposition group in the Bundestag claimed the project had cost over 1.3 billion euros. That figure comes from the questioners, not from the government.
Fast Aid, Then Years of Disputes
In spring 2020 the German states paid emergency aid to small firms and the self-employed. The money went out sehr unbürokratisch und oftmals ohne große Vorprüfung, very unbureaucratically and often without much prior checking. In April 2020 North Rhine-Westphalia stopped payments for a time, after fraud attempts with fake application websites. Later the state demanded part of the money back. In March 2023 the Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia ruled the repayment notices unlawful. The court found it had remained unclear what the aid was meant to replace: lost sales, payment problems or living costs. The state could also have recalculated about 220,000 further cases, but said it did not plan to.
The Building and Its Paperwork
When a contractor finishes a public building job in Germany, the client typically requires the Revisionsunterlagen: plans of the building as built, operating and maintenance instructions, test certificates and data sheets. The city of Mülheim an der Ruhr publishes its requirements for tenders. The documents must arrive at least three weeks before acceptance, in two paper copies and a digital copy. Their content muss einem unbeteiligten Dritten den störungsfreien Betrieb eines Gebäudes ermöglichen. It must allow an outside party who was not involved to run the building without disruption. If the documents are missing or incomplete, the city can refuse acceptance and hold back part of the final payment.
The Wolf Kill Goes to the Lab
When sheep or other livestock are killed in Schleswig-Holstein, a trained examiner inspects the dead animals. “Ziel einer Rissbegutachtung ist es herauszufinden, ob der Verursacher des Schadens ein Wolf war oder nicht.” The goal is to find out whether a wolf caused the damage.
Where possible, DNA samples are taken from the bite wounds. They are sent to the Senckenberg Institute in Gelnhausen. The state pays compensation on the basis of the assessment, and also when a wolf cannot be ruled out. The payments are voluntary and depend on reasonable protection of the herd.
Your Surname Decides Your Caseworker
The housing benefit office in Erlangen assigns each applicant to a caseworker by the first letters of the surname. Its page in the Bavarian service portal lists ten ranges, each with its own room and direct line. One reads Buchstabenbereich HAJ – KRA, letter range HAJ to KRA, in room 424. The city of Bielefeld’s guardianship support unit works the same way: Die Zuständigkeit richtet sich nach dem Nachnamen des Kindes. Responsibility follows the child’s surname. Each letter has one caseworker, one room and one phone number.
The Late-Filing Surcharge
Every German who must file a tax return faces a fixed deadline, and the tax code puts a price on missing it. If an annual return is not filed within 14 months after the end of the year, the tax office as a rule has no choice. A Verspätungszuschlag, a late-filing surcharge, ist … festzusetzen, must be imposed. It is 0.25 percent of the tax still owed for each month or part of a month of delay, but at least 25 euros for each month or part of a month.
The Analysis Phase
The Bundeswehr buys its equipment under a fixed procedure for project-based procurement. It begins with an analysis phase. A team analyzes and assesses the possible solutions for a capability gap, and the different options must be compared.
Possible solutions are assessed for performance, time, costs and risks over the whole life of the equipment. The documents include elements of an economic efficiency analysis. The procedure states: “The selection decision concludes the analysis phase.”
Bound Until a Named Day
In a German public construction tender, a bidder’s price is binding for a set period, the Bindefrist. Section 10 of the VOB/A, the tender rules, says the client sets a reasonable period during which bidders are bound to their offers. A period longer than 30 calendar days should be set only in justified cases. Das Ende der Bindefrist ist durch Angabe des Kalendertages zu bezeichnen. The end of the period must be named as a calendar day. During it, the bidder may not withdraw. The duty also runs the other way. The award must reach the bidder before the period ends.
How to Object
German official decisions end with a Rechtsbehelfsbelehrung, a notice on how to object. A typical one reads: Gegen diese Entscheidung ist der Widerspruch gegeben, der innerhalb eines Monats bei der Stadt Rottenburg am Neckar … An objection to this decision may be filed within one month with the town of Rottenburg am Neckar, followed by the address and the form. The deadline starts only if the person was told in writing where and by when to object. If the notice is missing or wrong, the one-month period becomes one year.