politics Archives - Page 10 of 38

The Holiday That Pays for Care

When Germany introduced long-term care insurance, the states were to abolish one public holiday that always falls on a working day, to offset the cost to employers. A state that kept its holidays would have its employees pay a larger share of the contribution. In 1995 every state except Saxony gave up Buß- und Bettag, the Day of Repentance and Prayer. Saxony kept the day. In 2025, an employee with one child in Saxony pays 2.3 percent and the employer 1.3 percent. In the other states each side pays 1.8 percent.

Everyone in Saxony keeps the day off, and every employee there pays for it.

The Black Zero

Die schwarze Null, the black zero. In November 2014 the Bundestag passed the federal budget for 2015 without any new borrowing. It was the first time since 1969. Total spending was set at 299.1 billion euros.

Critics doubted that the budget was really balanced. The Green budget politician Sven-Christian Kindler said: “Schäuble versteckt seine Schulden trickreich in Schattenhaushalten.” Schäuble hides his debts cleverly in shadow budgets.

The Minister on Insolvency

In September 2022, during the energy crisis, Economics Minister Robert Habeck was asked on the ARD talk show Maischberger whether bakeries and other small firms faced insolvency. He answered: Und dann sind die nicht insolvent automatisch, aber sie hören vielleicht auf zu verkaufen. Then they are not automatically insolvent, but they may stop selling. The trade paper Deutsche Handwerks Zeitung wrote of the Unkenntnis, the lack of knowledge, that the minister partly showed. Two days later the president of the Leipzig chamber of crafts said the minister was not familiar nicht einmal mit dem kleinen Einmaleins der Betriebswirtschaftslehre, not even with the basic times table of business administration. The chamber offered to put together a training course in insolvency law for him.

The Drone That Could Not Fly

In May 2013 the Defense Ministry stopped the Euro Hawk reconnaissance drone. The drone would not receive approval to fly in air traffic. By then about 668 million euros had already gone into the project.

Approval would probably have cost another 600 million euros. The Bundestag’s defense committee formed itself into a committee of inquiry and examined the project.

Half the Repair Bill

In 2021 the state of Thuringia began paying half the cost of repairing electrical devices, up to a maximum of 100 euros per year. Nearly 10,000 applications were funded each year. Thuringia was the first state with such a bonus.

Thuringia also proposed a national repair bonus in the Bundesrat, but the proposal did not win a majority among the states. From 2026 Thuringia ended its own bonus because of the tight state budget.

The Washcloth

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.

Europe Is Speaking German

In November 2011, at the CDU party conference in Leipzig, Volker Kauder, leader of the CDU/CSU group in the Bundestag, spoke about the euro crisis. His manuscript reads: Auf einmal wird in Europa deutsch gesprochen, nicht hinsichtlich der Sprache, aber hinsichtlich der Akzeptanz der Instrumente. All of a sudden Europe is speaking German, not in terms of the language, but in terms of accepting the instruments. Two weeks later Alexander Gauland wrote in the Tagesspiegel about a Europe in which, wie Volker Kauder hofft, as Volker Kauder hopes, German would again be spoken. He called the tone geschichtsvergessen, forgetful of history.

Voluntary for Now

On 5 December 2025 the Bundestag passed a new military service law. 323 members voted for it and 272 against. Young men must fill out a questionnaire, and medical screening at 18 becomes compulsory again. The service itself remains voluntary.

https://youtu.be/GsGyTWphqeE

Compulsory service would need a separate law. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that if too few volunteers came forward or the situation stayed the same or became worse, partial compulsory service could not be avoided.

Parliament decided the first step and left the second step to a later decision.

The Olympic Decision Postponed

In April 2025 the German Olympic Sports Confederation postponed its choice of a German candidate for the Olympic Games. The decision had been planned for its regular assembly on 6 December. It moved to an extraordinary assembly by the end of September 2026 at the latest.

The interested regions received time until June 2026 “um die Bewerbung gesellschaftlich abzusichern”, to secure public support for the bid. Board member Volker Bouffier said: “Fit machen muss mehr bedeuten als ein Bekenntnis, dass wir Olympische Spiele wollen.” Getting fit must mean more than declaring that we want the Olympic Games.

The assembly met in Baden-Baden in September 2026. By then Hamburg’s bid had failed in a referendum, and Berlin had withdrawn.

Germany Abolishes Itself

At the end of August 2010, Thilo Sarrazin, then a member of the board of the Bundesbank, published Deutschland schafft sich ab, Germany Abolishes Itself. The book was about falling birth rates, immigration and integration, especially of immigrants from Muslim countries. By February 2011 it had sold 1.25 million copies, and by 2012 about 1.5 million. The Deutschlandstiftung Integration published a volume of the texts that major German newspapers printed about it in the first six weeks. Sarrazin left the Bundesbank board. The SPD began proceedings to expel him and finally did so in 2020. ARD’s chief pollster Jörg Schönenborn said that there had never been a majority among the population for Sarrazin’s theses.