politics Archives - Page 17 of 38

The Girl in Rostock

On 15 July 2015, Chancellor Angela Merkel held a citizens’ dialogue with school pupils in Rostock. One of them was Reem, a girl whose family had come from Lebanon. She told the chancellor that her family had lived in Germany for four years and that she did not know whether they could stay. Merkel answered with the rules of asylum policy. Germany could not take in everyone. Das ist manchmal auch hart, Politik, she said. That is sometimes hard, politics. Reem began to cry. Merkel stopped, walked over and stroked her. Ich weiß, dass das eine belastende Situation ist – aber trotzdem möchte ich sie einmal streicheln. I know this is a difficult situation, but I would still like to stroke her. Under the hashtag #merkelstreichelt, her reaction was heavily criticized online.

The tears did not change the answer.

Post-Factual

On 9 December 2016, the Society for the German Language chose postfaktisch, post-factual, as its word of the year. The jury explained that the word points to a shift. More and more, it is about emotions instead of facts. Not the claim to truth, but speaking the “felt truth” leads to success in the post-factual age. Chancellor Angela Merkel had used the word in September 2016, after her party lost votes in the Berlin state election. Es heißt ja neuerdings, wir lebten in postfaktischen Zeiten. Das soll wohl heißen, die Menschen interessieren sich nicht mehr für Fakten, sie folgen allein den Gefühlen. It is said these days that we live in post-factual times. That probably means that people are no longer interested in facts and follow only their feelings.

Scholzomat

Scholzomat is a nickname for Olaf Scholz. It joins his name to Automat, a machine that works by itself. He got it as general secretary of the Social Democrats, for his sometimes robot-like manner. A 2021 portrait of him as candidate for chancellor called it den zweifelhaften Spitznamen, the dubious nickname. It said his dry Hamburg manner seemed wooden to many people outside Hamburg.

The nickname was meant as criticism, not as praise.

Paid Like a Federal Judge

Section 11 of the Members of Parliament Act sets the monthly allowance of a member of the Bundestag. It is oriented to the pay of a judge at one of the highest federal courts. As a rule, it is adjusted every year on 1 July in line with the nominal wage index of the Federal Statistical Office. Each newly elected Bundestag must confirm this procedure within three months of its first sitting.

Respect and the Minimum Wage

Olaf Scholz built his 2021 election campaign on the word Respekt, respect, and campaigned for a minimum wage of 12 euros. The Bundestag raised the minimum wage to 12 euros by law, from 1 October 2022. In June 2025, the minimum wage commission of unions and employers unanimously proposed 13.90 euros from 1 January 2026 and 14.60 euros from 1 January 2027. The cabinet adopted the increase in October 2025. The coalition agreement names a benchmark for future increases: 60 percent of the median gross wage of full-time employees.

Work Must Pay More

Until the end of 2010, German social assistance law contained a Lohnabstandsgebot, a wage gap rule. Benefits for a couple with three children had to stay below the net earnings of a comparable household with a low-paid full-time worker. The rule was then removed. The principle stayed in politics. On 9 October 2025, the governing coalition agreed to replace the citizen’s income, the Bürgergeld, with a new basic income support. The CSU leader Markus Söder said: Endlich gilt wieder: Wer arbeitet, muss mehr haben als der, der nicht arbeitet. Finally the rule applies again: whoever works must have more than whoever does not work. The Bundestag passed the reform on 5 March 2026. It takes effect in stages from 1 July 2026.

Studies did not find that people on benefits had more money than people in work. The union-funded WSI institute found in February 2025 that recipients of Bürgergeld did not have more income than minimum wage earners in any household type it examined. The ifo institute noted in 2023 that in some family situations and in areas with high rents, higher earnings can be offset by the loss of housing and child benefits.

The Leisure Park Debate

On 21 October 1993, Chancellor Helmut Kohl gave a government statement in the Bundestag on securing Germany’s future as a business location. He said: Meine Damen und Herren, wir können die Zukunft nicht dadurch sichern, daß wir unser Land als einen kollektiven Freizeitpark organisieren. Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot secure the future by organizing our country as a collective leisure park.

In May 2025, shortly before his first government statement, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said: Wir müssen in diesem Land wieder mehr und vor allem effizienter arbeiten. Mit Vier-Tage-Woche und Work-Life-Balance werden wir den Wohlstand dieses Landes nicht erhalten können. We must work more again in this country, and above all more efficiently. With a four-day week and work-life balance, we will not be able to keep this country’s prosperity. Criticism came from other parties and from within his own. In February 2026, the CDU’s business wing brought a motion to the party congress with the title Kein Rechtsanspruch auf Lifestyle-Teilzeit, no legal right to lifestyle part-time. After protests, the term was dropped from the motion.

Nokia Leaves Bochum

On 15 January 2008, Nokia announced that it would close its mobile phone plant in Bochum and move production to Romania. About 2,000 of some 2,300 permanent employees lost their jobs, and about 800 temporary workers were also affected. The site had received 88 million euros in public subsidies. Peter Struck, head of the SPD group in the Bundestag, called Nokia’s conduct unanständig, indecent. The premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, Jürgen Rüttgers, warned Nokia against acquiring the image of a Subventions-Heuschrecke, a subsidy locust. SPD leader Kurt Beck spoke of caravan capitalism. Politicians of all parties called for a boycott of Nokia phones. According to the magazine Capital, Nokia’s market share in Germany fell by eight percent between January and July 2008. The new plant in Romania closed in 2011.

Monday Demonstrations Against Hartz IV

The Hartz IV reform replaced unemployment assistance with a new benefit, Arbeitslosengeld II. In Leipzig, people began to demonstrate against it on Mondays, and from 29 March 2004 they did so every week and in greater numbers. The name recalled the Monday demonstrations of 1989. Joachim Gauck called the name foolish and forgetful of history. At the peak, on 30 August 2004, at least 200,000 people demonstrated in more than 200 cities. The anger at the reforms also produced a new political force. The association Electoral Alternative for Work and Social Justice, WASG, was founded on 3 July 2004. It became a party in January 2005 and merged with the PDS in 2007 to form Die Linke.

The Master Requirement, Removed and Restored

In 2004, Germany abolished the master requirement, the Meisterpflicht, for 53 crafts. Among tile layers, the number of businesses then rose from about 12,400 to more than 70,000. The number of apprentices fell by 67 percent. The association of turners said it had lost a complete generation of journeymen and masters.

On 14 February 2020, a new law came into force that restored the requirement for 12 of these crafts, among them tile layers, parquet layers, interior decorators and organ builders. The federal government said it was responding to falling numbers of apprentices and falling quality.