Retirement of German President
The German President Horst Köhler has retreated from his position on May 31, 2010. To enable you to understand this, I have to explain what happened within the past few days.
Köhler gave an interview to Deutschlandradio in which he said that in each war we also have to consider economical ideas, because we are an export nation. This has been criticized a lot by politicians from all parties, but actually he only said the truth. Of course each nation is going to war for some sort of economical considerations. The USA invaded Iraq because they want to establish oil trade with a democratic and stable country and Afghanistan has a lot of resources as the German magazine Spiegel has shown (German) including copper, gas and oil. Moreover, Afghanistan has a good strategic position for the US being next to China, Pakistan and Iran.
Now Köhler has retreated because he said that the criticism within the past few days did not show enough respect for his position.
Our Secretary of Commerce, Brüderle (FDP), agreed that the President must have a special position outside of party politics, which enables him to criticize parties and he should not be criticized as harsh as Secretaries like himself. However, there are also both politicians and citizens who think that a President has to deal with criticism and should not give up instantly.
What does the German President do?
Our President is not as mighty as the President of the USA who controls politics. Having learned from Third Reich we cut the power of the President and imposed him to appeal to politicians’ morals.
The German President’s task is to—or at least Köhler set these tasks for himself—criticize not daily politics, but more the general trends. Köhler’s most important aim was his mission for Africa, but he was also liked by the German people because he was not politician (even though member of the CDU) and thus had enough distance to all parties. The President’s most important formal task is to sign laws so that they can be published in the Bundesgesetzblatt and become active law.
Köhler was called critical towards his own government, because he stopped several laws. One thing that the we as the internet community often seem to forget in our criticism against Köhler: He did sign the censorship law directly, but demanded more information by the government—which is a huge signal. Moreover, it is not Köhler’s duty to check laws for content, but only for their creation. One time the government wanted to impose a law onto cities, which is not allowed anymore: Köhler did not sign it. Content is then checked by the Constitutional Court if they are asked to do so.
Legal Aspects
As for now, the President of the Bundesrat will take Köhler’s position until a new President will have been voted. At the moment this is Jens Böhrnsen, a rather quiet person who only meets publicity when he really wants to criticize something. For example, he wanted to attend our Constitutional Court because of government’s plans to cut money for Länder.
As our Grundgesetz defines in article 54 (4) a new President has to be elected within maximum 30 days. This means, we will have a new President in July.
(4) The Federal Convention shall meet not later than thirty days before the term of office of the Federal President expires or, in the case of premature termination, not later than thirty days after that date. It shall be convened by the President of the Bundestag.
The new President now will probably be some politician, because media is now discussing if Köhler was not experienced enough. However, I think that it is better to have a President who has enough distance to party politics. Together with a friend I have discussed if it might be good to have the former protestant church leader Margot Käßmann as President, because she also tells criticism directly (as with her well known quotation: “Nothing is good in Afghanistan”).
Monday, May 31, 2010
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