TV duel between Merkel and Steinmeier
The current chancellor (Merkel) and vice chancellor (Steinmeier) participated in a TV duel today taking place two weeks before the votings on 27 September. Both of them want to become the next chancellor of Germany and therefore had to answer questions to moderators. I will give some information on the topics that were discussed:
Social equity
Germany always tried to balance the income between the rich and the poor. This has changed within the past few years with managers earning more and more millions and at the same time dismissing employees.
Merkel accused plans of the SPD to introduce minimum wages claiming that industry would have to dismiss employees then. On the other hand she said that people should be able to live with their wages.
Steinmeier wants - as already said - to introduce minimum wages and SPD says that 7.50€ was a good value. Otherwise we would have to face a race to the bottom with ever decreasing wages and therefore also decreasing consumption.
Nuclear power
Nuclear power plants create about 22% (2007) of the energy used in Germany. There is a treaty that these plants shall be closed down until 2020, but the CDU/CSU now wants to increase the remaining time of nuclear power plants.
Merkel has defended nuclear power plants and said that insecure plants should be closed down, but secure ones should be used longer.
Steinmeier returned that the treaty has been signed and should be executed now. He refered to problems with repositories leading to huge costs and security dangers.
Rescue of Opel
Both of the opponents were involved in the rescue of Opel and therefore said that it was correct and good. There was an interesting scene when both of them fought against the critical questions of a moderator who had asked if it was not to expensive and riskful.
Financial and economic crisis
The CDU has promised to lower the taxes to increase demand on the market, but Steinmeier said that this would lead to a requirement of 9% economic growth.
Health insurance
Currently, there are two types of health insurances in Germany (public and private) which is not a problem of course. Yet, people who belong to public insurances are often treated worse by doctors because these customers do not create much profit.
There has been a reform of the health insurance system whcih has been criticized a lot. One account containing all money for all public insurances has been established to ensure that at least all public insurances are the same. However, many doctors claim that they do not earn enough money anymore.
Opinions after the discussion
After the duel other people discussed about the results. A moderator said that both candidates were to passive and did not really distinguish themselves from each other. About 3% say that it was a duel, while 94% say that it was an information show. On the question which one was more convincing, spectators answered (after the half of the time) that Steinmeier was more convincing that Merkel.
I come to the conclusion that both candidates have not really pointed out many arguments, but instead avoided giving details and talked about general aspects. The problem is that both of them have been in the current coalition and therefore could only give some rough ideas about the future.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
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