Articles about Politics

Climate Summit from German point-of-view

You have probably heard how the Climate Change Conference (often called Climate Summit) in Copenhagen has ended. However, I want to tell you something about the German attitude towards the conference.

Germany has leading technology

Germany, as whole country, is very interested in environmental protection which is pretty much based on the leading technology with regard to renewable energy. Therefore, of course the German delegates on the conference had to take a leading role to reach a good outcome - which obviously failed.

However, I also think that the German mindset is environmental-friendly. Though, there is still more said than done, especially when it comes to everybody's own behaviour. In schools for example, the windows are often tilted. The general excuse seems to be - I mean in mind, not really said - that the economy plays a major role and the single person could not change much.

However, there are also people, whom I spoke with, who really try to change some things on their own step by step. People who said they had a bad feeling if they wasted energy in some way.

Situation not as bad as it might sound

Comparing Germany to the US however, we are very much ecological. I read an article about the American way of life which included a lot of energy sins. The strangest in my opinion was that in some regions clotheslines are considered poor and therefore your neighbours will prevent you from using one, because otherwise the value of the houses around yours would fall.

A German guy says the following about the outcome of the Climate Summit:

Kopenhagen '09: Welcome to Neverwinter Nights (by notrace, pun including the game Neverwinter Nights)

Federal Constitutional Court dealing with Data Retention: First Day

On December 15, 2009 the Federal Constitutional Court began dealing with data retention, a law that forces telecommunication providers store all phone and internet connections (including location, excluding content) for 6 months and make them accessible for the state in cases of crime or possible future crime (we are differing between past and future crimes in Germany very precisely). I have mentioned this law in older posts, too (September 2009, October 2009).

The situation did not look too good for the government already after the first day. The President of the Court, Hans-Jürgen Papier, said that it was really strange since nobody of the "responsible politicians" had tried to defend the law. However, a lot of critics were there, e.g. the spokesperson of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), Constanze Kurz.

On the other hand, Wolfgang Bosbach (CDU) as a politician was there and defended the law. I do not know in how far he was not "resposible" for the law, because I think he was Member of Parliament in 2008. Maybe Papier was expecting some minister to come.

Germany Discriminating against Men

There is something totally important I forgot to mention. The European Court of Justice has decided that Germany is discriminating against men with regard to child custody. At the moment the situation in Germany is as follows: If a couple is married and then gets divorced, both of the parents have child custody afterwards. In case they are, however, not married and break up, only the woman receives the child custody. The man cannot decide upon anything, sometimes he even has to go to court to be able to see his son or daughter for some hours a month.

One father now went to the European Court of Justice to end this situation, leading to the decision that Germany was discriminating against the equality of humans. Germany has to adjust the law now.

Many people recommend the way it is in most other countries and for married couples in Germany: Both of the involved persons get child custody. According to experts this is the best decision for children, because they need to have both parents to get to know different gender roles. Moreover, it would probably lead to a better payment rate of alimony, which are at the moment often not paid - just because of the fact that fathers are not even able to see the son they should pay for.

However, we also have to consider that Germany does not have to adjust the law to European level. They could agree on another law which might be enough for the European Court, but not as good as possible for the fathers.

Jung retiring due to Afghanistan conflict

It's already some days ago when Franz Josef Jung (CDU) resigned from his current position as Minister of Labor due to the attack on a tank truck in Afghanistan when he was still Minister of Defense. Back then - according to reports - terrorists stole a tank truck and Western forces were afraid of an attack on their headquarters with this truck. Therefore, they wanted to get the tank back or destroy it. Some days ago it was revealed that pilots have asked if they should try to banish the people around the truck (because it could be civilists), which was negated. On command of a German soldier, the pilots then fired the tank truck and many people (including civilists) died.

Since information was detained by the Bundeswehr and Mr. Jung did not read the papers he received, he had to answer questions to the parliament and then resigned from his current position. Meanwhile the current Minister of Defense also changed his attitude towards the attack and said that it was "militarily not adequate".

By the way, Mrs. von der Leyen (former Minister for Family Affairs) is now Minister of Labor and a very young woman became Minister for Family Affairs.

Brender has to leave ZDF

The commissioning editor of the ZDF (one of the two most important public TV stations in Germany), Nikolaus Brender, has to leave the TV station. The would have needed 9 of 14 votes, but only received 7. Why is this so important, people are losing their jobs all the time?

The problem in this case is that Brender was neutral and often criticized leading politicians for their work. The current situation in the administrative board is as follows: There are more CDU politicians than SPD politicians and some CDU politicians were against Brender.

There's now the discussion arising if Brender was kicked, because he was disturbing the politicians. 35 political scientists have already written an open against the decision and the Greens want to submit the case to the Federal Constitutional Court. Some people are already comparing the German situation with Italy where Berlusconi has control over many TV stations. There's also a satire logo on twitter expressing that the TV station was ruled by the CDU (cf. on the right).

It sounded a bit like an excuse when Roland Koch, one of the CDU politicians, said today that he had only voted against Brender to "bring new ideas to the station apart from political discussions". The official explanation was that the viewer levels of the evening news were too bad, but I read that this assertion was even a lie.