2023 / 47
Aperçu of the week:
"Anyone who wants to save money for the future these days also believes that standing still is the most energy-saving way to reach the goal."
(Sascha Lobo, German media personality and columnist)
Bad News of the Week:
Western democracies have always been able to come to terms with right-wing political currents. Even when they have established themselves. Marine LePen from the Rassemblement National, for example, repeatedly makes it to the run-off for the office of president. It seems fundamentally impossible that she would win. After all, there is always a solid majority of upright democrats who stand together and would never accept that a right-winger could actually take a seat in government.
And now that is exactly what has happened. A right politician at the head of state. In a western democracy. In our immediate neighborhood. In the Netherlands. Geert Wilders and his Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom) won the elections there by a clear margin. He is laying claim to the office of Prime Minister. And has a good chance of forming a coalition with a solid parliamentary majority.
Wilders has made a name for himself over the years primarily as an enemy of migration - although that's what always gets me most excited about former colonial powers. Closing borders, banning the Koran, deporting asylum seekers. He has refrained from using these harsh tones in this election campaign. Certainly more out of tactical considerations than out of an actual change of opinion. And was therefore probably elected after 11 years of Mark Rutte as a contrasting program to "business as usual".
A look at Italy provides some hope. There, Georgia Meloni from the right Fratelli d'Italia became head of government for the first time in the West just over a year ago. And is proving to be much less radical in day-to-day politics than in the election campaign. "The office is stronger than the person" is often said. If that is the case, our democracies will be able to withstand it.
Nevertheless, I am increasingly worried that right-wing extremist ideas are becoming more and more acceptable in society. Elections will be held in several eastern German states next year. And the far-right (officially listed as such by the constitution protection agency) AfD is leading all the polls. Next year's European elections could also see a landslide to the right. Whereby the right-wing parties of the EU actually stand for the exact opposite of European ideals. That leaves me stunned.
Good News of the Week:
When Germany's political parties disagree on whether a law complies with the constitution, they appeal to the "Federal Constitutional Court", our Supreme Court. These guardians of our fundamental law then interpret it in a non-partisan way and the discussion is settled. So far, this has always worked excellently, the judges have always lived up to the claim and can be regarded as an absolutely neutral supreme authority.
Now they have once again did justice to this responsibility by literally upholding a decision made by the last "grand coalition" of conservatives and social democrats in 2020. It was about electoral law reform, an issue that directly affects the parties and the basis of their political activity - free elections. And therefore unsurprisingly met with little approval from the opposition parties at the time. In essence, the issue is whether a candidate for a seat in the Bundestag who wins in his or her constituency gets a seat in the parliament even if the party to which he or she belongs would actually be entitled to a lower percentage of seats nationwide. And if so, whether the other parties are then entitled to compensation. The latter was limited by the reform, the former was not.
In my opinion - and I have no legal interpretation skills whatsoever, but I do have a healthy sense of justice - this is absolutely fine. For two reasons. Firstly, according to the constitution, MPs are only bound by their conscience in their work. And therefore theoretically not to any party (not even their own). This premise has been strengthened. Secondly, every vote must be worth the same. If a candidate who has clearly won their constituency does not get a seat in parliament, their votes would no longer count. And no one in that constituency would have the representation to which they were entitled.
I am aware that the regulation - which, by the way, is being called into question by the at the moment ruling coalition in the current legislative period - mainly benefits the small parties CSU (Christian Social Union) and Die Linke (The Left). I am largely unconvinced by their programs and positions. But that doesn't change the fact that I defend their right to exist in parliament. If they are elected, they are elected. Period. In this respect, I am once again very satisfied with our political system.
Personal happy moment of the week:
On Sunday, I remembered boiling hot that I had overlooked a task from work. The shock was huge. Especially when I realized that I wouldn't be able to iron out this lapse on my own. So I dropped my pants in front of my co-workers. And I had a wonderful experience of collegiality: four (!) colleagues put their own plans for the start of the week on hold to help me out of the mess. It feels good. Thank you very much!
I couldn't care less...
...about black week. Because Germany experienced its very own kind of black week: the budget plans for 2023 were retroactively thrown out the window. And the German national soccer team saw its slight hopes of an improved performance dashed by losing matches against Turkey and Austria - what hurts us especially.
As I write this...
...winter has come to Bavaria. And it really did. Unfortunately, due to scheduling problems with the dealership, we haven't received our winter tires yet. As a result, I'm riding my bike to the station in snow flurries and minus 5 degrees Celsius (which always seems colder to me at the beginning of winter than minus 15 in February) to wait outside for a winter-delayed train. But winter is still beautiful. I bravely remind myself of that.
Post Scriptum
90 years ago, the Holodomor occurred in what is now Ukraine. The term Holodomor ( Голодомор - 'killing by hunger') stands for the famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the 1930s. An estimated three to seven million people fell victim to famine during this period. Since independence in 1991, the Ukrainian government has been seeking international recognition of the Holodomor as genocide. This assessment is gaining increasing support, but is being criticized by the Russian government in particular. This is hardly surprising.
After all, it was Joseph Stalin who pursued the political goal of suppressing the Ukrainian desire for freedom and consolidating Soviet rule in Ukraine. In the spirit of Russification, Ukrainian culture was to be eradicated. This included the murder of around 10,000 clerics, the deportation of more than 50,000 intellectuals to Siberia - and the death of millions of the largely peasant population. No wonder that people in Ukraine tend to get scared when the current Russian tsar dreams of good old Soviet times.
