When we first investigated the matter back in October 2010 (http://www.dehnenblog.com/eng/wgoig/railway-project-stuttgart-21-turns-into-a-matter-of-politics/) we investigated the circumstances surrounding the protest movement – and now, after more than a year of constant protest, it has come to its conclusion. The referendum held this Sunday voted to keep on building the train station. With 58.8% voting to keep building and 41.2% against, the decision sounds like a close vote. However, these numbers can be misleading since the quorum that would have been needed to abolish the construction was missed by a long shot – a mere 48.3% of the eligible voters turned up. Since people directly opposed to the construction arguably would have shown up to the legal conclusion of their pet project, the supposed “mass opposition” can’t really claim the support of the silent majority anymore.

So what’s going to happen now? Construction will immediately be resumed. And why wouldn’t it? The people have decided. The current plans state that the building will be finished in November 2019. Most political opposition has, understandably, dwindled. Premier Kretschmann of the Green Party is on record (reluctantly) stating “We will accept this vote. The whole state government will.”

A small number of voices have stated that their opposition will continue even without political support. Environmental protection group “Parkschützer” is one of them. However, these voices do not seem to be supported by even their own previously zealous allies. State chairperson of BUND (the biggest environmental protection group in Germany) Brigitte Dahlbender: “We will have to accept this outcome.”

So have we seen the end of this? Probably, at least as far as the mainstream media and politics are concerned. The people of Stuttgart will likely have to put up with a (severely smaller) number of protesters until the new station has been built. In 2019.

The German government has finally decided on what is to become a major review in tax relief for the benefit of local economy. The monetary volume of the relief program is deemed to be around six to seven billion Euro.

The program will be introduced in two steps, the first of which is to come in 2013, followed by the second one in 2014. Included is a slight increase of income tax allowances to ease the tax load of low income households. A major shift concerning these also occurs in dampening the so called “cold progression” where a raise in salary could, combined with increasing tax burdens, lead to a lower net income. These two measures alone would contribute to a lowered tax yield of around 4 billion Euro, which is planned to be refinanced half by the federal government and half by the states.

Another slight adjustment will be made in the area of heath care, whose contributions will likely be increased by 0.1% on all income levels, leading to an increase in state income of around 1.1 billion Euro. Also added will be a system where parents who decide not to send their child to a day nursery are given the opportunity to receive a child care subsidy of 100 Euro per month in 2013 which will be raised to €150 in 2014. Currently the levels of health care contributions are at 1.95% for families and 2.2% for persons without children.

Other measures include an increase in health care for persons suffering from dementia, a slight lowering of immigration hurdles for highly qualified foreigners and around 1bil.€ for improvements in transport infrastructure. The opposition meanwhile remains sceptical because of the growing debt of public funds. With the approval of the governing coalition, the new law is likely to be passed promptly.

The circumstances surrounding the new agreement are less then stellar – the governing coalition had been infighting for months before these new measures were approved. Aside from the usual differences between two partners of a coalition, the Bavarian based CSU, usually virtually indistinguishable from the CDU, has been a steady influence on these talks. Bavarian premier Horst Seehofer in particular has been split unusually far from the course set by Merkel’s CDU. The decision ultimately decided upon however has put both parties somewhat at ease again.

In recent weeks, a leaked version of the so-called “Bundestrojaner has been making the rounds in German news agencies. We take into exploring what is behind this seemingly new find.

In the wake of Anti-Terror efforts undertaken by Germany’s federal agencies and government, the use of a state issued computer virus, known as the “Bundestrojaner” was sanctioned in 2006. The aim of this virus like program was to facilitate what is known as an “Online Durchsuchung”, basically a search of the target persons personal computer via the internet. The principal debate for this was had back at the inception of the concept, and concerns about the viability and feasibility of such a program were voiced by numerous organizations specializing in privacy concerns in Germany, chief among which was the CCC (Chaos Computer Club), a loose network of “white hat” hackers which have been uncovering privacy flaws since the 1980’s.

For the last few weeks, this organization got their hands on copies of the current version of the Bundestrojaner and has since proceeded to backwards engineer it and hack together a functioning interface. What they uncovered was a scandal indeed – the capabilities of the program disected far outmatched the powers authorized by the current legislation. Instead of merely viewing the files on the observed person’s PC, the program offered the possibility to download and, more worryingly, upload files onto the PCs file system as well as download additional pieces of code from the federal police’s servers to further improve its own functionality. Aside from this, the program offered the possibility to record web chats and Skype calls as authorized in the accompanying legislation.

These features become problematic in the sense that they are most unsafe. With an option for “remote controlling” the infected PC, abuse of the program by third parties is no longer a simple voyeuristic affair, but rather a serious problem. By merely emulating the server structure of the federal police server the program could be remotely made to upload incriminating information on a target person which would then be received by the German authorities – so not only the safety of the individual person is at stake, but also the quality of the information gained by the police.

Adding to these grave faults in the programs structure comes a more general problem with the method used by the police. Such a program, however structured, would be found by a simple antivirus program. The instant the “Bundestrojaner” was first discovered, renowned antivirus makers Kaspersky Lab and Symantec announced it would be added to their databases and henceforth be removable by their programs. In effect, the “state of the art spy tool” desired by the federal police is easily outmaneuvered by even the most basic antivirus software, is a colossal waste of taxpayer money and constitutionally questionable in it’s current form.

Following German news sites these days is like running into a gauntlet of juicy gossip – even the traditionally serious papers are getting a piece of the action. The reason? Long term entertainment icon Thomas Gottschalk is about to retire in the position as show master of the most traditional, albeit no longer most popular German TV program, “Wetten Dass..?” – and the hunt for a replacement has so far been proven less than stellar.

The only thing that currently stands a chance against the media onslaught is Greece’s situation in the euro zone. Why is it then, that while faced with a fundamental decision of Europe (if not World-) wide repercussions, we care so much about the intricacies of contract negotiations between numerous German entertainers (Kerkeling, Pilawa – the lot) with a show that to many appeared to be at the end of its life cycle?

One theory come to mind almost immediately in dealing with these issues – the first is general entropy and what is described in Germany as “Politikverdrossenheit” – the concept of being disenchanted with politics. A growing number of Germans feels that politics, or rather politicians have lost contact with the very people they are trying to represent. As an answer to whether they feel they can make a difference in regards to political decisions, 94% of the people asked said “no” according to a study conducted by USUMA. Some issues where the public opinion differed vastly from that which the decision making instances represented we have touched on in this blog before (such as Stuttgart 21).

However, this can also be rooted in another growing problem: A lack of information about the political process in the German mindset. Stuttgart 21 is the perfect representation of this problem: While the plans for the new train station layout had been posted years ago, public interest has not been there until the engines were already running full blast. Similarily, the people lack the information they need to form an informed opinion on the Greek bailout issue.

While this problem has been rampant for years and is by no means recent, the divergence of things people speak out about and things people have a working knowledge about seems greater than ever. A similar issue arose with the involvement of the international community in Libya and the subsequent German “No” in the security council. That “No” was seen by many as something akin to a betrayal. However, it was a perfect example of politics listening to public opinion.

Political decisions thus are often related to one or both of the phenomena laid out here. Good decisions happen in one of two ways: The public is well informed and politics actually listen to their opinion OR the public is vastly misinformed about a topic and politics decide to ignore the public. Whenever only one applies, mistakes get made. All in all, we have always tried to provide you with a look into the things that define Germany at the moment – this is certainly an issue that does not so much play a big role in economics, but certainly in what makes the German people tick.

Greece’s continuing economic downfall troubles all of the European Union – how does it affect the German market?

Ever since the liquidity of the Greek economy started to crumble and the first bailout plan was devised, the public debate in Germany has been revolving around the issue whether one state should bail out the other in a unified market zone such as the European Union. Until recently, the answer economists gave to that crucial question was all too clear: With the unified market came unified responsibilities and most importantly, risks.

What Germany, in particular, desired was a stable market for it’s export products. With the introduction of the unified currency came the advantage of having a market free from currency differences and unfavorable exchange rates that might hamper exports. In addition, the introduction of the unified currency was and still is the logical next step in a unified market region. With Germany’s own currency directly tied to that of its trade partners in the Eurozone, any of the traditional problems with interacting currencies instantly vanished. However, in the changing economical landscape of international interaction, severe problems were made in the introduction which now resurface. Germany’s de facto reliance on economically less stable partners in it’s currency market is proving problematic.

The currently proposed solution calls for a set of guarantees on the Greek government’s debts set forth by numerous Eurozone partners, with the majority of the granted money coming from the German investors. However, a growing number of Germans are becoming upset at this apparent injustice. The impression put forth by the tabloids – at “Germans are paying for Greek luxury retirements” – is still the prevailing opinion in lots of German heads. With this sociopolitical background, decision making is becoming ever harder for the government -having the rescue fund the advisors so desperately call for at the ready has become a political issue that can not simply be ignored and decided over the head of the people. In classical political terms, simply having Greece become bankrupt would have been an outcome almost desirable – a clean slate for the state to begin with is even seen favorably by many Greeks these days. Germany, however, would get the short end of that particular stick. If such an instance were to occur, several billion € worth of German investments in Greece would be in jeopardy in a very short turn, and the tremendous economic advantages gained for the German export market by the introduction of the unified currency would crumble with the stability of the latter.

So in turn, what decisions will the governments face? It is a hard one to make with certainty. Go broadly against public opinion and take the matter to its logical conclusion? Safe Greece and any others like it with extreme prejudice? Or yield to public opinion and sacrifice economic stability and the process of European integration that has been going forward ever since the 1950s? Germany has decided for the first one and chosen to deal with the fallout for the sake of sanity – but will the others? We certainly will remain seized of the matter.