Archive for October 14th, 2005
A Little Extra on the German Government
Trouble between the CDU and the CSU
The CSU were hoping to fill the Interior or the Defense portfolio, Angela Merkel is reported to have said that given the limited number of portfolios available to the CDU, both are out of bounds for the CSU. But they can have Agriculture.
Horst Seehofer is not that popular everywhere in the CDU. An anonynous source is quoted as saying: “With Stoiber and Seehofer, we would have ten Social Democrats in the cabinet”. Germans can have a sense of humour.
Trouble within the CSU
One reason Soiber had set his eyes on Interior might have been in order to place Gnther Beckstein on that portfolio and at the same time leaving the post as Prime Minister in Bayern to Erwin Huber. If the CSU doesn’t get Interior, then the battle for the PM’s chair in Munich is indeed very much on.
Not everyone in Bayern are happy about Horst Seehofer. Too much to the left in economic and labour market policy, some think.
The coalition agreement
According to Financial Times Deutschland (what a title for a newspaper…!) the agreement is to be confirmed by all parties on party conferences on November 14. Now, what happens if one party fails to pass it after the chancellor has been elected?
And by the way
On the Podcast of Deutschlandradio, I happened to hear a truly German discussion about how to fill Government portfolios. The host of the morning programme interviewed a political scientist who had to explain that portfolios in the modern world are filled according to political and managerial merits, not merits within the field of the portfolio. The perculiar German conception of “true expertise” as “Sachverstand” (and I honestly don’t know how to translate that into English…) still lingers on.