New answers tagged germany
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To answer my own question from a source that I would judge moderate in its reaction,
Matteo Bonelli (Assistant Professor of European Union law at Maastricht University) writes:
Of course, the judgment of the [Polish] Tribunal is not the first instance in which a constitutional or supreme court rejects the version of EU law primacy affirmed by the CJEU: many ...
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Politico notes that Franklin Delhousse, a professor of law and a former judge at the CJEU (Court of Justice at the EU) states along with other law professors that:
The German and Polish rulings are quite different. For one thing, the Polish ruling came in response to a request from the government. The German government in contrast did not implement the ...
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A difference in tone, if not in principle.
The German constitutional court demanded that the ECB should explain their actions before they continue. The Polish constitutional court demanded that they EU should stop requiring the rule of law.
Afterwards, the German government exchanged carefully worded notes with the EU where they did not quite disavow the ...
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It would be perfectly acceptable to have exploratory talks in different configurations, interspersed or sequential. And exploratory talks indeed happened between all four potential participants. There are three somewhat possible configurations:
SPD/Greens/FDP aka Ampel (traffic light, red-green-yellow).
CDU+CSU/Greens/FDP aka Jamaica (black-green-yellow as ...
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There is one (minor) legal obstacle to allowing non-citizens joining a German political party: §2 part 3 of the Law on Political Parties (Parteiengesetz) states that a political group is not a party if:
a majority of its members or of its leadership is foreign; or
its seat or its place of business is outside of federal jurisdiction.
It seems highly ...
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TLDR: Without political polarization and passionate public disagreements on court rulings, the German People do not really care about how judges are appointed, which enables the political parties to make simple deals.
The appointment procedure differs between the two legislative bodies:
Half of the members of the Federal Constitutional Court are elected by ...
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Note: When I refer to parties, I will be counting CDU/CSU as one except where I spell out CDU without CSU.
As usual, I believe the situation cannot be understood without knowing where we came from.
A brief historical overview
Until 2005 (and with the exception of 1966–1969), ruling coalitions in Germany could always be clearly identified as centre-left (if ...
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TLDR:
While there are other political reasons that speak against another formation of a Grand Coalition, it had already been unpopular after the election in 2017 so that if there were an attempt to form another Grand Coalition after this election, heads would roll... probably figuratively.
The Grand Coalition had already been unpopular after the last ...
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It is a gross simplification to order parties on a left-right axis, but when one does that it becomes
Linke - Grüne - SPD - FDP - Union (CDU/CSU) - AfD
Historically, the SPD and CDU were the largest parties, by quite a margin. They could be characterized as center-left and center-right, respectively. A coalition with just one of them would lean either to the ...
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This answer is entirely based on opinion - because (public) opinion matters here. Note I cannot really comment on former East Germany because I have not recently spoken to enough east germans to have a picture of what their opinions are.
While the AFD does not position itself as an openly radical party like "Der III. Weg" or the NPD, Germans see ...
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There are a lot of good answers already, but one thing explains it quiet simply. If the established parties would consider making politics with the AfD, it would be considered as a sign of legitimization of the positions of the AfD. They fear doing that step, because at the moment the fact that there is a firewall holds a lot of people back voting for them, ...
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Just a couple more soft reasons, besides the AfD being considered far-right:
They started out as the German equivalent of UKIP (or more concretely: against financial aid for Greece during the banking crisis, as @Jan+@IMSoP point out). And became only more anti-EU since. (Still advocate for abolishing the Euro). A sentiment that isn't shared by any other ...
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The original AfD formed back in what was known as the debt crisis when conservative economists criticised the ruling coalition in general but Merkel in particular for 'saving Greece' and others; their criticism essentially implied that German money was being used to pay the Greek national debt which they strongly objected to. On this platform, they were ...
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The AFD is a political pariah in big part because of its stench of right extremism (one very prominent member can legally be called a fascist), which is a very big deal in Germany.
Any form of cooperation with the AFD currently carries huge political penalties and even the mere suggestion of a potential coalition would amount to complete and utter political ...
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While some AfD politicians are former CDU members and while it may seem that a few AfD positions could theoretically be reconciled with CDU or FDP objectives to some extent, fundamental differences remain. The AfD's goal to leave the European Union is one of them.
However, the divide between the AfD and all other major German parties is not only due to ...
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Germany is divided into 299 voting districts. The Bundestag nominally has 2 × 299 = 598 seats.
Every voter has two votes: the first vote is a first-past-the-post vote for a candidate in the district, the second vote is a proportional vote for a party (or, more precisely, a list).
Half of the 598 seats in the Bundestag, i.e. exactly 299 seats are filled by ...
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There is a "firewall" against the AfD in the German parliament and the CDU is a big part of it. Laschet in particular has vowed to uphold it.
In practical terms of recent relevance, the AfD has campaigned against Merkel and against Covid-19 measures. Laschet is seen as Merkel's hand-picked successsor. The AfD are also pretty far from the CDU on ...
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The system used in Germany to translate votes into mandates is complicated; it significantly grew in complexity in the last decade. I believe that a brief overview of former systems is helpful to understand how we ended up here.
Historical systems
A long-term Federal Election Law was not promulgated until 1956. In the first two elections, single-use Election ...
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The EU Commission published a handbook detailing how the system works. I cannot say that I am confident that I fully understand it but the process is quite a bit more involved than simply a top-down allocation of a total number of certificates.
Instead, a number of certificates is computed for each “installation” (industrial site, power plant, etc.) based on ...
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The size of the Bundestag is not fixed.
Voters cast up to two votes, usually by making two crosses in different columns on the ballot. The voter can cast only one vote, if they like, or cast their two votes for different parties:
There are 299 districts. The winner of a plurality of the Erststimme (first/primary vote) in each district is elected.
At least ...
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There are already many good answers here, but I wanted to directly address the question in the title, since that may indeed seem surprising to someone who is used to a more centralized, top-down form of government.
Why are German local authorities taxing DoD employees, despite the protests of the US and of the German federal government?
The municipal and ...
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The federal tax office in Germany is independent, not even the Kanzler can do something about it.
Everyone who has his place of abode ("Wohnsitz") in germany have to pay taxes and the German federal tax office or better saying all tax offices in Germany are really strict about enforcing law (They're notorious for that in Germany).
The place of ...
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