(Epilogue; 00-04; p.2)

Epilogue 2004: the political year in retrospect

 

International relations

In terms of German foreign affairs there has been nothing much to name or blame in the year 2004 just gone.
In stark contrast to some other, the German government did not solely grasp that there is something international, i.e. matters to be negotiated between nations, but also that there are international relations, i.e. a global and multi-layered network of relations. Moreover, members of the German federal government are strongly rooted on planet earth and do not justify their actions by stating that they were living on a planet further off the sun and accordingly would not have any choice.
Thus, the German government did not let itself be drawn into conflicts, it didn’t conjure up, but tributes as watchful as resolute to safeguard its sovereign from man-made threats.

 

Have-nots and priorities

In terms of domestic issues there has been something to name and blame that alas, has almost passed by unnoticed so far: the generalisation of social benefits, euphemistically called "merging of benefits for unemployed and social benefits".
(Until the end of this year there has been a difference in the German welfare system between people made redundant and poor people who had hardly gotten a chance to work. To cut it short: the first group has been treated and paid – obviously the taxpayer’s money – better than the other; from 2005 on both fall back to social benefits for the needy, provided they qualify for that.)

Approved already in late 2003, a very big coalition of involved party politicians – the governing Social Democrats and Greens as well as the formal opposition of Christian Democrats and Liberals – succeeded in stonewalling the decision with muteness.
In effect, the regulations will deprave especially East Germans, since they usually have a work biography of full-time employment in the GDR, being made redundant in the FRG, being fobbed off with benefits for unemployed and now being cut back to social benefits, provided that they are poor enough.

– Last summer, there has been a short row about alleged communication problems and a connected criticism of a government’s speaker. Seen in retrospect, it has more of a manoeuvre of deception: none of the party politicians involved had an interest in making the depravations public – there were elections in Eastern Germany – and until this very summer there were no precise regulations for the authorities for valuing fortunes and proceeding in general that could have been communicated. (read on here)