| Chancellor Olaf Scholz likes to coin phrases that ring with decisiveness and optimism: Russia’s war on Ukraine triggered a Zeitenwende (a turning point), subsidies to tide over businesses and the population in times of pandemic and inflation were termed the Wumms and then the Doppelwumms (double whammy), and when he wanted to address Germany’s problems with new urgency, he introduced the Deutschlandtempo (Germany speed).
And now Scholz has introduced the Deutschlandpakt (Germany Pact) which is to bring together the federal government, the opposition, and regional and local leaders to reinvigorate and modernize the country, and spur economic growth.
“The citizens are fed up with this standstill, and I am too,” Scholz told the federal parliament, the Bundestag, last week. He spoke of a “mildew of red tape, risk averseness and despondency” that had weighed down Europe’s largest economy in recent years.
DW’s Sabine Kinkartz looked into the “Germany Pact”: Is there real substance?
While most laws get passed at the federal level, it is the states and municipalities that have to enforce them. Political analysts are pointing out the German appetite for justice for every special case, no matter how complicated, and the desire to eliminate risks — or at least to hold someone responsible after the fact for having transgressed a regulation. |
