I’ve been reading a fair bit about Germany recently (unfortunately mostly only in English due to laziness), and see a lot of reports claiming that there are many problems and that social and economic growth has stagnated.
I’m aware that at the last elections the people elected [mostly] a red-green coalition of socialists and environmentalists, which coupled with the often progressive and pragmatic thinking found in Germany I would have thought would have produced a much better situation…
so what is going on here? I read about a Bundestag (like Britain’s house of commons) and the Bundesrat (a cross between the House of Lords and our devolved government in Wales and Scotland, but unelected, or are they like a big city council?)
are there then powerful conservative elements in the other parliament house, who are blocking the progressive work of the peoples elected representatives (and vice versa) so nothing actually gets done? I also get the impression (from my travels there in 2001 on business) that the nation is divided and is more conservative in the south.. (hence easttek was left alone and south-tek busted) is this true?
I would like to go there again soon, but in these “interesting times” prefer to know what is going on in a country before I visit!
