January 9, 2006	Monday	Zilhaj 8, 1426

BERLIN: The debate has long simmered below the surface, infusing popular culture even if it has yet to take political centre stage: how should Germany look in the future? In her novel “Aus Drei mach Eins” (Making One out of Three), restaurateur Conny Kirschgarten sets a love story against plans to merge three of Germany’s 16 states. In the book, regional politicians cannot even join forces to oppose the plans without getting into fist fights.

Germany’s political class will be hoping fact does not mirror fiction as it prepares to tackle what is being billed as the biggest shake-up of the federal structure for decades.

The federal government is hoping to streamline the way laws are passed — a move many see as the first step to addressing bigger questions about the viability of some if not all states.

“It (the debate) will come,” said Gerd Landsberg, director of an association representing 12,500 towns and authorities.

“If we want to simplify the financial relations, we first have to have roughly equally strong states ... I doubt we can achieve this at all with the current structure,” he said.

Germany’s 16 states vary greatly in size, history and financial strength and are bound together by a intricate system of taxes and transfers. The new ‘grand coalition’ government wants to begin untangling this web later this year.

The debate has been invigorated by the financial woes of Berlin — the country’s capital and a city-state with a 60 billion euro ($72.6 billion) debt mountain. Other states do not want to end up footing Berlin’s bill.

Critics argue that with more decisions being taken at European Union rather than national level, there are too many states with too little to do to justify costly administrations.

The five ‘new’ eastern states created after German unification in 1990 are home to 15 million people, three million less than those who live in the biggest state, North Rhine-Westphalia. They survive largely thanks to financial aid from richer states.

Some western politicians now say the decision to resurrect the eastern states was a mistake.

Michael Burda from Berlin’s Humboldt University said the system discouraged states from trying to boost their economies.

“The really small states can’t compete (economically). If you are going to go for competition you have to start from a level-playing field (by merging states). That would be a sine qua non for the whole thing to work,” he said.

Nearly all state leaders defend their right to exist.

“Federalism does not live from similar sized entities,” Peter Mueller, premier of Saarland, said in October. “The independence of this state is not in question and won’t be in question.”

There is a cross-party consensus that the federal system slows the political process: 60 per cent of Germany’s laws must be approved by the Bundesrat, or upper house, where the states are represented, and by the lower house or Bundestag.

This has often led to legislative gridlock when the lower and upper houses have been in the hands of opposing parties.

Reforms drawn up by the country’s first ‘grand coalition’ government since 1969 aim to halve the number of laws requiring joint say by more clearly defining responsibility for policies like education and the environment. For example, the states would be given more responsibility for education. —Reuters