[spectre] Elections in NRW

[Andreas Broeckmann]

dear inke,

i don't want to get into regional german politics too much, but as 
you suggest, the elections in NRW will have repercussions not only on 
a national, but also on a european level, and in that sense they fit 
into the current (french) thread on the EU referendum. (nobody is 
mentioning the fact that the netherlands will also have a referendum 
about the EU constitution - probably because the parliament is not 
tied to follow that popular vote in their own decision on 
ratification or not.)

what we have seen in Duesseldorf (capital of NRW) and Berlin 
yesterday may very well have been the beginning of the end of the 
schroeder government; i don't agree that the situation is 'a mess', 
because schroeder's move yesterday (grasping the initiative at a low 
point, he announced that he would seek new national elections as soon 
as it was clear that the SPD/Greens had lost the election in NRW) was 
very clever in terms of political tactics - everybody is now talking 
about the upcoming elections, and nobody is talking about the 
christian democrats who won an important vote yesterday: schroeder's 
picture is on the front pages of the newspapers, in the spot where 
the winner of the elections, Juergen Ruettgers, should have been ... 
(seconding schroeder, the SPD party leader, Franz Muentefering, said 
in a classical 'party soldier' manner: 'Social democrats don't go 
down on their knees, not even in a situation like this!')

the social democrats have been in power in NRW since 1966 (partly in 
coalitions), so you can imagine how deeply they are dug into the 
whole political structure - for many people working in culture in NRW 
this will also mean some changes in the next months and years. on the 
federal level, important new cultural developments associated with 
the federal state secretary Christina Weiss, incl. the Federal 
Cultural Foundation which funds the Relations programme in eastern 
europe, as well as transmediale, have been initiated by the social 
democrats, and it may very well be that they will come under the 
scrutiny of a (potential) new christian democrat-led federal 
government. (plus the fact that the second parliamentary chamber, the 
'Bundesrat', is put together by representatives of the different 
'Laender'/states, so that with the new christian democrats from NRW, 
they will have an even stronger majority in that chamber than before 
- which basically allows them to block many decisions of the federal 
government.)

something that neither of the political camps in germany has yet 
addressed is the degree to which national 'politics' is now the mere 
implementation of EU legislation, and they don't seem too have a 
strategy for the way in which a form of *european politics* or a 
european public sphere might start to emerge - the utter lack of 
debate of the constitution on a european, cross-border level, signals 
this fact. (we are, i believe, part of this problem in so far as we 
do not actively engage in that european dialogue.)

an interesting question would be whether the participation in 
Culture2000 projects etc. is changing people's perspective on the EU, 
and whether the EU described in the constitution has anything to do 
with a shared political vision.

so much for now, on a monday morning on which a wind of change is 
blowing through germany,

-a



>Dear Spectres,
>
>just to complete your view of the European landscape: today there 
>were elections in North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW), the region/state I 
>am currently working in. It is the largest german state with approx. 
>16 million inhabitants, and UR-Social Democrat because of the long 
>history of coal and steel industries. It turns out now that the 
>Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens lost today's elections -  for 
>the first time after more than 30 years. NRW was the last German 
>state to have a SPD/Green government (like the federal german 
>government Schroeder/Fischer). It was just announced in the media 
>that federal government officials said that possibly would be 
>parliamentary elections already in autumn 2005 (instead of autumn 
>2006). What a mess!
>
>Greetings,
>Inke