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The situation in the morning - is this World Cup a case for the Federal Constitutional Court?

2022-12-02T04:55:26.676Z


What the soccer bankruptcy has to do with German electoral law. What became of the big plans of the coalition agreement. And what the Union really thinks about migration. This is the situation on Friday.


today it's about Germany's elimination from the World Cup, the Union's difficult position on immigration and a walk through Zwickau that gives you goosebumps.

See you in Lausanne!

Today is a

football day of

mourning

:

the German national team may have won their last group game of the football World Cup against Costa Rica – but they were still

eliminated

.

A result that seems somehow mean.

As a person interested in politics rather than sport, I tried

to explain this outcome by comparing it with

German electoral law .

After that, it was sometimes possible for a party to win in one place, but still

end up with fewer seats in the Bundestag due to the offsetting of the

second vote share .

You had to lose to win.

The German team effectively won the constituency against Costa Rica, but is still not the strongest force because other parties were too strong (Japan) or too weak (Spain).

In politics, the phenomenon is called »negative voting weight«, and the Federal Constitutional Court intervened in 2008.

Granted, not much has improved since then.

Parliament is bursting at the seams and two Bundestag Presidents have failed in efforts to reform the electoral law.

So is it advisable for Hansi Flick to file a

constitutional complaint

in Karlsruhe?

Or would you rather go straight to the International Sports Court in Lausanne?

After all, the DFB had already considered a lawsuit against the ban on the “One Love” bandage – a problem that seems somehow secondary.

Maybe just sue both?

Now the DFB would have time.

Would it even be possible to get Fifa dissolved on that occasion?

If the re-establishment took as long as the German electoral law reform, a lot would be gained for football democracy.

  • Germany's World Cup in the group phase: a few millimeters - and yet miles away from the top of the world

Nine votes about the coalition

In the next few days, dear reader, you will read many of these

anniversary

pieces.

The traffic light coalition

celebrates its

first birthday

on December 8

, but very few people feel like celebrating – if only because they are exhausted.

"All I really want is Christmas," our anniversary team quotes an anonymous person from the coalition camp as saying.

You feel for her or him.

We media people have also been in permanent

crisis mode

since the end of February.

On the occasion of the traffic light birthday, our capital office has once again taken on the coalition agreement of this "

progressive

coalition ".

What did the SPD, Greens and FDP promise each other on 141 pages, what became of it?

From the big plans for a new family image, a better Europe, a debt-free, digitized state?

And from climate protection?

So that it doesn't become a seminar paper, our editors spoke to a person for each chapter who is right in the middle of implementing the big traffic light ideas.

Take Green

defense politician Sara Nanni

, for example, who was a major opponent of arms sales before the Russian invasion and is now one of her government's biggest drivers.

"I was blind," says Nanni about her old picture of Russia.

The SPIEGEL team also met with Green

State Secretary Sven Giegold

, who was allowed to work out ideas in the coalition agreement that read like a blueprint for the United States of Europe.

Today he has to sell mini-steps as a success.

Or the economist Veronika Grimm, who called on climate minister Robert Habeck for help when he got tangled up in the energy policy chaos.

Or the sociologist Jutta Allmendinger, who is disappointed that the traffic light is putting off the question of a fair distribution of burdens in families.

"That will show up later with women's pensions," says Allmendinger.

I found the most interesting of the series a woman I had never heard of:

Christiane Paulus, head of the nature conservation department

at the Ministry of the Environment.

As one of the few, she is really in good spirits, because she can spend four billion euros on the renaturation of forests, moors and seas.

So not everything is bad.

  • A year of red-green-yellow: What's going well with traffic lights - and what's not  

How do you feel about the skilled workers?

In the

Bundestag

today the

chances

- right of

residence

of the coalition is on the program, as well as a reform to speed up

asylum procedures

.

How will the Union position itself?

As the readers of the Situation read at this point a few days ago, there are prominent voices in the

CDU

and

CSU

who are skeptical about the planned points system, which will allow skilled workers to come to Germany to look for a job even without an employment contract.

A team from our capital office dug a little deeper and found that these comments

are not

necessarily

representative

of sentiment across the Union.

They are outliers.

Not the tip of the iceberg, but rather the fat eyes on the soup.

Why?

Because many in the CDU and CSU would recognize that "not only the party political lines have shifted, but the debate in society as a whole," write my colleagues.

"How can a conservative party find its place here - without playing with resentment?"

Anti

-

double

pass

campaigns are just as

unlikely

from the Union today

as sayings about "asylum tourism" as the current Bavarian Prime Minister and CSU leader Markus Söder once tore.

Today Söder sounds completely different.

He discarded his hardliner profile shortly before the last state election because he realized that this was primarily to help the AfD.

  • Foreign skilled workers: »We have to create perspectives – otherwise people will leave again« 

You can find news and background information on the war in Ukraine here:

  • Selenskyj wants to take action against the Orthodox Church, Italy takes over a Russian oil refinery:

    The Ukrainian President is bothered by the Russian Orthodox influence in his country.

    An oil plant in Sicily is initially controlled by the state.

    And: The Czech Republic wants to train soldiers for Kyiv.

    The most important developments.

  • Winter combat at the front - why the Ukrainians have advantages:

    How do armies fight in sub-zero temperatures?

    Military experts see the Russian armed forces at a disadvantage due to a lack of equipment - and fear tens of thousands of casualties. 

  • Fight like in the First World War:

    near Bachmut, soldiers and mercenaries fight bitterly for a few kilometers.

    Are the tough battles an attempt to tie down Kiev's forces so that they are missing in other places? 

  • Emergency surgery in smartphone light:

    Despite power outages, they provide help, somehow: Ukrainian surgeons have to improvise in order to be able to operate on their patients.

    Cell phones are also used.

Here's the current quiz of the day

The starting question today: What is the name of today's head of the Hohenzollern?

Winner of the day...

...is the city of

Zwickau

, which today can »show its heart«.

Under this motto, the Zwickau Alliance for Democracy and Tolerance is organizing a peace prayer in the cathedral and a human chain tonight - as a counter-event to a performance by AfD man Björn Höcke in the city.

According to its own statement, the alliance wants to set an example for peaceful coexistence, for democracy and against fascism.

One can hope that the majority of Zwickau residents are demonstrating on the right side today.

The appearance of Höcke, who, according to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, leads the »secure right-wing extremist« AfD state association in Thuringia, poses a complication for tourists, reports the »Freie Presse«.

Unfortunately, the popular city tour “Goosebump Stories”, which deals with the “dark history of Zwickau”, had to take a detour from the usual route that evening.

One wonders whether this is really necessary.

Who knows, depending on the participation in the AfD demo and the counter-event, the reality in Zwickau could offer enough goose bumps.

The latest news from the night

  • Purchase of Parler canceled by Kanye West:

    Kanye West will not take over the Parler network after all: Both sides had mutually agreed to the waiver, it was said.

    The rapper had recently provoked controversial statements.

  • Lukashenko critic Kolesnikova should be better:

    Maria Kolesnikova's state of health seems to be stabilizing.

    According to supporters, the Belarusian activist is no longer in intensive care.

    It's unclear why she's in the hospital.

  • South African President Ramaphosa is threatened with impeachment proceedings:

    he wanted to fight corruption, now he himself is accused of money laundering: South African President Ramaphosa is under pressure because of an ominous robbery.

    The opposition is demanding his resignation.

The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today

  • Cold, multisystem disease - what now?

    We have been living with the corona virus for almost three years, and many are still arguing about the question: is Covid-19 harmless or extremely dangerous?

    Four experts explain their choice of words. 

  • He saw the attacks on Kiev and Mariupol from space:

    when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Matthias Maurer was working on the ISS together with Russians and Americans.

    Can you ignore what is happening on Earth in space? 

  • "My mother regularly sends text messages asking if everything went well."

    Fabian Schwizler invested around 85,000 euros in his training.

    Today he flies rescue helicopters in Brandenburg.

    Here he talks about VIP flights in Los Angeles and which missions are particularly close to his heart.

I wish you a good start into the day.

Yours, Melanie Amann

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2022-12-02

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