{"id":12267,"date":"2020-12-11T11:00:13","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T11:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=12267"},"modified":"2020-12-11T05:13:55","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T05:13:55","slug":"the-german-haushaltswoche-part-2-merkels-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/the-german-haushaltswoche-part-2-merkels-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"The German Haushaltswoche &#8211; Part 2: Merkel&#8217;s Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left\">It&#8217;s an exciting week in the German\u00a0<em>Bundestag\u00a0<\/em>(the German legislative body, its lower house of Congress). Earlier this week, German <em>Bundesfinanzminister\u00a0<\/em>(secretary of finance) Olaf Scholz presented the <em>Haushaltsentwurf <\/em>(budget draft) for 2021. The <em>Bundesregierung <\/em>(federal government) has agreed; now it&#8217;s time for the <em>Bundestag <\/em>to follow suit. But before that happens, they have four days to discuss and criticize the <em>Entwurf<\/em>, and suggest changes where they so deem necessary. At the end of the week, on Friday, they have to vote on it. Like in all countries, the <em>Haushalt <\/em>is a very, very important subject, as it decides where all the money flows for an entire year. But this year is particularly interesting, as the <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/learn-about-it-in-german-coronavirus\/\">coronavirus<\/a> put additional strain on the German economy and therefore the German\u00a0<em>Haushalt<\/em>. It&#8217;s not just a little spike, but a big one in <em>Ausgaben <\/em>(spending): It&#8217;s a <em>Rekord-Haushalt <\/em>(record budget). Furthermore, 2021 is a\u00a0<em>Wahljahr <\/em>(election year) in Germany, where Scholz will be a candidate.\u00a0So let&#8217;s learn some German and get to know some German politics in the process. What does the <em>Haushalt\u00a0<\/em>say? What is it criticized for? And what did Merkel say to go viral during the <em>Generaldebatte <\/em>(general debate) yesterday? I&#8217;ve broken this post down into two parts, one on Thursday and one on Friday. Yesterday, we looked at the\u00a0<em>Haushalt<\/em>. Today, we&#8217;ll see how Merkel&#8217;s emotional speech went viral.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/tag\/haushaltswoche\/\">Click here for to read all parts of this series<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong><em>Heute haben wir eine andere Angela Merkel erlebt<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"tagesthemen 22:15 Uhr, 09.12.2020\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pInxAn495Sk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, the\u00a0<em>Generaldebatte\u00a0<\/em>took place, an event where\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/why-merkel-is-sitting-down-now\/\"><em>Bundeskanzlerin\u00a0<\/em>(Federal Chancellor) Angela Merkel<\/a> gets to speak and defend the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/the-german-haushaltswoche-part-1-record-debt\/\"><em>Haushaltsentwurf<\/em><\/a>. And it was a special speech. The\u00a0<em>Tagesthemen<sup class=\"modern-footnotes-footnote \" data-mfn=\"1\" data-mfn-post-scope=\"0000000000002ec30000000000000000_12267\"><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\"  role=\"button\" aria-pressed=\"false\" aria-describedby=\"mfn-content-0000000000002ec30000000000000000_12267-1\">1<\/a><\/sup><span id=\"mfn-content-0000000000002ec30000000000000000_12267-1\" role=\"tooltip\" class=\"modern-footnotes-footnote__note\" tabindex=\"0\" data-mfn=\"1\">(&#8220;Daily Themes&#8221; a daily in-depth news programme of the ARD)<\/span><\/em> boldly began their programme on Wednesday with the words:<\/p>\n<p><em>So wie heute war das noch nie im deutschen Bundestag. Heute haben die Abgeordneten bei der Generaldebatte zum Haushalt eine andere Angela Merkel erlebt. Hier sprach nicht wie sonst nur die Politikerin die pragmatisch denkt und abw\u00e4gt, es sprach nicht nur die Wissenschaftlerin die Fakten siziert. <strong>Es sprach auch eine Frau, der fast die Stimme brach, die schier verzweifelt darum flehte, doch bitte endlich auf die Wissenschaft zu h\u00f6ren und das Leben in Deutschland wieder st\u00e4rker auszubremsen.<\/strong> Angesichts\u00a0der Neuinfektionen die wieder steigen und angesichts eines neuen traurigen Rekords von 590 Todesf\u00e4llen innerhalb eines Tages.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>(Like today it has never been in the German <em>Bundestag<\/em>. Today, the legislators experienced a different Angela Merkel during the general debate regarding the budget. Unlike usually, this was not just the politician that thinks and weighs, this was not just the scientist that dissects the facts. <strong>Here spoke also a woman whose voice almost broke, who practically begged in desperation to finally listen to science and brake life more strongly in Germany once again.<\/strong> In light of the new infections that are rising again and in light of a new sad record of 590 deaths within one day.)<\/p>\n<p>So yes, here was a Merkel that was different, and made\u00a0<em>Schlagzeilen\u00a0<\/em>(headlines) with her emotional address to the\u00a0<em>Bundestag\u00a0<\/em>and Germany in general. But what did she actually say?<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Merkel&#8217;s Speech<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"#Merkel makes emotional appeal to follow science\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1OXDhB9B6b8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Wir leben mit einer Herausforderung, wie sie die Bundesrepublik Deutschland noch nicht in dieser Art gekannt hat.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>(We live with a new kind of challenge that the Federal Republic of Germany has never seen before.)<\/p>\n<p>With these words, she also hinted at\u00a0<strong><em>strengere Ma\u00dfnahmen\u00a0<\/em>(stricter measures)<\/strong> surrounding the upcoming holidays. She quite explicitly warned of the higher risk that older people, like the\u00a0<em>Gro\u00dfeltern\u00a0<\/em>(grandparents) have of dying of the coronavirus, too:<\/p>\n<p><em>Wenn wir jetzt vor Weihnachten zu viele Kontakte haben und anschlie\u00dfend es das letzte Weihnachten mit den Gro\u00dfeltern war, dann werden wir etwas vers\u00e4umt haben. Das sollten wir nicht tun, meine Damen und Herren.\u00a0<\/em>(If we now before Christmas have too many contacts and if it subsequently turns out to be the last Christmas with the grandparents, then we have neglected something. And we shouldn&#8217;t do this, ladies and gentlemen.)<\/p>\n<p>But despite these strong words, a <strong>majority of Germans seem to be agreeing with her<\/strong>. Most people are pessimistic of\u00a0<em>Empfehlungen\u00a0<\/em>(recommendations) and think that\u00a0<em>Verbote\u00a0<\/em>(restrictions) will be more effective, even though it will drastically change this year&#8217;s holidays. However, there is still about a quarter of the German population that\u00a0<em>ablehnen\u00a0<\/em>(reject) the\u00a0<em>Ma\u00dfnahmen\u00a0<\/em>from the\u00a0<em>Bundesregierung<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>It makes sense that people long for clear\u00a0<em>Regeln\u00a0<\/em>(rules) on what&#8217;s allowed and what&#8217;s not, especially coming from the <em>Bundesebene\u00a0<\/em>(federal level). A few months ago, the rules were very different per\u00a0<em>Bundesland\u00a0<\/em>(federal state), leading to a real <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/untranslatable-german-der-flickenteppich\/\"><em>Flickenteppich\u00a0<\/em>(hotch-potch)<\/a><\/strong> in the country.<\/p>\n<p>And yet, it will depend on people&#8217;s <em>Wolle <\/em>(willingness) to follow the rules and guidelines. Despite her\u00a0<strong><em>Beliebtheit\u00a0<\/em>(popularity)<\/strong>, Merkel can&#8217;t magically make people be more careful. As\u00a0<em>Politologe\u00a0<\/em>(politologist) Albrecht von Lucke <a href=\"https:\/\/www.deutschlandfunk.de\/beliebtheit-von-angela-merkel-politologe-corona-war-fuer.694.de.html?dram:article_id=488982\">said in an interview with\u00a0news outlet\u00a0<em>Deutschlandfunk<\/em><\/a> about Merkel&#8217;s speech:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Sie spricht auch heute als die Kanzlerin, die weit, weit mehr Reputation und Autorit\u00e4t genie\u00dft als jede andere Politikerin oder jeder andere Politiker im Lande. Aber trotzdem wei\u00df sie, dass sie bei dieser Coronakrise in der Tat an die Grenzen des M\u00f6glichen st\u00f6\u00dft, denn sie hat erkannt und erkennen m\u00fcssen, dass ohne die T\u00e4tigkeit und das Mitwirken der Bev\u00f6lkerung alle Ma\u00dfnahmen im Sande verlaufen.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>(Also today, she speaks as the chancellor who enjoys much, much more reputation and authority than any other politician in the country. And yet she knows that she is reaching the limits of what&#8217;s possible with this corona crisis, as she had to and did recognize that without the actions and cooperation of the people all the measures will come to nothing.)<\/p>\n<h2><strong>COVID-19 Rules during the Holidays<\/strong><\/h2>\n<div id=\"attachment_12271\" style=\"width: 1010px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone post-item__attachment\"><a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/NTanTZ2EGKA\" aria-label=\"Christmas Coronavirus\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-12271\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12271\"  alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"408\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/12\/Christmas_Coronavirus.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/12\/Christmas_Coronavirus.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/12\/Christmas_Coronavirus-350x143.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/12\/Christmas_Coronavirus-768x313.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-12271\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image by Volodymyr Hryshchenko at Unsplash.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Merkel&#8217;s desperation is understandable. Christmas is a very important event for people and families to come together, and initially, the <em>Ma\u00dfnahmen <\/em>were going to be <em>gelockert <\/em>(loosened) around the holidays. However, this doesn&#8217;t seem likely now. Despite the\u00a0&#8220;lockdown light&#8221; that is currently in place in Germany,\u00a0<strong><em>Infektionszahlen\u00a0<\/em>(infection cases) are rising rapidly<\/strong> all around the country.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Bundeskanzlerin <\/em>recommends to follow the advice of the\u00a0<em>Wissenschaft\u00a0<\/em>(science), and in particular that of scholar&#8217;s association <strong>Leopoldina<\/strong>. Their advice is to bring social contacts to a minimum from December 14, including by suspending the <em>Schulpflicht\u00a0<\/em>(mandatory school attendance) until Christmas. From\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/heiligabend-christmas-eve-in-germany\/\"><em>Heiligabend<\/em>, December 24<\/a> until January 10, there should be a hard lockdown. Also over the holidays, contacts should be reduced to the absolute minimum.<\/p>\n<p>We will see in the coming days whether these recommendations will become hard rules or will remain mere guidelines. But with most Germans agreeing that guidelines alone are not enough to get satisfying results in fighting COVID, these guidelines may turn into hard rules soon.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"modern-footnotes-list modern-footnotes-list--show-only-for-print\"><li><span>1<\/span><div>(&#8220;Daily Themes&#8221; a daily in-depth news programme of the ARD)<\/div><\/li><\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"143\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/12\/Christmas_Coronavirus-350x143.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/12\/Christmas_Coronavirus-350x143.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/12\/Christmas_Coronavirus-768x313.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/12\/Christmas_Coronavirus.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>It&#8217;s an exciting week in the German\u00a0Bundestag\u00a0(the German legislative body, its lower house of Congress). Earlier this week, German Bundesfinanzminister\u00a0(secretary of finance) Olaf Scholz presented the Haushaltsentwurf (budget draft) for 2021. The Bundesregierung (federal government) has agreed; now it&#8217;s time for the Bundestag to follow suit. But before that happens, they have four days to&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/the-german-haushaltswoche-part-2-merkels-speech\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":12271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,7,8],"tags":[224302,529261,533818,503921,551762],"class_list":["post-12267","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-holidays","category-language","tag-angela-merkel","tag-coronavirus","tag-haushaltswoche","tag-merkel","tag-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12267"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12274,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12267\/revisions\/12274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}