Bavaria Mulls an End to Solidarity

[marmar]

from Der Spiegel:




Bavaria, Germany's richest state, is tired of paying billions each year to the country's poorer states. On Tuesday, the state's governor announced it planned to challenge Germany's complicated transfer system in court. Editorialists at German newspapers seem to agree on only one thing about the development: It's pre-election populism.

In these days of euro crisis, one can often hear politicians lamenting in Germany that they don't want the European Union to become an expensive transfer union, with richer Northern European countries making payments to their Southern European neighbors to cover budget shortfalls created by nations that have lived beyond their means for decades. But what often gets lost in this conversation is that such transfers already take place within Germany -- and are a major source of conflict between the country's rich states and their poorer brethren. When it comes to solidarity, it turns out, Germans often don't feel much of it towards neighbors inside their own borders.

Residents of country's industrial and financial powerhouse states, particularly Bavaria, resent having to make payments to poorer regions like the city-state of Berlin, which tops the list of transfer recipients, with annual help from its neighbors of €3 billion ($4 billion).

Bavaria, where the moniker "laptops and lederhosen" is synonymous with the state's flourishing economic success, is now mounting a revolt against the system. At a cabinet meeting of the state government on Tuesday in Munich, officials decided to launch a legal challenge against the transfer system -- known as the Länderfinanzausgleich, or fiscal equalization among the 16 German federal states -- at the nation's highest court in Karlsruhe. The system, which is anchored in the constitution, guarantees people in all German states uniformity in living standards, even if the industrial base, labor market and tax receipts are weak in those regions. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/press-review-on-bavaria-s-decision-to-sue-against-solidarity-payments-a-845088.html