I hope the Pirates get in and can be in opposition to a majority red-green, that should be a good learning position for Piraten.

Anyway, is the date set yet?

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

Here is what the CDU will probably use as the main topic of their campaign: Das Handelsblatt, not exactly the most progressive paper we have, has an article "Hannelore Kraft, Queen of Debts". Yes, really. They have a lovely little graphic showing that NRW is the state with the highest debt. Sigh. True, and Germany's debt is higher than Greece's. The best joke is that the figures are from 2010. That's not Kraft's sins debts, but the debts of, drumroll, Norbert Röttgen.

Congrats on your first diary!

[ET Moderation Technology™]

Fold inserted, NRW spelled out for distracted readers, lazy links corrected.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

On the federal level there will be no direct change; It doesn't matter for Bundesrat (federal council) purposes if the voting state government is a minority government as now or an majority government as the probable next government. So the size of the red-green block in the Bundesrat won't change.

Christian Lindner - Bambi of the FDP - as the new top candidate in NRW makes things a bit interesting again. Maybe it's enough to just get over 5%. Not likely.

_{Schengen is toast!}

Congrats for your first diary, keep them coming!

The opposition's prospects don't look very well and it was very surprising that they didn't let the budget pass.

It was a result of everyone being ignorant of parliamentary rules:

1. The government wanted to get the budget passed with the FDP's votes on the third reading, so they dissed the Left Party (who wanted a comprehensive free train ticket for the socially weak).
   
2. The FDP wanted to play game, but thought they can force budget cuts by voting against some parts of the budget upon second reading.
   
3. Parliamentarians were reminded however in the last hour that by NRW's rules not passing even a part of the budget upon second reading means its failure.
   
4. Certain that they will win whatever the outcome, the government went ahead with a budget containing no bones for either opposition party, both of which committed themselves previously.

Hannelore Kraft, the current prime minister, was not involved in the Agenda 2010 programme

Maybe so, but she was a loud supporter even in recent times.

She was careful to be very cooperative in her coalition with the Greens, refraining from humiliating power play.

True, with the exception of pushing new coal, but there the leaders of the Greens folded quickly. What surprises me is that apparently they (the NRW Greens) weren't punished for that in opinion polls. (Either that or such a voter loss was compensated by gains from other parties.)

The Pirates could be in for the first time.

According to what I read, the Pirate competition is one of the main problems for the NRW Left Party, as protest voters turned their way. (The other is internal struggles.) I still hope for both of them making it into parliament as opposition, though.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Let's not forget the other two states with early elections (both of which had their previous elections in 2009):

• In Saarland, where a CDU-FDP-Greens "Jamaica Coalition" failed on the disintegration of the FDP, and where the vote will be held this Sunday, things seem to head towards a CDU-SPD Grand Coalition: the last polls have CDU and SPD level at 33-34% (a big gain for the SPD, likely mostly from the Left party), the Left Party at 15-16% (a 5-6-point loss), the Pirates at 6%, the Greens (who at least don't run with the leader who made Jamaica a reality and who had too close ties to the FDP) right at the 5% limit, FDP at 2-3% (hopefully failing).

• In Schleswig-Holstein, where a CDU-FDP coalition (matching the federal one) won elections only thanks to the unproportional elements of the election system, a lawsuit of the Greens and left-leaning Danish minority party SSW won a ruling forcing a change of the election system and new elections. These will be held a week before the NRW one in early May. The latest poll indicates a comfortable red-green majority: CDU 34% (slight gain), SPD 33% (big gain vs. last elections, ultimately at the expense of the FDP), Greens 15% (slight gain), Pirates right at the 5% limit, SSW steady at 4% (but they are guaranteed an exception), FDP and the Left Party would drop out at 4% resp. 3%.

In short, these two elections could further weaken the federal government's sway over the upper house of Germapny's parliament, the Bundesrat, which consists of representatives of the state governments (which are obliged to vote together even if from different parties in a coalition, thus the SPD in a Grand Coalition could at least force an abstaining).

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Eurointelligence Daily Briefing: Geithner says European fiscal adjustment policies are futile (20.03.2012)

Impoverished cities in Northrhine-Westphalia don't want to pay for East-Germany any more

The anticipated elections in Northrhine-Westphalia, with 18m inhabitants Germany's largest federal state, put a strain on intra-German solidarity. Several mayors of highly indebted cities in the state have asked to put an end to the intra-German solidarity mechanism that sees billions of euros flow from the West to the East of the country, Süddeutsche Zeitung reports on its front page. ,,The solidarity pact for the East is a perverse instrument that no longer has any justification", Ullrich Sierau, the social democratic mayor of Dortmund told the paper. The solidarity pact foresees that €156bn will have been transferred between 2005 and 2019 between the West and the East irrespective of the financial situation of the payer and the receiver. The mayors of Essen and Oberhausen told the paper similar things. All of these cities are heavily indebted and had to close public institutions while some of the cities in the east were doing better financially.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman