Germany is governed by a coalition of three parties - the CDU/CSU and the SPD (see my previous post ). Depending on the situation, the CDU and CSU like to think of themselves as one political party or as two political parties. When it comes to divvying up the minister positions in the government, then they're two parties. Which party gets which office is set down in the coalition contract; according to this contract, the CSU fills the office of Minister of Economics. So far so good. When the current government took office in November 2005 the Minister of Economics was Michael Glos , an experienced CSU politician from a small town in lower Franconia. Glos has not enjoyed high visibility as Economics Minister, you might say that he hasn't had a good economic crisis. Making his situation worse were the difficulties he had with the head of the CSU, Horst Seehofer . Did I mention that Glos is from a small town in lower Franconia? Foreigners tend to think of Bavaria as one big ho

Europe has generally been lagging behind the US in supporting and implementing non-smokers' rights. Over the last few years this has started to change - Italy, Ireland, France and the UK have all passed more or less strict laws banning smoking from many public places. Italy is an interesting example - the Italians are generally not known for obeying the law rigorously, but the smoking law (which bans smoking in most public places) has been a general success. I remember well a vacation in Italy soon after the smoking ban went into effect; how pleasant it was to eat dinner in a restaurant without being bothered by clouds of smoke from the next table, or having our clothes stink like smoke after leaving the restaurant. "If only Germany would pass a modern smoking law," I thought. I'm a not smoker. I used to smoke a pipe, but I gave that up about15 years ago. Once in a great while I'll smoke a cigar. Just so you all know where I'm coming from. So in 2007 Germa