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German Federalism – An Outdated Relict?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Christian Hillgruber

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Germany is currently in a deep structural crises which has been furthered by the combination of ongoing economic stagnation and a desolate situation of state finances. That these circumstances are due to—according to a widespread opinion—not just the failure of political leadership in the Federation and Länder during the last decades, but also, and especially, the German system of federalism in its current form, is anything but evident. It has become commonplace to hear that the German federal state is in the throes of a serious legitimacy crises and is in need of fundamental structural reform, if the current federation is to have any future. Advocates of reform claim the process needs to result in a widespread disentanglement of powers, so that responsibility can once again be clearly attributed to its proper bearers. Meanwhile, criticism continuously takes on an ever stronger tone: Germany is supposedly to have fallen into the “trap of federalism”. As Klaus von Dohnanyi stated: “If, as in our German Bund-Länder-consensus-system of the so-called ‘cooperative federalism', one level can always interfere with the other level even into details—and that is now the case in almost every aspect— immobility and stagnation, irresponsibility and chaos appear. It would have been better, if we had chosen a centralistic organization. Centralism is better than halfhearted decentralism. A well-lead central state is better than an undecided federalism.”

Type
Research Article
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 10: Special issue - Articles German Federalism: Theory and Recent Developments , 01 October 2005 , pp. 1270 - 1282
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

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5 Additionally proposals have been made for the Bundesrat to be turned into a senate similar to the US and/or a change of procedures (see Huber, Föderalismusfalle?, supra, note 1, 21, 33). These suggestions are not convincing. The direct democratic legitimacy of this senate due to elections in the Länder would not make the simultaneously demanded repression of the participation of the Länder in the federal legislation possible because of the “further approximation of Bundesrat and Bundestag“ (Rudolf Dolzer, Das parlamentarische Regierungssystem und der Bundesrat – Entwicklungsstand und Reformbedarf, 58 Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer (VVDStRL) 7, 31 assumption 26 (1999)). The (compelled) “participation” does not prohibit abstentions from voting by the representatives of one of the Länder. The need for absolute majority to take a decision likewise hampers objections and approvals by the Bundesrat and would – if abstention was prohibited – not play any role; for then the majority would always also be the absolute majority. If a different vote among representatives of one of the Länder was made possible, the objective attribution of a vote to this Land as responsible entity would be impossible.Google Scholar

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34 Wilms, supra, note 12, 86, 89. The FDP also approves of a “as far-reaching tax autonomy of the Länder as possible” (see FN 24).Google Scholar

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