Roman decline

There is debate about a welfare state in Germany

Berlin entrepreneur Harald Ehlert (pictured) clocks up a thousand kilometers on the speedometer of his company car in a week. The company headed by Mr. Ehlert is called Treberhilfe Berlin, its primary goal is to organize assistance to the poorest people. Mr. Ehlert has been managing 280 employees for 20 years. In 2009, according to his own data, the company increased its turnover to 15 million euros, 10 million euros were investments, 600 thousand euros were net profit. The city authorities of the German capital recognized Treberhilfe Berlin as a “publicly useful organization.” The company's sources of financing are budget allocations and charity.

But these days Mr. Ehlert became famous throughout Germany not at all because of helping disadvantaged people. The police caught him with minor speeding in a Maserati Quattroporto car, in which Mr. Ehlert is driven by a regular driver. The base price of a car with a 400-horsepower engine is 124 thousand euros. However, it is not for nothing that this entrepreneur prefers to call himself a “social capitalist.”

The German Institute for Economic Research has just published data that poverty is rapidly growing in the country; 14% of the German population, mainly large families, may fall into poverty. First of all, the report's authors say, poverty threatens young people aged 19 to 25, a quarter of whom live below the poverty line. According to official standards, a person falls into the group of beggars if his living expenses remain below 60% of the average income in Germany. This income, minus all taxes and social benefits (more than half of the monthly salary is spent on this), is 1,345 euros.

A couple of weeks ago, the Constitutional Court of Germany ruled that the adopted methodology for calculating social benefits for the long-term unemployed is contrary to the Basic Law, obliging the authorities to bring one into line with the other. It was not about the amounts themselves, but only about the methods for calculating them. The benefit includes a monthly cash payment of 359 euros per unemployed person, full payment for an apartment with most utilities, as well as all social benefits, including full medical care and even contributions to the pension fund. Below all this lies the very poverty line that economists calculated in their study.

Following the court's decision, there has been renewed debate about whether the welfare state has gone too far in its corrupting social generosity. Foreign Minister and Vice-Chancellor Guido Westerwelle raised his voice louder than others. The Free Democratic Party, which he heads, is considered by the broad masses to be the “party of the rich.” Mr. Westerwelle said: “He who promises the people prosperity for which they do not have to strain, invites them to the times of the late decline of the Roman Empire.” The vice-chancellor saw “socialist features” in the benefit payment system.

Mr. Westerwelle's remarks have become the subject of debate in high political circles. The “Greens” demanded from the German Chancellor a government statement on the socio-political line of the coalition, since the Vice-Chancellor “in the conditions of a severe economic crisis calls into question the very principle of a welfare state.” The head of the opposition Social Democratic Party, Sigmar Gabriel, said Chancellor Angela Merkel “should not remain silent as usual” and called Mr Westerwelle a “socio-political arsonist”.

Ordinary unemployed people are also looking for the vice-chancellor's leadership. The prosecutor's office in the city of Aurich has learned of a complaint from a 42-year-old recipient of social benefits for the long-term unemployed from the village of Filsum in the county of Leer. A representative of the prosecutor's office confirmed that investigators are currently determining whether Mr. Westerwelle's statements constitute a violation of the law based on the complaint filed. The unemployed man is trying to prove that the vice-chancellor’s statements are “discriminatory and insulting” for him.

Yuri Shpakov, Berlin