Konrad honoured
On Thursday, renowned Hungarian writer and former dissident György Konrad was awarded the Karlspreis (Charlemagne Prize) in the city of Aachen.
The prize, bearing the name of Frankish king, Roman Emperor and "founder of Europe" Charlemagne (Karl der Große), is awarded annually in his historical 'capital' of Aachen to personalities of outstanding merit regarding the cause of European integration.
In his laudatio on Konrad, who, since 1997, has been president of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Arts, former German federal president Roman Herzog called him a leading "moral authority" (moralische Autorität) for a larger Europe and an "uncompromising defender of humanism."
Konrad himself, in his thanking speech, scolded the West for its inconsistent approach to many challenges of the 1990s. Notably, he criticized the inept handling of the Yugoslav wars by NATO and the failure to achieve lasting stability in the region. He called on the European Union to press ahead with enlargement and to keep Southeast Europe in its sights.
Another compensation problem
After the German government and parliament, as well as the industry associations, finally agreed last week that German companies in the USA were now protected by a "legal truce" (Rechtsfrieden), which removed the threat of further lawsuits over slave labour in Nazi Germany, the uneasy partners in the joint parliamentary and business foundation overseeing the related compensation fund seem to have found a new thing to quarrel about.
Representatives of former slave labourers are insisting that interest money from the fund's DEM ten billion (EUR 5.2 billion), which has accumulated due to the delay in forwarding payments, be added to this sum and also given to the persons entitled to compensation from fund. The fund's management has rejected this claim.
At the same time, the Greens' legal expert Volker Beck has called for an extension of the period during which individuals can make a formal claim to the fund's money-namely, from 12 August (as it is now) to 31 December 2001. The Bundestag (German parliament) is set to formally state Rechtsfrieden on the forthcoming Wednesday.
A new Common Agricultural Policy
Federal Minister for Consumer Protection and Agriculture Renate Künast has called on the European Union to sharply reduce the share of the EU budget of expenses on agriculture as a necessary preparational step towards enlargement.
Berlin is broke
The German capital seems to be technically bankrupt in its capacity as a German Bundesland (federal state) after an unexpectedly heavy revenue loss suffered by city-owned Bankgesellschaft Berlin.
The crisis and political scandal linked to irregularities going on under long-time Bankgesellschaft chairman-and head of the Christian Democratic parliamentary club-Klaus Landowsky has already brought the incumbent coalition of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats to the brink of falling apart.
Now, all observers see a financial intervention of the federal government as the last resort to prevent the capital from becoming a budgetary casualty. Since the Social Democrats are still in the Land's government, chancellor Gerhard Schröder and the Social Demcratic party leadership appear almost bound to step in and bail the reeling comrades out. However, federal finance minister "Iron Hans" Eichel will not look mercifully upon such a move.
Jens Boysen, 25 May 2001
Moving on:
Sources:
Süddeutsche Zeitung
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (English online edition)
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