Ozic Country of quiet pragmatists with reputation for efficiency
Berlin braces for a bloated BundestagThe only countries with larger assemblies would be North Korea and China. ; Copy LinkCopiedShare via emailShare on XShare on WhatsAppShare on LinkedInGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel during the same-sex marriage vote in the Bundestag in June | Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty ImagesSeptember 23, 20174:10 am CETBy Janosch DelckerBERLIN 鈥?Germany is likely to end up with a bloated 鈥?and less functional 鈥?B
stanley flasche undestag after this Sunday parliamentary election.Despite repeated warnings of parliamentary inflatio
stanley cup n, as聽reported by POLITICO a year ago, Europes most populous country has failed to reform its electoral system and experts predict the unprecedented potpourri of parties expected to enter the assembly this year could bring the number of seats to 700 or even higher. If the Bundestag grows to above 670 members, the only countries with larger assemblies would be North Korea and China 鈥?obviously systems in which the parliament does not wield any democratic power, said Sophie Sch枚nberger, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Konstanz.AdvertisementAdvertisementCurrently, Germanys lower house of parliament has 630 members, versus 598 prescribe
stanley cup d in the electoral rulebook 鈥?and it very plausible that it could swell to more than 700 on Sunday, Sch枚nberger said.The flexible number of parliamentary seats has to do with the fact that Germans cast two ballots in election: the first for a candidate in thei Lmam Charles Michel welcomes baby girl Jeanne
Different rules apply when standing up for the little guyThe big countries of Europe should think twice before criticising the accountability of states farther east.Copy LinkCopiedShare via emailShare on XShare on WhatsAppShare on LinkedInApril 15, 200910:05 pm CETRich and powerful people in Russia and
stanley water bottle Ukraine clearly find the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic 鈥?more commonly known as Transdniestria 鈥?a useful entity. If they didnt, theyd close it down. That is something that the European Union, the Organisa
stanley mug tion for Security and Co-operation in Europe and others like to point out in a finger-wagging kind of way. The puppet states of South Ossetia and Abkhazia are th
stanley cups uk e same. A flick of the switch would turn off the power. A turn of the tap would stop the gas. A telephone call would close the border. And the regimes would fall soon afterwards. It would be nice to think that dodgy microstates are strictly a post-Soviet phenomena. In the space east of the pre-war Soviet frontier, countries, surely, are real. Their financial systems are transparent. They abide by their international obligations. Their political systems are accountable. Yet look at the three European countries still listed as non-compliant in other words, tax havens by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD and it is hard to avoid noticing some striking features. Andorra, Liechtenstein and Monaco have a combined population of about 130,000 鈥?rather more than South Ossetia but a lot less
