One news headline out of Germany this week will probably never make it into any English language news report, so we decided to provide a summary.
The likely "grand" coalition of CDU and SPD is worried about the rights of the parliamentary opposition.
Read this line again, especially if you hail from the United States.
What these worries are about: If and when CDU and SPD get together this time around, they will enjoy a combined 80% of the votes in the national parliament.
Which leaves some 20% to the opposition parties, the green party and "Die Linke".
This figure of 20% is so small that the opposition will be excluded from several important parliamentary tools. For instance, the number of votes needed to set up an investigative committee or hearing stands at 25%.
Another tool limited this way is calling for a review of the constitutionality of a law by Germany's equivalent to the Supreme Court.
Apparently, other hurdles apply, but we only cite these two, since they figured most prominently in the news reports.
The fact that the two big parties are not only talking about the issue but are willing to find ways to not deprive the opposition of its most powerful tools is noteworthy and outright strange to folks who have seen a "winner takes all" system from the inside.
Don't dismiss this as the German equivalent of our famous, if hollow, reach out to the other side of the aisle. Keeping the congressional filibuster so you can use it later if you don't win a majority has nothing on the Germans here.
It is very unlikely that you or I will live to see the CDU or even the SPD in a position in which they would need, want, or be offered anything like we are seeing right now.
Time will tell if the worries expressed so vocally will lead to meaningful action, after all politics in Germany can be as ruthless and partisan as elsewhere.
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