Having been around Germany (off and on) since 1978....I've seen a fair number of changes, evolution, and transformation (some positive....some negative). So if I pull out my crystal ball, and project to 2030, these are my ten predictions of things to come:
1. The Green Party will edge out the CDU Party in the 2021 election, and send Robert Habeck to be Chancellor of Germany....for a brief four-year period. The coalition will be a Green-SPD-Linke Party situation.
2. After a fairly stunning and spiral (downward) period, the 2025 German national election will occur, and the AfD Party will be able to win the election with less than 25-percent of the vote. Voters will be disgruntled over the Greens, the SPD, and the CDU.....but find no real political solution. The AfD will not be able to form a government, and a weak marginalized Green Party will end up taking the leadership role, with majority of Germans negative about another four years of Habeck and the Greens.
3. The effort by ARD (public TV) to champion another rise out of the monthly TV-media tax (from 17.50 Euro a month to 18.50 Euro) in 2021....will ultimately fail. ARD will waltz around for two years and continually threaten to downsize 'something', and by 2023....will cut around one-third of public radio services, and refuse to bid on Olympic games coverage.....then find that no one really is bothered by either cut.
4. The German effort to halt all gas and diesel new car sales in 2030? Shockingly, they will find a large number of Germans going beyond the borders, buying slightly used gas/diesel cars, and importing back into Germany. Another law will be drafted with high import taxes to halt this. The tax will be challenged in court and fail via the EU court system. The effort to get the majority of Germans to battery-powered cars by 2030....will ultimately fail.
5. As coal and nuke power start to decrease rapidly....speculation will start to increase on how dependable the wind, solar, and hydro power grid can be. A majority of Germans will be paying double of the 2020 electrical cost in 2030. At least ten-percent of Germany's power needs will come via another country (via their nuke or coal-powered plants). The public will ask why, and receive virtually no answer from the government.
6. The US will have vacated all bases in Germany. The Kaiserslautern region will be hard-hit, and find almost no re-use of the local Army-Air Force installations.
7. At least a thousand communities/villages in Germany....which had a grocery store existing in 2010.....will not have a grocery store in operation in 2030.
8. An attempt to make Tasers legal for Germans to buy and carry on themselves.....will ultimately fail.
9. Still at 2030, deportation of failed-asylum seekers will be openly discussed as a major problem, with still no resolution.
10. By 2030, some Germans will be openly discussing why bother having a Bundestag existing, when the EU does basically everything required.
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