Merkel and Prime Minister seal billion package.

After much wrangling are federal and state agree: 18 billion euros in addition to it until 2019 for research and education spending. This is what German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the countries leaders decided. But after the national election could be the controversy over the special re-started.

 

How good humored the Chancellor on this Thursday afternoon is getting her first speaker to be felt. Hardly has Angela Merkel in the midst of the countries leaders Stanislaw Tillich and Klaus Wowereit at the podium speaking, since it already sets off and welcomed the numerous journalists at the end of the conference at the Prime Minister Chancellery - in fact the job of government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm. The making of a short edge of the podium from felt, we joked back and forth, then leaves Merkel continued. "A very profitable meeting" is behind them, says the Chancellor and radiates into the round. That is despite the budget problems to billions programs for several universities and research could do for students and professors a "signal of predictability" - the science in Germany is therefore sustainable.

AP
Uni-Lab (in Munich): More money for research

The scramble, which does not seem to end, but now culminated in a decision. In the months since negotiated three programs for higher education and research in the value of several billion euros have been Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and the prime ministers of the countries in Berlin on Thursday agreed.

Federation and the Länder want to 2019 around 18 billion euros to spend extra for the continuation of the Higher Education Pact, the Excellence Initiative and the Pact for Research and Innovation. Merkel called the agreement "a contribution to the future viability of the science in Germany".

On the signal of predictability ", the universities and research organizations have a long wait. Now the expiring programs written. After the decision in the Federal Chancellery said Federal Education Minister Annette Schavan (CDU), it was "a good day for science." The first successes of the three initiatives identified Schavan around 4200 employees covered by the Excellence Initiative have been obtained had the number of doctoral students had with the Pact for Research and Innovation annually by about ten percent. These young scientists could now keep the research and the research work even expand. "We are talking about up to 30,000 scientific researchers and technical staff on temporary contracts," the CDU politician.

Agreement under budget proviso

Chancellor Merkel and the Prime Minister had made up entirely implausible when on Thursday the 18-billion-dollar package for future education and science, focusing on the next ten years, the blessing would have failed. The Chancellor has a first major promise of their
Dresdner Education Summit of October 2008 amount.

6.4 billion euros for 275,000 additional student places by 2018, to 1.5 billion for a better working facilities for university research, targeted budget increases annually by five percent for the research organizations by 2015 and further 2.7 billion for the new edition of the Excellence Initiative to build top research universities and elite - that is at least in the federal-state contracts.

Whether the promised money from 2011 from the budgets of federal and state really in universities and research goes, but is still under budget proviso - similar to some previous Bund-Länder-specific too. But just below the constellation party then in federal and state government, it easily will be no government of the promises once again be able to adopt.

German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück (SPD), had just over one months trying to take a decision on the three Federal pact until after the parliamentary elections be postponed - and did so after months of dispute reached agreement of the Joint Scientific Meeting of the Federation and the Länder (GWK ) to the state education and research expenditure
once again threatened.

In the autumn following the Kassensturz

Thomas Oppermann, parliamentary manager of the SPD parliamentary group, holds the additional expenditure for higher education and research is essential. "But who is more future investment for education announced, but promises tax cuts will not keep both," says former science minister in Lower Saxony. The SPD will make clear how the lack of education for the money will rise.

First of all, the enthusiasm over the seal of the Covenant in the education and research policy of European Union and the SPD, but great. Michael Kretschmann (CDU) is particularly long disputed the five-percent increase in research. "That is well above the inflation rate and it is precisely in times of crisis, the future right signal."

GWK-DECISIONS: WHO DOES WHAT FOR WHAT?

Higher IIExzellenzinitiativePakt pact for research

By 2015 to more than 275,000 students
2005 created. The cost of around 6.4 billion euros
want the federal and state share. Compared with the 2007 closed
Higher Education Pact I that had been 91,000 extra places by beginners
2010 provided, the expenditure per student of 22,000 euros to
26,000 euro to be increased. In addition, a research -
Lump sum of around 1.5 billion euros. It aims at projects
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for a better
Equipment at the universities provide. The costs
The federal government alone. Source: Reuters

For the commitments still to 2011
Excellence initiative are ongoing 2.7 billion euros.
The federal government is again three-quarters of the costs, the countries of the rest The funds are again in competition. The first
Excellence initiative, which even from the previous red-green government
started, had a volume of 1.9 billion euros. The goal is
the establishment of an internationally recognized cutting-edge research to
German universities. Planned are three program pillars again with
different axes. In the third program line
concepts for the development of elite universities were awarded prizes. Source: Reuters

The before Bundestagswahl 2005 pact should be continued - also by 2015.
The federal government has proposed that the budgets of the major
Research organizations by at least five percent
increased - even to tariff increases and higher energy costs
offset. The basic funding of the five major
Research organizations - including the Max Planck Society and
DFG - 2008 amounted to around 5.7 billion euros. Source: Reuters

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Straw Peter Schneider, chairman of the Science Council, said the policy had "far-sightedness and prudence under the difficult conditions of economic crisis proved". Federal and state had made it clear that they had seriously with the promise, "Education and science to the forefront of the political priority list" to - a successful example of federal cooperation, "said Schneider straw.

The Rhineland-Palatinate Science Minister Doris Ahnen was "very relieved" about the agreement. "Thus we have the green light and previous statements of intent are clear commitments diminished." This predictability is important for the development of higher education and scientific landscape, said ancestors, including the SPD-governed countries in matters of education represents.

It had like eight Steinbrück CDU regional finance ministers with the rather extensive financial commitments until after the parliamentary elections in September maintained. In autumn, a total Kassensturz in the education and research spending at about the time a high-level working group of federal and state breed.

Happy Chancellor, radiant land lords

Core message of the Dresdner Education Summit was that federal and state until 2015 their education and research spending to ten percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to increase - and seven percent for education and three percent for research. To achieve this, the working group proposals.

Based on the year of 2008, they would be spending about 60 billion euros. But what if the GDP as it is now in crisis is rising instead of falling? In some ministries of finance is already being tried, the education budget to be beautiful, which on the expenditure side, the first pension expenditure for teachers or fictitious building rents for state-owned universities will be expelled.

Anyway percent have political objectives in changing its output data pitfalls. On the Education Summit, Dresden was also the target has been confirmed, now 40 per cent of a year, higher education possible. The Essen education researcher Klaus Klemm has calculated that it is now clear, given the low birth rates already from 2020 the reduction of more than 70,000 university places would mean - the federal government and the country just before painstakingly created.

But on Thursday we saw in Berlin, once a happy and radiant chancellor prime minister. The paralyzing Federal powers seemed forgotten. Without education summit - it was so confident in the Chancellor - would have not been so far. The sequel follows after the election.

That at the end barely a journalist or something on the outcome of the Prime Minister's Conference would like to ask, can the whim of the Chancellor is not dull - it feels in their high esteem even more strengthened. In standing up Merkel whispered into the microphone: "For large orders is always very fast."