Aktuelle politische und wirtschaftliche Entwicklungen und Fallbezug
This domain rewards candidates who connect course concepts to dated, verifiable developments and who analyse a controversy instead of summarising headlines. Expect tasks built on a recent quotation, a coalition agreement extract or a statistic from the last two years.
Structural breaks to know
The Ampel coalition collapsed in November 2024; Olaf Scholz lost the Vertrauensfrage in December 2024, the Bundestag was dissolved and the election of 23 February 2025 produced a CDU/CSU–SPD coalition under Friedrich Merz. In March 2025 the outgoing Bundestag amended the Grundgesetz with a two-thirds majority: defence spending above 1% of GDP is exempt from the Schuldenbremse, the Länder gain modest borrowing room, and a €500bn Sondervermögen funds infrastructure and climate projects over twelve years. The Zeitenwende (2022) had already created a €100bn Bundeswehr fund.
Policy fields
Energy and climate: nuclear phase-out (April 2023), Gebäudeenergiegesetz, renewables supplying roughly 60% of electricity, and the 2021 Klimabeschluss of the BVerfG requiring intertemporal fairness. Migration: the EU Asylum and Migration Pact (2024, application from 2026), border controls and litigation over asylum benefits. Social policy: the 2024 pension package, Aktienrente and the debate about recasting Bürgergeld. EU and trade: reformed fiscal rules (2024), NextGenerationEU, de-risking and the China strategy.
Worked example
"Was the March 2025 debt-brake reform justified?" Reasoning: state the criterion - investment backlog versus fiscal sustainability and intergenerational equity; use evidence (public investment gap estimates, a debt ratio around 63% of GDP, rearmament needs); give a Sachurteil (the exemption enables rapid defence spending, but the Sondervermögen is off-budget and weakens transparency); then a Werturteil on whether this shift in the fiscal constitution is acceptable. Close with a qualified judgement.
Traps
Citing dates, sums or coalition configurations you cannot verify; treating the Sondervermögen as part of the regular budget (it is a Schattenhaushalt); describing a controversy without taking a criteria-based position; confusing the 2025 election result with earlier polling; presenting an opinion as fact.