Word: bonnes
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...upper house, a majority of the members-21 out of 41-also abstained. Chancellor Willy Brandt, leader of the Social Democratic Party, grandly described the vote as opening "a new phase in the history of the Federal Republic." That may well be so, but, reports TIME'S Bonn Bureau Chief Benjamin Cate, the result was a triumph for neither Brandt nor Rainer Barzel, head of the opposition Christian Democratic Union...
...vote dramatized Bonn's present crisis of leadership. Both Brandt and Barzel had seen the impasse coming at least three months ago, but did little to head it off. Brandt, the brilliant idea man, remained characteristically aloof. He knew that his unstable coalition of Social Democrats and Free Democrats included some potential defectors on the treaty votes; they were treated like traitors, which simply strengthened their resolve to defect...
...Brandt's Ostpolitik has faced West Germany's Christian Democratic Union with an unhappy dilemma. For nearly two years they have been saying that they would never vote for the Treaties of Moscow and Warsaw, which are essential to Brandt's hopes of easing tensions with Bonn's Communist neighbors. Now that the treaties have been put forward for ratification, however, the C.D.U. does not want to bear the onus of killing them, since the pacts have become the keys to further progress in East-West détente. But Brandt's coalition of Social...
Over tea and coffee, the four German leaders agreed to a ten-point declaration, which Falin tentatively approved pending final confirmation from Moscow. The declaration reassured the opposition by stating, among other things, that the treaties, even though they renounce Bonn's claims to former German territories now held by Poland and Russia, do not prejudice the German right to a peaceful reunification and do not establish a legal basis for the present borders...
...Even so, Bonn's parliamentary crisis still will not be solved. Though the Christian Democrats may help ratify the pacts, they intend to seek the overthrow of the Brandt coalition on the next order of government business-the passage of a new budget...