Word: brandts
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
WEST GERMANY has long feared the predominant market power of the multinationals. Even before the Yom Kippur War, the Bonn government planned to create a state-owned oil company to compete with the majors. After fighting began in the Middle East, gasoline prices in West Germany zoomed. But Willy Brandt's administration did not take countervailing action for fear that the big oil firms would sell their products elsewhere. The Economics Ministry did, however, investigate the way that the multinationals were doing business...
...horizon. Europe today is governed by political technicians who devote most of their energies to tinkering with domestic affairs to remain in power-and do even that badly. Every major leader is beset by crises. Some, like France's Georges Pompidou and West Germany's Willy Brandt, seem tired and bored; others, like Britain's Edward Heath, are fighting for their political lives. All of them are, essentially, afraid to make decisions that would promote the cause of Europe for fear that they might cause momentary domestic complications. As a result, governments indulge in a depressing litany...
...Brandt's Social Democratic Party is in poor shape, riven by conflicts between the radical young socialists (JUSOS) and the party establishment (TIME, April 23, 1973). The JUSOS frighten voters with their intemperate Marxist rhetoric. They dominate local meetings with their aggressive harangues, and they control the party organizations in Munich and Frankfurt...
...with Brandt's failure to curb the JUSOS, his longtime lieutenant, Herbert Wehner, 67, resigned last year as deputy chairman of the party. The two men hardly speak now. Nevertheless, Wehner has just been re-elected floor leader by his colleagues in the Bundestag. However, it is the continuing opposition of Brandt's coalition partners, the Free Democrats, that is largely responsible for his failure to move forward with promised social reforms. The Free Democrats, who hold veto power over all legislation, are locked in an ideological debate with Brandt over how far to go in giving West...
Moody Inaction. Brandt also faces a potentially powerful backlash from the faltering West German economy, once the miracle of Europe. The inflation rate has reached 8% yearly, which by conservative German standards is frightening. Unemployment has risen from 331,800 last November to 485,000 in December. The automobile and chemical industries are in their worst decline since the recession...