Word: brandts
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...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...
...Even Brandt's major achievement, Ostpolitik, which opened West Germany's dialogues with Eastern Europe, is now under criticism as being more theater than substance. Instead of his promised increase in the exchange of people and ideas between the two Germanys, there has been a crackdown by East Germany's Communist rulers on contacts with the West...
...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...