Word: schmidts
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Although it is still the strongest major Western European nation, West Germany faces an unemployment rate that hovers around 4%-disturbingly high for a country that four years ago was importing labor and still has 1.9 million foreign workers. Federal government economists have scaled down Schmidt's confident prediction of a 5% G.N.P. growth rate for 1977 to 4.5% at best. Partly because of joblessness, West German youth are restless. Predicts one top-level federal Education Ministry official: "I think we can expect trouble in the fall when the schools reopen...
Despite his reputation as a tough taskmaster, Schmidt has been unable to impose discipline and unity on the S.P.D. The party's rebellious left wing complains that the government, by cutting back on planned increases in the government's share of medical care and student assistance, is reneging on its promise to pursue a vigorous social reforms policy. In economic policy, Schmidt has been cautiously conservative, fearing that too much stimulation would trigger a high inflationary cycle. Says one disaffected S.P.D. Bundestag member: "Hell, Schmidt could just as well be Chancellor of the C.D.U...
Significantly, party whips had to go all out to round up support for Schmidt on the censure vote that was brought by the opposition on a legal technicality. (The constitutional court ruled that Schmidt, while Finance Minister in 1973, had exceeded his authority by spending beyond the budget without parliamentary approval...
...troublesome far-left faction of the S.P.D.'s Young Socialists (Jusos) added to the strains on Schmidt last March by electing a militant president, Klaus-Uwe Benneter, who advocates cooperation with the Communists. That was too much even for other left-wingers in the S.P.D.: Benneter was fired from his post and ejected from the party. Meanwhile, Schmidt's F.D.P. coalition partners have been pressing the Chancellor for even more restraint in social policy and further tax cuts. To exploit these differences, the opposition has been courting the F.D.P., in hopes of breaking up the coalition and thereby...
Stricter Controls. Meanwhile, Bonn's relations with Washington remain cool. Although Carter at the London summit in May eased up on his demands that Schmidt should reflate the German economy, deep differences on nuclear policy remain. Bonn two weeks ago announced it would stop "for the time being" export of nuclear reprocessing and recycling plants. Schmidt insists that the Carter goal of a permanent ban is "unrealistic," since countries seeking atomic technology can easily buy it from the Soviet Union. When the two leaders meet in Washington in mid-July, Schmidt will repeat his argument to Carter that nonproliferation...