Economist.com Cities Guide: Berlin Briefing - January 2006

News this month

Looking better... for now

The new year has brought optimistic predictions for Germany's troubled economy, with the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), a think-tank based in Berlin, improving its growth predictions for 2006 from 1.5% to 1.7%. Employment is looking up too: figures from the Federal Agency for Employment showed 4.6m people registered as looking for work at the end of 2005, the lowest increase in joblessness in any December—usually a tough month—since Germany's reunification in 1989. Berlin remained dire, however, with 17.8% of the workforce jobless, compared with around 7% in southern Germany.

Naturally, politicians credit the government’s labour reform programme with the positive results. But some analysts put the hopeful indicators down to a one-off surge in spending expected over the coming year, thanks to the football World Cup, which Germany is hosting this summer. Consumers and businesses are also expected to make large purchases before a scheduled rise in sales taxes in 2007.

Star from the east

During Germany's federal election campaign last year, and through the turgid coalition negotiations that followed, many were doubtful about the charms of Angela Merkel, Germany's new Christian Democrat chancellor. Before the vote, her ratings trailed those of Gerhard Schröder, the former Social Democrat chancellor, even in her native eastern Germany. But after two full months in power, she has proved to be surprisingly popular. In mid-January, the public television channel ZDF announced the results of a survey that found her to be the country's most popular politician. This follows another poll in January by a Berlin newspaper that gave her a 60% approval rating, and one in late December, taken in eastern Germany by the Leipzig Institute of Market Research, which gave her 65%.

Unfortunately for Mrs Merkel, the electorate's approval does not extend to her grand coalition government. The newspaper's poll found 67% of respondents pessimistic about Germany's future and unconvinced by the government's ability to solve Germany’s problems, particularly its unemployment.

A terrible time

Berlin's troubled Topography of Terror project finally looks set to move forward in late January, when a jury of politicians and architects will select a new architect. This museum of Nazi history, on the drawing board since 1993, has been plagued by controversy over rising costs and an over-complicated design by Peter Zumthor, a Swiss architect who won the original competition to plan it. Construction ground to a halt in 2000, after a third of the original budget of €38.5m ($46.5m) had been spent and the building threatened to be technically unfeasible. Mr Zumthor was sacked in 2004, and the already-built towers central to his design were knocked down, to allow for a more modest building.

This time around, Berlin's government hopes the construction of the museum, which is to stand on the site of the former Gestapo headquarters, near Potsdamer Platz in the city centre, will go smoothly. The jury will select a architect from a short-list of 23 designs, and work is due to begin at the end of 2006. If all goes well, the Topography of Terror will finally open to the public in 2009.

Better safe than sorry

Five months before Germany hosts the football World Cup finals, the government is planning unprecedented levels of security. Over the next few months, police will vet up to 250,000 people involved in the tournament, including journalists, security personnel and cleaning and catering staff. If officials detect anything suspicious, the person in question will not be allowed anywhere near the tournament's stadiums. Anyone judged a security risk would not be able to find out why, and would not have a right of appeal.

Naturally the policy has its critics, particularly among members of the Green party, for infringing on civil liberties. Dr Alexander Dix, Berlin’s commissioner for data protection, has argued that the measures lack transparency and may even be illegal. But Germany's interior ministry has defended them, saying the tournament's sheer scale makes such stringency the only way to ensure security.

Butt out

In contrast to many other European centres, Berlin remains a smoker's paradise—one-third of locals smoke and it is legal to puff anywhere except on public transport. Most bars, cafés and restaurants do not have smoke-free zones, many hospitals have an area where smoking is permitted, and companies are not legally bound to ban smoking in the workplace. There are only 88 non-smoking eateries in the city, and the only restrictions placed on smoking are voluntary. But now anti-smoking lobby groups are stepping up the pressure to stub out in the German capital.

The city-state's government has set up a working group to come up with ways to improve conditions for non-smokers in bars, cafés and restaurants. Meanwhile, anti-smoking lobby groups, such as Pro-Rauchfrei (“Pro-Smoke-free”), are pushing for a complete ban on smoking in public places in Berlin. The campaigners have the city-state's youth in mind in particular—according to the German government, young Berliners try their first cigarette at the average age of 13. They can easily buy cigarettes from the 13,000 machines scattered in public places all over Berlin. As part of a campaign to abolish the dispensers, Pro-Rauchfrei has stuck banners bearing the legend “every cigarette machine: a silent killer”, on 150 machines around Berlin.

Catch if you can

January 2006

Pablo: The Private Picasso

Until January 22nd 2006

On the heels of last year's blockbuster show of works loaned from New York's Museum of Modern Art, Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie has been luring throngs once again to a superb exhibit. For four months, the gallery has host a retrospective of Picasso’s art, with 90 paintings and sculptures and more than 80 works on paper on loan from the Musée Picasso in Paris, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary. The exhibit uses Picasso’s renderings of himself, his wives, lovers and children to shed light on his private life. His heirs gave these works to the French state in lieu of a death tax, and this is the first time this collection, which includes “Paul as Harlequin”, is being displayed outside of France.

Neue Nationalgalerie am Kulturforum, Potsdamer Strasse 50, 10785 Berlin-Tiergarten. Tel: +49 (30) 266 36 69. For more information visit the gallery's website.

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