Concept and Strategy for Implementing the National Action Plan on Health Literacy in Germany

Background In Germany, the development of the National Action Plan on Health Literacy (NAP) was triggered by results of the HLS-GER, the first representative study on HL in Germany, showing that more than half of the German population perceive great problems in processing health information. In response to this, a group of 15 experts from academia, practice and policy worked together on a first draft of the NAP, which was refined based on various stakeholder consultations and finally published in 2018. The plan focuses on four areas of action and initially presents 15 specific recommendations to strengthen health literacy in Germany following five key principles. After the delivery to the Federal Minister of Health in 2018, it quickly became clear that the action plan and its recommendations need additional tools for implementation. Therefore, a systematic implementation strategy was developed. Methods Core elements of the implementation strategy were a systematic dissemination of the plan as well as workshops with important stakeholders from policy, associations, patient and self-help organisations. The aim of the workshops was it to concretise single recommendations of the NAP and to develop additional tools to implement them in specific fields of actions. The workshops led to policy papers, which were consented by a group of stakeholders and again disseminated broadly. Results Through numerous publications and presentations in different contexts the NAP received great attention. Furthermore, seven workshops and one international symposium were conducted focussing on single recommendations of the NAP, each leading to policy papers. The workshops and policy papers contributed to identification with the NAP and motivated the development of tools to promote health literacy. Conclusions The implementation strategy was effective as many stakeholders could be involved. It is also resource and time consuming which needs to be considered in project planning.

29 Art. 80 GG: Issuance of Executive Orders

This chapter discusses the relevant provisions of Art. 80 of the Grundgesetz (GG) with regard to the issuance of executive orders. Under the Grundgesetz, only the federal government, a federal minister, or state governments may create executive orders, and only to the extent that they are expressly authorised to do so by a parliamentary law. The chapter first examines the Federal Constitutional Court's jurisprudence concerning the scope of Art. 80 GG, focussing on the delegation of law-making power to the executive in the form of authorisation to promulgate executive orders. It then considers the specificity of the delegation of powers, with emphasis on the four formulas developed by the Court: foreseeability formula, autonomous decision formula, program formula and clarity formula. It also analyses the requirement of citation for authorities which create an executive order, the procedure for issuing executive orders, and executive orders which require consent by the Bundesrat.

Renewing Democracy: The Rise of Green Politics in West Germany

The September 2013 Bundestag election, which reelected Angela Merkelas chancellor, was a clear defeat for the Green Party. Alliance 90/TheGreens (henceforth the Greens) fared far better than the Free DemocraticParty (FDP), which failed even to score the five percent of the vote requiredfor representation in parliament, but still fell from 10.7 percent to 8.4 percent,losing five of their sixty-eight seats in parliament. Since in March ofthat same year, surveys had shown their support at 17 percent, this disappointingresult forced Jürgen Trittin, the leader of the parliamentary delegationto step down.1 In many ways, this perceived electoral debacle markedthe end of an era. The former Federal Minister of the Envi ron ment, whohad originally joined the party in 1980, told reporters that “a new generation” would have to step forward and lead the party into the 2017campaign. This statement suggested not only that the Greens’ rebelliousfounding impulse was spent, but also that they had become part of theestablishment in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), now requiring areinvigoration of their own. Since the Greens were once expected to be littlemore than a short-lived byproduct of the social conflicts of the 1970s, acloser look at the party’s founding moment at the beginning of the 1980smight shed new light on its current predicament.

Germany's "Excellence Initiative"

In January 2004, German federal minister for higher education and research in the Social Democratic government started a process called the “Excellence Initiative,” which simply selects and supports six universities to be Germany's top institutions of higher learning, with an intensive finance from the federal and state governments. Three competitions were organized for the initiative: graduate schools, excellence clusters, and futures concept. The Excellence Initiative has been breaking the previous notion of the equivalence of universities, in order to maintain international competitiveness of German higher education.

Germany: The Quest for World Class

In 2004 the education and research federal minister made a proposal to identify Germany's top-level institutions to secure Germany's competitiveness and economic future in the emerging knowledge society and to strengthen the international visibility of German universities as high-quality institutions with cutting-edge research. This plan formed the birth of the German "excellence initiative." The initiative not only triggered more competition among German universities; it also marked a conscious shift toward a more vertical differentiation of the system as a whole.

The PHS Case and Federalism-Based Alternatives to Charter Activism

In the recent case of Canada (AG) v PHS Community Services (PHS, often called the Insite Decision), the Supreme Court of Canada purported to offer a case-specific decision limited to Vancouver’s Insite injection facility. The decision saw the Court declare that the Federal Minister of Health could not decline to continue an exemption from narcotics provisions for the Insite Clinic, which provided an injection site for narcotics users in Downtown Eastside Vancouver. Despite the Court’s claim to want a case-specific decision, I argue in the present discussion that by basing their decision on section 7 of the Charter, rather than using the alternative federalism argument that was available, the Court adopted a more activist route with more disruptive future legal consequences.

Zur Bedeutung des Manifests der Marktwirtschaft oder: Das Lambsdorff-Papier im 31. Jahr

In the German federal elections on September 22, 2013, for the first time after 64 years, the Free Democratic Party (FDP) was not elected to the German federal parliament, the Bundestag, anymore. Less surprising than this fact is the malice of its political opponents with which this landslide defeat was accompanied. In this paper, it is argued that the hostility towards the Free Democrats originates from its turn to the Christian Democrats in 1982 with the so called Manifesto for the Market Economy written by Otto Graf Lambsdorff, then Federal Minister of the Economy. The Manifesto argued for a consolidation of public finance and tax reductions, for reforms in the labor market and the social security systems, and for a liberalization and privatization policy. While the Free Democrats did not achieve much of that agenda during the coalition with the Christian Democrats, it influenced the Agenda 2010 by Chancellor Schröder. The paper concludes with a proposal for a renewal of supply side policies in Germany and a renewal of the reform agenda.