ARD-DeutschlandTREND

Support for big enterprises: What should the government do?

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Statements about the situation at Opel

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Should the government cut taxes and dues? Or pursue a policy of austerity?

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German reunification: do advantages or disadvantages prevail?

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Despite of an increasing rate of infections with the so called “swine flu” the population’s willingness to get vaccinated is still limited: Only 14 percent say they are definitely willing to get the immunisation protection. In addition, 20 percent are presumably planning to receive it – these figures have barely increased compared to last month.

44 percent of the German Population believe that the German economy is already recovering from the crisis: they expect the economic situation of the country to improve within one year’s time. Although about two-thirds (65 percent) do not feel a direct impact of the crisis yet there is a majority suspecting that the bottom of the economic recession has not been reached yet (56 percent). Furthermore, a majority fears that there might be an impact on one’s personal situation in the future (55 percent). The population is split by the question how economic policies should react to the crisis: while 50 would prefer a policy of austerity, 45 percent are in favour of cutting dues and taxes instead. However, trust in the new government to handle the crisis is quite high (58 percent).

Several projects described in the coalition-agreement of CDU, CSU and FDP get a positive feedback by most of the German citizens. This particularly applies for the planned increase in expenditures for education (90 percent) and the increase in child allowances and benefits (77 percent). Also quite many (75 percent) agree with the planned increase in the amount of protected property that those receiving Hartz IV (a special kind of social security in Germany) are allowed to keep while receiving payments from the state. A majority is also in favour of increasing competition between health insurance companies (55 percent) and a reform of the income-tax that shall cause a tax relief of 24 Billion Euro (54 percent). However a majority opposes the new coalition’s plans for extending the operational life span of nuclear power plants (52 percent) as well as for limiting the duration of the compulsory army service (59 percent).

From the view of 39 percent of the population the CDU has been most successful in enforcing their positions during the negotiations for the coalition agreement but remarkable 37 percent credit the Liberals (FDP) with this. Only 4 percent find that the CSU has been the strongest force in the coalition negotiations.

In general there is a lot of public support for the coalition’s decisions on how to fill the ministerial positions in the new government with family minister Ursula von der Leyen receiving the most positive feedback (76 percent). Only for one single member of the new cabinet scepticism slightly outweighs positive expectations: 42 percent regard Guido Westerwelle as a proper cast for the position as the chief diplomat of the Federal Republic, 44 percent deem the contrary.

Twenty years after the Berlin Wall came down a majority of East-Germans say they personally gained through the reunification (56 percent). For 58 percent of them advantages outweigh the drawbacks of the changes that happened since 1989. However, a majority criticises that the society has become more unjust since then (64 percent). Only half of the East-German population retrospectively regards the former GDR as an unjust state (51 percent).

In an upcoming election 35 percent would vote for the Union of CDU and CSU, which is a plus of one percentage point compared to last month. The Social Democrats would reach 22 percent (-1). The Liberals could expect a vote share of 14 percent (+/- 0). The Greens and the Left Party would receive 12 percent of the vote each, meaning a a slight loss (-1) for the Left Party and a slight win (+1) for the Greens.

These are the most central results of ARD-DeutschlandTREND in October, conducted by Infratest dimap on behalf of ARD-Tagesthemen and six daily newspapers. In a representative survey among eligible voters in Germany, 1.000 persons were questioned by telephone from 2nd until 3rd October and 1.750 from 2nd until 4th October for the voting preference poll. The survey design allows for generalization of results to the German voting population, with an error margin of 1.4 to 3.1 percentage points