14 Jul 16 05:55, Robert Bashe wrote to Gerrit Kuehn:
RB> referendums as well. But there is NO! provision for national RB> referendums in Germany.
And not even this is true: You can (in some cases: must) hold a national referendum when restructuring the country.
It has been tried multiple times to extend this to other subjects. Last attempt was in 2013 (suggested by SPD and CSU during the coalition talks, but voted down by CDU). It will probably come sooner or later, but after seeing how this kind of stuff turns out in other countries, I'm not sure I'll like it.
Local referendums are great, I was part of one in 2014. And meanwhile (just look at the latest decisions and developments in Hamburg!) politicians are so afraid of this instrument that the threat of it alone brings them together and forces them to actually find a viable compromise.
This looks in many cases much better to me than squeezing some complicated political question into a simple YES/NO decision and then have people making election campaigns about this (often using even more simple arguments). Just look how the campaign in Britain spoiled the whole atmosphere in their society.
Regards, Gerrit
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