s years to block the tax-reform bills of the Kohl government. The SPD managed to have its way by offering inducements to defect and vote for the SPD-Green bill to state governments of Bremen (ruled by an SPD/CDU coalition), Berlin (ruled by a CDU/SPD coalition), and Brandenburg (ruled by an SPD/CDU coalition). In the end, the Schröder government won in a vote of 41–28, even though it needed only 35 votes. The law, which was scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2001, created DM 50 billion (about $22 billion) in tax breaks through the year 2005. Bundesrat passage came only after an overnight session of cajoling, in which the coalition managed to wring out concessions. The bill was touted as a key to attracting more investment in Germany by harmonizing the tax-rate structure with those of other industrialized nations. The bill lowered the top personal income tax rate to 42%, down from 51%, and the corporate tax rate to 25%, down from 40%. The decision to eliminate the tax on sales of corporations (set to start in 2002) was welcomed by industry as a step that would make sweeping corporate restructuring possible. German business leaders had viewed this tax—set at about 50%—as punitive.
The second item on the landmark reform agenda was pension reform. The projections were compelling: if in 2000 there were 47 retirees for every 100 members of the workforce, by 2050, it was projected, there would be 104 retirees for every 100 workers. The challenge posed by these demographic trends, one that the SPD-Green government had inherited from its predecessors of the Kohl era, was to find the right balance and timing for increasing pension contributions and reducing pension payments. Reaching agreement within the SPD and Green coalition was a feat in itself, accomplished only after an all-night session ending November 14. During December the coalition tinkered with draft legislation to make it more acceptable to the opposition, but by the end of the year it was still too early to schedule a vote for this long-sought piece of legislation.
The unemployment rate, while still high at over 9%, dropped in August to its lowest level since 1995. The reduction in unemployment, however, was registered primarily in the former West German states. The rates in eastern and western Germany remained critically far apart; in August the unemployment figures were 17% in the east but only 7.4% in the west.
The sustained weakness of the Deutsche Mark and the euro was troubling. The new European currency had been launched on Jan. 1, 1999, at an exchange rate of about $1.17 to the euro amid boasts by European statesmen that it would rival the U.S. dollar in strength and stability. It traded at well under $0.90 for much of the year. Rather than try to talk up the euro, Schröder affected disinterest in September, for which the market rewarded him with an all-time low. As signs of U.S. economic weakness became evident in December, the euro showed signs of modest recovery.
The “Green Card”—the English-language term that Germans used to name a plan to provide visas to 20,000 foreign computer engineers urgently needed to augment the country’s high-tech labour force—attracted much attention during the year. Germany had a high unemployment rate, and fully 9% of the population of the country was already defined as foreigners, so this was a question that occasioned intense economic and social debates. The law passed in the parliament in July, however, and within the first month, 1,360 work permits were granted to computer specialists from India, Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic states, and Romania. They were hired primarily by smaller German companies.
Two ecological issues figured prominently in the German economy during the year. First was the “eco-tax,” a law that had entered into force in April 1999 and called for taxes on gasoline to rise by 6 pfennigs a litre (about 10 cents a gallon) each year until 2003. Steep fuel-price rises in 2000 reignited opposition. Demonstrations, especially among truckers, put pressure on the coalition to backtrack on the eco-tax, but the gov