On 1st January 2008, 8 of the 16 German Lander (or states) introduced public smoking bans similar to the one we now have in Wales. Each of the states was free to make its own decision, because under the German federal law, all legislative power resides at the State level, unless specifically reserved under the ‘Basic law’ for the federal government. Consequently, the German Lander governments all have considerably more power than say the Scottish Parliament, let alone the Senedd, and even retain the right to conduct their own international relations.
The largest German state has a population of 18 million, less than half the size of England, and if Wales were part of a federal Germany we would be right in the middle of the rankings, with 8 states larger than us and 8 states smaller.
Yet the British government considers that we are too small a nation to manage our own affairs – oh - and who set up the system of German government?
Yes you guessed - the British......
3 comments:
Great blog!
I totally agree that the current system is a mess, there's one rule for Scotland, a second set for Wales, a third set for Northern Ireland and a fourth set for England, and that's without getting into the various smaller islands (the Isle of Man, Shetland Islands etc...)
Personally I think that we would be better with a proper federation where each 'state' has the same powers, at the very least Wales and NI should be made equal to Scotland.
On another note, isn't it about time Wales was made a Kingdom? Then there wouldn't be any excuse for the Queen not to stick y ddraig goch on her coat of arms, and absolutely no reason why we can't be on the union flag.
I mean, is there any real reason that we can't be?
We need to start devolution from scratch, only the Scots will whinge about it because it may lead to a reduction in their powers.
We need to create a federal nation where every constituent country has a parliament and powers over the same areas, not a mishmash of different powers as we see in Wales and Scotland, and not a system which leaves England as the remnant UK.
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