CDU Presentation

My work on CDU Party:

Parliamentary Groups

http://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/bundestag/groups/index.html

A parliamentary group is a voluntary association of Members from one or more parties who pursue the same political aims and who do not compete with one another in any Land. A parliamentary group must comprise at least five percent of the Members of the German Bundestag.

The CDU/CSU parliamentary group has been the largest such group in the German Bundestag since the early federal election of 2005. In the current 17th electoral term of the German Bundestag (2009-2013), it has 237 Members, 193 of whom belong to the CDU and 44 to the CSU. The number of seats held determines their relative strengths.

The formation of a parliamentary group enables them to work together to achieve shared goals.

 http://www.cducsu.de/

Angela Merkel is the Chancellor of Germany (2005 – present) and the Chairwomen of the Christian Democratic Union (2000 - Present).  She is the first female Chancellor of Germany.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volker_Kauder

Volker Kauder is the Chairmen of the CDU/CSU group in the national parliament.

As the strongest parliamentary group supporting the government, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group has the important function of actively shaping legislation together with its coalition partner, the FDP. In this area, parliamentary group chairman Volker Kauder and his team work in close cooperation with Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel and her cabinet. The parliamentary group implements its own political ideas through legislative initiatives, motions and bills, which are prepared by those politicians in the coalition working on the specialised committees.

The parliamentary group plays an instrumental role in helping to form public opinion. At parliamentary group meetings, the views of the individual Members are gathered, thereby enabling the group to speak with a single voice during plenary debates. Prior to these meetings, substantive discussions are held in the working groups and executive committee bodies. In plenary debates on general political topics, the chairman of the parliamentary group adopts the role of group spokesperson. The parliamentary secretaries act as “parliamentary group managers”. They coordinate parliamentary business within the parliamentary group, seek consensus with representatives of the CDU/CSU governments at federal state (Land) level, agree on the parliamentary agenda in the German Bundestag’s Council of Elders and ensure that the Rules of Procedure are adhered to. Sources 09/15/2012:

http://www.cducsu.de/Titel__two_parties_one_joint_parliamentary_group/TabID__19/SubTabID__21/InhaltTypID__98/Texte.aspx

http://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/bundestag/groups/index.html

Group work:  Our group communicated mostly through email.  It is a bit difficult to get a group of nine together to work on a presentation and because we weren't able to meet all together, we could have been a bit more prepared, but in the end it seemed to pull together.  I enjoyed learning about our party and felt it wasn't so different than the united states.  Because the CDU party is the largest of all the parties, it is also the most influencial.

Brandenburg Germany

 
History
 
Brandenburg is relatively new in its current form. It was one of the federal states that emerged after the reunification in 1990. In medieval times (and into early modern times) the area now known as Brandenburg was considered to be the area known as Prussia. Prussia was the first unified state of the German empire. From 1772 to 1918, the area was known as the Kingdom of Prussia, but the area still referred to as Brandenburg was the most important part of the kingdom, becoming a province of Prussia in 1815. There was a sharp increase in population during this time due to a booming industrial economy. Prussia became a free state in 1918 and in 1920 the greater Berlin area marked itself as its own province. Potsdam became the capital city of the Brandenburg province.

After World War II, Prussia was dissolved and Brandenburg was split into separate districts. Brandenburg was a part of East Germany, where there was a socialist government. Brandenburg remained a big player in the agricultural economy of East Germany. On October 15, 1990 the present form of Brandenburg was founded. The reunification of Germany brought much unemployment to the state, as its economy could not compete with the western half of Germany. Recently, the unemployment rate has declined and the economy has picked up significantly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_Gate

The Brandenburg Gate located in Berlin Germany. It got its name because it is supposed to point towards the city of Brandenburg.

 

The Landscape

 

http://www.travelsthroughgermany.com/website2/Maps/bradenburg-map.htm

 

The state of Brandenburg is densely forested and contains Europe’s most extensive landscape of rivers and lakes. There are more than 3000 lakes with the Havel, Spree, and Oder rivers. It contains Lower Oder Valley National Park, three Biosphere Reserves and eleven Nature Parks. Brandenburg surrounds Berlin but does not include the national capital and city-state. The capital city of Brandenburg is Potsdam. Other cities include Cottbus, Brandenburg an der Havel, and Frankfurt (Oder).

Potsdam is situated on the River Havel and is the capital of Brandenburg. It is the largest city in Brandenburg with twelve palaces, including Sanssouci Palace – the summer residence of King Frederick II. Before 1918, Potsdam was the residence of the Prussian kings and German Kaisers. Potsdam has many architecturally significant buildings associated with Prussian royalty. The Babelsberg Film Studio is located in Potsdam and is the oldest, large-scale, film studio in the world. There are three public colleges and more than 30 research institutes in the city.

Cottbus is the cultural centre of the Lower Sorbian minority. It is also home of Brandenburg University of Technology and the maths/science-oriented Max-Steenback-Gymnasium, which is named after the physicist Max Steenbeck.

Brandenburg an der Havel, also known as Brandenburg City, is located on the banks of the River Havel and is the oldest town in the state. During the Nazi era it had a concentration camp, one of the first in Germany. After closing the camp, the Nazis used a prison in Gorden, a suburb of Brandenburg an der Havel, that later became the Brandenburg Euthanasia Centre. Brandenburg an der Havel was one of the first locations where Nazis experimented with killing their victims by gas.

Frankfurt (Oder) is a smaller city in Brandenburg located on the Oder River, which separates Germany and Poland. Frankfurt (Oder) is not to be confused with the larger city Frankfurt am Main located in the state of Hesse. Here, in Frankfurt (Oder) you can walk across the city bridge and be in the Polish town Slubice. Frankfurt an der Oder has one the largest Gothic churches and one of the oldest medieval town halls. The 18^th century German novelist and playwright, Heinrich von Kleist, is the town’s most famous resident.

Demographics

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/Deutschland_Lage_von_Brandenburg.svg/155px-Deutschland_Lage_von_Brandenburg.svg.png

This is a state in northeastern Germany that surrounds, but is independent of the city of Berlin. Poland is to the east of this state and also bordered by other states of Germany such as, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in the north, Freistaat Sachsen in the south, Saxony-Anhalt in the west and Lower Saxony in the northwest. The capital of this state is Potsdam. The population was recorded as 2,495,635 in 2011. The state area is 29,478.63 km²(11,381.76 sq mi).

Economy

 

The main economic industries include agriculture, automotive industry, energy industry, electrical industry and optical industry. 7 universities and 21 other higher-education institutions with more than 182,000 students, as well as over 100 private and public institutes and development facilities make Berlin-Brandenburg one of the densest research networks in Europe.

Brandenburg is a vital place for logistics. Nine out of ten of the biggest German logistic companies are located here, German Railways, German Post, Kühne+Nagel, Dachser, DPD, UPS, Rhenus, Panalpina and Fiege. There are also hundreds of bringing companies located here. The GDP of this state ranked 11^th in 2011 which was 55,090 Euro€ (76,680 US$).



Sources

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg#Geography, 09/04/2012

http://www.brandenburg.de/cms/detail.php/bb2.c.413681.de, 09/04/2012
http://www.unionleader.com/article/20110509/NEWS02/705099975/1001，09/04/2012
http://www.login-bb.de/fileadmin/login/bilder/Presseveroeffentlichungen/WorldMarket_2008-6.pdf, 09/04/2012
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_GDP#2011_List , 09/04/2012

http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/Germany/brandenburg.htm (09/02/12)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg (9/2/12)
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/77676/Brandenburg/277639/Geography (9/2/12)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_an_der_Havel, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam (9/2/12)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottbus, http://www.study-in.de/en/life/culture-travel--11830/ (9/2/12)
http://www.germanfoodguide.com/brandenburg.htm (9/2/12)
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg (9/3/12)
http://www.genealogienetz.de/reg/BRG/bb.html (9/3/12)