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Research papers published by the Research Services of the German Bundestag - 2012
This page sets out the English summaries of the research papers published by the Research Services. A link from the end of the summary will take you to the complete research paper in German.
Please note the disclaimer and copyright notice.
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Individual health services ("IGeL services") in Germany
The term "individual health services" (IGeL services) refers to services for patients, mainly provided by physicians, but also by psychologists and therapists, the costs of which are not covered by the statutory health insurance funds. There are differing views amongst both the parliamentary groups in the German Bundestag and the stakeholders in the health system on the usefulness of the IGeL services. The topic of IGeL services was most recently discussed at the German Bundestag on 29 November 2012 in a debate on the Patients Rights Act.
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The 18 month programme of the upcoming Trio Presidency of the Council of the European Union
With the completion of the Presidency of the Republic of Cyprus on 31 December 2012, the Trio Presidency of Poland, Denmark and Cyprus also came to an end. Ireland, Lithuania and Greece are now taking over the Trio Presidency for the next 18 months. The function of a Trio Presidency is to ensure continuity in the work of the Council and prevent the hand-over of the Council presidency every six months leading to an overly radical change in substantive priorities. To this end, every Trio Presidency adopts what is known as an "18 month programme". Ireland, Lithuania and Greece adopted their 18 month programme in early December 2012 in Brussels. The upcoming Trio Presidency comes against the backdrop of the European Parliament elections in June 2014 and the ensuing appointment of the new members of the European Commission.
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Re-organisation of the agricultural social security system
On 1 January 2013, the 36 agricultural social security funds and their national association will merge to form a new social insurance scheme for agriculture, forestry and horticulture (SVLFG). This will be the culmination of a process of consolidation spanning many years.
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IPEX - interparliamentary EU information exchange
IPEX (InterParliamentary EU information eXchange) is a platform for the exchange of information on issues relating to the European Union between the national parliaments of the EU Member States and candidate countries, as well as with the European Parliament. It provides an overview of the national parliaments’ activities relating to European legislation, on the basis of the Treaty of Lisbon, particularly with regard to subsidiarity and proportionality. To this end, the IPEX website (http://www.ipex.eu) offers a database, password-protected forums, a News section, a calendar of interparliamentary cooperation and various useful links. IPEX also hosts the website of the EU Speakers Conference website.
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Flaring and venting associated gas during oil production
"Associated petroleum gas" is usually released from oil wells during oil production. It is similar to natural gas, but often it is not used and instead is simply vented or flared if companies believe that processing and using it would be too technologically complex or, depending on the location and size of the gas deposits, not profitable enough due to low local market prices. However, these purely economic considerations fail to take into account environmental protection, resource efficiency and the impact on the climate. Worldwide, around 150 billion cubic metres of associated petroleum gas are burned for no value each year. In 2011, the amount of gas burned released 360 million tonnes of carbon dioxide - the amount emitted by 70 million cars. That is equivalent to two per cent of global energy-related carbon emissions. In addition, gas venting emits around 60 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent each year. Fewer than 20 countries are responsible for over 70 per cent of the associated gas wasted around the world. A variety of established technologies exist for capturing and using associated petroleum gas. These include processing it and feeding it into the natural-gas grid, liquefying and then transporting it, using it to generate electricity, and using it in the chemical industry. The launch of the Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership following the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 signalled the first steps on the road to curbing flaring and venting of associated petroleum gas. In addition, the two flexible mechanisms set out in the Kyoto Protocol (the Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation) can turn even unprofitable plans for associated-gas use into projects that make economic sense. Satellite data suggest that associated-gas emissions have remained roughly constant since the start of the century. Given that global oil production has risen sharply in the same period, some observers argue that this decoupling signifies progress.
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The concept of the "Green Economy" as defined in the UNEP report (2011
The Green Economy initiative was originally launched by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). UNEP defines the Green Economy as an economy "that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities". At German level, the Federal Ministries for Research and Environment hosted a conference in September 2012 for around 450 experts from the scientific and political fields, interest groups and other sections of society. This conference was the first step on the path to the new "Green Economy" research programme, which is intended to identify ways in which sustainable production, pricing and consumer behaviour can be achieved through the use of market-oriented instruments.
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International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict
In 2001, the United Nations General Assembly declared 6 November of each year as the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict. Armed conflict has resulted in damage to the environment since antiquity, but the problem has become significantly worse since the 20th century. There is limited scope within the UN framework for action to be taken under international law. The UN has recently focused less on the environmental impact of war and more on the environmental causes of armed conflict.
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The role of the pension replacement rate in ensuring financial security in old age
In the current debate about the risk of poverty in old age, people often talk about the declining replacement rate. In this context, it is important to distinguish between the net replacement rate used in the past and the pre-tax replacement rate which is used today.
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The limits under international law of the right to freedom of expression
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights addresses, in international law, the relationship between the right to freedom of expression and the protection of religious beliefs. Among other things, it requires states to prohibit any advocacy of religious hatred. However, the limits which human rights place on freedom of expression do not justify violence against people who have expressed an offensive opinion.
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Advancement through technology? Sports Engineering and high performance sports
Sports engineering is a field of engineering that involves the design, development and testing of sports equipment. Sports engineering can be split into two distinct categories - embedded and enabling technology. Embedded technology covers the behind-the-scenes systems that allow coaches and training programmes to analyse movement and fine-tune performance. Enabling technology covers the equipment that athletes use to compete. The field of sports engineering involves universities and other research institutions, the private sector and regulatory bodies. The rapid advance of technology means the ethical debates that have surrounded sports engineering for decades are set to intensify in the coming years.
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Brain death - A critical examination of the concept, taking medical, legal and ethical aspects into account
Under the Transplantation Act, brain death is the prerequisite for the removal of organs or tissue to be admissible. The concept of brain death is criticised both from a legal perspective and in ethical and medical terms. The central question is whether brain death is tenable as an indicator of death or whether a new indicator needs to be found. The issues discussed include, on the one hand, the wish that more organs be donated and, on the other hand, the uncertainty as to whether a brain-dead person is truly dead.
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Conflicts of interest in medicine
Conflicts of interest in healthcare can distort judgments on the part of medical practitioners. Efforts are thus being made internationally to find appropriate ways of handling such situations, which cannot generally be avoided, and to identify existing conflicts with a view to ensuring the best possible patient care. Indeed, these conflicts, which can potentially lead to professional misconduct and corruption, have been increasingly at the forefront of public debate following the decision of 29.03.2012 by the Grand Criminal Panel of the Federal Court of Justice which ruled that the terms of section 299 of the Criminal Code (StGB) concerning "Taking and giving bribes in commercial practice" do not apply to established doctors.
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Judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court on the ESM Treaty and Fiscal Compact
This issue of the Topical Term briefly summarises and puts into context the Federal Constitutional Court’s judgment of 12 September 2012, which dismissed as largely without merit a number of applications for an injunction to prevent the drafting of laws on amendment of TFEU Art. 136, on the ESM Treaty and the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union (Fiscal Compact). It looks at the provisos which the Court sets for international ratification of the ESM Treaty: firstly, Germany must ensure with its international partners that in accordance with the cap on liability stipulated in the ESM Treaty, the totality of Germany’s payment obligations will not exceed the country’s portion of the ESM’s authorised capital stock (about 190 billion euros) and that there will be no obligation to pay more than this without Germany’s prior permission. Secondly, assurances must be given that the provisions of the ESM Treaty on the inviolability of ESM documents and the professional secrecy requirements placed upon all persons working for the ESM will not interfere with the right of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat to comprehensive information.
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Changes to the law on organ transplantation
Two new laws - one of them amending the Act on the Donation, Removal and Transplantation of Organs and the other introducing the "decision solution" to the Act on the Donation, Removal and Transplantation of Organs - are intended to improve structures in the field of organ transplantation and thus increase the number of donor organs and the amount of donor tissue made available. All hospitals authorised to remove organs will in future be obliged to appoint a transplant officer responsible for the coordination of the whole organ donation process. The legislative changes also include the anchoring of social security rights to improve social protection for living donors. The "decision solution" introduced through the changes requires the health insurance funds to regularly provide insured persons with information allowing them to take well-founded decisions on whether they would be willing to donate organs or tissue.
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Food transparency: Consumer information portal celebrates its first anniversary
On 20 July 20111, the Internet portal www.lebensmittelklarheit.de was launched. This portal is part of an initiative on "transparency and truth in food labelling" organised by the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection and is run by the Federation of German Consumer Organisations, with the support of the Consumer Advice Centre in the Land of Hesse. This "Topical Term" reviews experience with the portal over the first year, presents the initial findings of accompanying research, along with further steps which are planned.
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Local authority financing
As a result of the sovereign debt crisis, the budgetary and financial crisis facing local authorities is no longer attracting sufficient attention. Yet this crisis has not yet been successfully resolved, though increases in tax revenue in 2012 led to a slight easing of the situation. The structural problems, reflected mainly in an increase in short-term borrowing, have not yet been solved, despite the fact that two specialist finance commissions have examined the question of reforming local-authority funding over the last ten years.
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"Negative voting weight"and "overhang mandates"
In the aftermath of the judgement issued by the Federal Constitutional Court on 25 July 2012, in which the Court ruled central elements of electoral law to be unconstitutional, this Topical Term examines the problems associated with "negative voting weight", whereby winning more second votes can actually cause a party to lose a seat, and "overhang mandates"- extra seats in Parliament created when the number of directly elected constituency candidates in a particular Land is higher than the number of seats to which the party is entitled by virtue of its percentage of second votes. The Topical Term focuses on the central criticisms made by the Court of the current system for the allocation of seats.
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Internet of Things
After the advent of the World Wide Web in the 1990s and mobile Internet in the last decade, the Internet of Things - the third rapid development phase of the Internet - is currently making great strides. This new network, which will in future connect smart everyday objects, has three important elements: information technology will become ubiquitous, invisible and autonomous. Although the new technology offers approaches to tackling some of the most urgent problems in modern industrial societies, it also potentially presents risks and opportunities for misuse, which is one of the reasons why the technology is not so far being used more widely.
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CGZP’s authority to conduct wage negotiations not recognised
On 22 and 23 May 2012, the Federal Labour Court issued a final ruling, stating that the Collective Bargaining Association of Christian Trade Unions for Agency Work and Personnel Service Agencies (CGZP) had not at any point been authorised to conduct wage negotiations. This ruling has far-reaching implications for some parts of the temporary-employment sector, since temporary workers who have so far been paid wages based on the wage agreement with the CGZP can now submit claims with retrospective effect for earnings in line with comparable staff working in their firms. The social-security funds can also submit claims with retrospective effect for payment of the corresponding social-insurance contributions.
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Programme of the Cypriot Presidency of the Council of the EU, 2012
On 1 July 2012, the Republic of Cyprus took over the six-month presidency of the Council of the European Union for the first time since its accession to the EU in 2004. Cyprus wants to work towards a "better Europe", despite the difficult situation at the start of its presidency. Only recently, on 25 June 2012, the country requested assistance from the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). In addition, there is no solution in sight to the Cyprus conflict, which has seen Turkey occupy the northern part of Cyprus since 1974.
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Circumcision and criminal law
Following a recent ruling by Cologne Regional Court, this issue of the Topical Term looks at the legally contentious issue of whether the circumcision of boys on religious grounds is a criminal offence.
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The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) was established in 2001 as an organisation bringing together China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Originally, it focused on security-policy cooperation between the member states; today, in addition to seeking to maintain stability in the region and tackle terrorism, separatism and extremism, it also deals with economic and trade issues.
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Inclusive education in Germany
In December 2006, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). People with disabilities and their advocacy groups had for the first time been involved in the creation and shaping of the Convention. On 26 March 2009, the UNCRPD was ratified in Germany. On 1 December 2011, the German Bundestag also deliberated in depth on the topics of inclusion and disability. The basic idea behind the UNCRPD is to achieve a paradigm shift in perceptions of and behaviour towards disabled people. The aim of inclusion is for the differences between people to be recognised at an individual level. What this means for schools is the dismantling of obstacles to the learning and participation of people with disabilities.
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Shadow banking system
In the current debate about how to strengthen the financial system, discussion of the shadow banking system has become increasingly prominent. The Financial Stability Board (FSB) established by the G20 countries defines the shadow banking system as "credit intermediation involving entities and activities outside the regular banking system". This issue of the Topical Term deals with the volumes, benefits and risks of the shadow banking system as well as considerations about how to regulate it.
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Power to Gas
The term Power to Gas describes new technologies designed for the storage and transport of renewable energies as well for the compensation of fluctuations in such sources due to the variations in the weather and season. Electricity generated locally from renewable sources is converted by way of chemical reactions into CO2-neutral energy carriers with high energy densities. Once electrical energy has been converted into chemically bound energy in the form of hydrogen or methane, it can be utilised later at the same or a different location. It can be transported via the natural gas pipeline network and it can also be stored with the help of the natural gas infrastructure. Moreover, the concept of Power to Gas opens up new possibilities for the exploitation of wind and solar energy both in the sustainable mobility sector and for further chemical processes making use of hydrogen produced through electrolysis.
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Anonymous application processes
The Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency has completed its "Depersonalised Application Procedures" pilot project, which aimed to show whether anonymous job application processes are practical in German companies and public authorities, and how they compare to traditional approaches. This issue of the Topical Term provides a summary of the project’s results.
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The Islamist group Boko Haram
Since 2009 a wave of attacks has been taking place in Nigeria, targeting state security forces as well as churches, mosques, schools and markets; over 900 people have been killed. Responsibility has been claimed by a militant Islamist sect known as Boko Haram, which is calling for the establishment of an Islamic state and the introduction of sharia law throughout the country. This issue of the Topical Term looks at the sect’s structure, aims, and possible international links.
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Fiscal Treaty
The term "fiscal treaty" is used as shorthand for the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union, which has been signed by the heads of state and government of 25 EU Member States - not including the UK and the Czech Republic - but has not yet been ratified. This issue of the Topical Term examines the legal nature of the treaty, its contents and its consequences for the states which ratify it.
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Hate crimes
The term 'hate crime' is used to refer to criminal offences the victims of which have been chosen precisely because they belong to a certain social group that the perpetrator objects to. Currently there are several motions pending on this subject (a bill introduced by the SPD parliamentary group, Bundestag printed paper 17/8131; a motion tabled by the Alliance 90/The Greens parliamentary group, Bundestag printed paper 17/8796; and a bill introduced by the Bundesrat, Bundesrat printed paper 26/12). This Topical Term discusses these and gives examples of similar legislation in other countries.
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Skilled labour shortage in Germany. Statistics, studies, strategies
A representative selection of forecasts, studies and statistics from a variety of research institutes, which are summarised, all expect a shortage of qualified professionals in Germany in the coming years particularly in the maths, IT, science and technology sectors as well as in the health professions. The decisive factors in this shortage are the demographic trend (the shrinking and ageing population) and the transformation of the economy to create a service and information society. According to the 12th Population Projection of the Federal Statistical Office, there will be only approximately 36 million people of working age between 20 and 65 in the year 2060 - that is 27 percent fewer than today. This forecast is based on an optimistic assumption that there will be annual net immigration of 200,000 people. In view of this and other forecasts, a twin strategy is frequently recommended: on the one hand, unlocking the full potential of the domestic labour pool. This means, for example, introducing measures to increase the economic activity of women, models for keeping older workers longer in employment, and for instruments to improve the integration of people with an immigrant background into the labour market; on the other hand, the qualified immigration of foreign skilled labour, which may also entail amending current immigration rules that are seen by some as too bureaucratic.
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Ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court on the German Bundestag’s EFSF Panel
In its judgement of 28 February 2012, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the transfer of decision-making powers concerning the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) from the Bundestag to the nine-person panel established by the Stabilisation Mechanism Act in most cases infringes the rights of the Members of the Bundestag, as enshrined in Article 38 (1), sentence 2 of the Basic Law. The Court ruled that the delegation of powers to the Panel is only permissible for decisions on the EFSF buying up sovereign bonds on the secondary markets.
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Obligations of hosting service providers to protect third-party intellectual property according to the judgment of the European Court of Justice of 16 February 2012 (case no. C-360/10)
In a judgment of principle of 16 February 2012, the Court of Justice of the European Union was asked to rule on whether it is compatible with European Union law for a court order to be issued to a hosting service provider operating as a social network that requires it to introduce a preventative general filter system at its own expense to log all the data of a network’s users for the purpose of preventing the unlawful use of musical, cinematographic or audiovisual works.
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Reserves of the statutory pension scheme
On account of Germany’s good economic performance and the increase in employment, the reserves of the statutory pension insurance scheme have grown in the last few years. The sustainability reserve is approaching the prescribed maximum value of 1.5 months of expenditure.
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Programme of the 2012 Danish Presidency of the EU Council
On January 1, Denmark took over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from Poland for the first half of 2012. The programme of the Presidency is divided into four themes: a responsible Europe, a dynamic Europe, a green Europe and a safe Europe. Even as a non-euro country, the Danish Presidency aims to use these priorities to help solve the economic and financial crisis.
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E-Books
An electronic book (also e-book, ebook, digital book) is a publication in digital form and readable on e-readers, computers or other digital devices. Forecasts indicate a growing demand for digital content around the world. E-books will become established as a further book format in addition to paperbacks and hardcover. The shift to e-books and digital publishing is challenging the basic models of copyright and contracts that underlie the functioning of book markets.
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Council of Europe Convention on the counterfeiting of medical products
On 28 October 2011 in Moscow, Germany signed the Council of Europe Convention on the Counterfeiting of Medical Products and Similar Crimes Involving Threats to Public Health of 4 August 2011. The purpose of the Convention is to introduce substantive criminal law provisions in the member states of the Council of Europe to provide protection against counterfeit medical drugs as well as their supply and trade in them. The Council of Europe’s Convention is essentially born of an initiative of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. A recommendation was made to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 20 April 2007. It called upon the member states of the Council of Europe to create a specific legal framework for dealing with counterfeit medical drugs.