2006-2010: Domestic Policy
Education Reforms
Soon after the 2nd Korwin-Mikke Cabinet was voted in, CD.P Minister of Education Kristin Neuman rolled out her plans for a modernization of Prussia’s education system. In 2006, several experts where appointed to write an education guide that would teach the youth how to work with computers. At the same time, subsidies were written out by the government to schools who wanted to buy computers in large amounts. In the meantime, Minister Neuman wanted to address the shortage of teachers in the country. Currently, around 3% of the population was employed as a teacher, Neuman aimed to increase that number to 4%. One of the methods she employed was increasing the wages of government employed teachers (in-game I shifted my national focuses from encouraging capitalists to encouraging teachers). The effects were gradually felt as more and more young people signed up for programs to become an educator. By 2008, the informatization of Prussia education system had been fully implemented, to the point that even primary schools in the countryside could rely on a minimum amount of computers.
As soon as the informatization of the education system had gone through, Minister Neuman put her attention to Prussia’s network of universities. In countries like the US or the GUK, prestigious universities often had access to large databanks containing information. Prussia did not have such a system yet and universities often still relied on their own libraries or on basic internet pages. That’s why in 2008, Minister Neuman sat together with the rectors of the biggest universities to discuss the possibility of a very high-speed university network. The rectors agreed to investing in a network where all the scientific knowledge produced by their universities would be gathered, on the condition that the government would take part in the project and fund the actual implementation. Minister Neuman agreed, completing another step in the education reforms of the 2nd Korwin-Mikke Cabinet. By the end of 2009, the database network was complete, allowing both the government and the universities to benefit from an increase in research and education efficiency.
Reform of the Presidency
Under the current constitution, President von Bismarck was just a ceremonial figure who only occasionally had to receive foreign dignitaries. A joint proposal by the CD.P and LPP to change that was proposed in May of 2006 and aimed to give the President the position of Commander in Chief of the Armed forces, as well as expanding his set of diplomatic tasks to include representing Prussia abroad and signing international treaties. The reform clearly mirrored the authority of the German President and was probably intended to put Prussia and Germany on the same institutional level. The SAP, who supported the previous proposal by the LPP to turn the President into a directly elected official, now opposed the reform because it would give too much power to a non-elected President. Even though the SDP supported the amendment because it would make reunification with Germany easier, Patrick Schwarzenegger bended to the SAP to form a united front against the reform. The needed 2/3rds majority was off the table. And so President von Bismarck came into play. He approached the Chancellor and convinced him to talk to the SAP in order to come to an agreement. Chancellor Korwin-Mikke then invited Schwartzmann to his office and asked him what it would take for the SAP to approve the amendment. Schwartzmann was clear, the President should be elected by the people if he gets the power described by the amendment. The SAP’s leader went even further and demanded that presidential elections would be held the moment the amendment was ratified. Chancellor Korwin-Mikke was not amused and ended the meeting. In the meantime, Vice-Chancellor Tusk had approached the SDP to get them to support the amendment. Patrick Schwarzenegger, now torn between the Popular Front with the SAP or the prospect of German reunification, agreed to support the amendment on less demanding conditions. The SDP would support the amendment, but the president had to be elected by the people. But unlike the SAP, Schwarzenegger agreed that President von Bismarck would sit out his term. And so Josef Tusk had smelled weakness in the Popular Front and had used it to his advantage. After Korwin-Mikke confirmed his agreement with the terms laid out by the SDP, the amendment was passed with 245 votes in favour, 91 against and 15 abstained. Even though some within the SDP rebelled against the party leadership and abstained, the amendment still went through. President von Bismarck was now the Commander in Chief and held more diplomatic power than before. The question of his succession/re-election would be decided by popular vote in 2010, using the IRV system to guarantee a majority rather than a plurality of people supporting the President-elect.
Continued Army Restructuring
In April of 2006, another batch of new recruits finished their training and were ready to be deployed. A month later, when President von Bismarck became Commander in Chief, a large military parade was held in Königsberg to celebrate the occasion. It was the first time the Prussian people could admire the newly reformed army divisions in their full glory. Reminiscent of the old German imperial forces, thousands of young men marched through the streets of the capital. Following the public event, the army reported a huge increase in applications by young men and women who wanted to join the army. And so President von Bismarck ordered 9 more divisions to be recruited from these new applicants. An additional four mechanized infantry divisions, four tank divisions and one artillery division were being prepared for deployment.
The army reforms and expansion would prove crucial in 2008 and 2009 when Prussia joined two UN peacekeeping missions in Africa (more on that in the next chapter). Following a report that analysed Prussian involvement in the peacekeeping missions, President von Bismarck decided to invest in the areas which needed more attention. And so he sat together with Minister of Defence Alexander Stieglitzer (JP) to train a certain amount of outstanding recruits to become sharpshooters and update their equipment. Deployment in Africa had proven that large engagements were often costly, especially against guerrilla fighters who knew the terrain well. Sharpshooters and recon units would be capable of dealing with such threats from a long distance, thus protecting the main cohorts of infantry divisions.
Another important lesson was that on these kind of missions, speed was a very important factor. Infrastructure in African countries was often lacking and thus slowed down our tank division. While Prussia did possess a small arsenal of helicopters, investing in more of them would allow a quicker deployment of troops in combat areas in the future. And so in 2010, Minister Stieglitzer, together with the President, looked into the possibility of a special forces division which could be deployed alongside other divisions to support their operations.
In addition to these minor reforms, the Prussian government also made work of reinvigorating the air force. Currently, its reserve consisted of outdated Russian third-generation fighter jets which probably wouldn’t even survive take-off. And so in 2009 Minister Stieglitzer made a deal with the Russian Minister of Defence to buy some of their fourth-generation fighter jets to update the Prussian airforce. Four Sukhoi Su-27s were bought to replenish the Prussian reserves. By 2010 the update of the winged Prussians was fully completed and the fighter jets were ready to be deployed if needed.
Final infrastructure updates
By May of 2006, the second phase in Prussia’s infrastructure works were completed and so the next stage could begin. Instead of further working on the railroads, it was now the turn of Prussia’s highways. Many of the major ones had been constructed before the Second Weltkrieg and had been expanded under Volkspartei rule in the 1950s. But as they were primarily used by heavy Russian army vehicles, the highways have deteriorated incredibly over the decades. With civilian use now the primary purpose of the roads since Prussia became a democracy, the roads are up to an upgrade. And so two years of traffic jams and road works began. In 2008, the infrastructure works came to a halt however, as the global financial crisis had set in in Prussia and private investors were scared away from big investments in public property. It was only in 2010, when the crisis had already settled somewhat, that the government reinvigorated the country’s infrastructure updates by expanding the airports of Posen and Königsberg.
2008 Financial Crisis
In 2008, a failing US invasion of Afghanistan and an exploding bubble in the real estate market led to a global financial crisis. Initially, the crisis remained contained within the US, but soon the globalist links of the banks would spread the trouble to Europe. As news came to light that the Byzantine government had been forging statistics to be able to comply to Eurozone standards, insecurity spread through Southern Europe and crashed many European economies. In Prussia, the situation was even more dire than in the Eurozone. Many banks within the Eurozone were helped out relatively soon by the European Central Bank, but in Prussia the financial sector wasn’t that strong to begin with. To add oil to the fire, it turned out that many Prussian investors had relied on American banks during the second phase of the infrastructure works, banks which now found themselves in trouble. Investors who had taken the risk to put their assets into the public works, now saw their money disappear in thin air, as the works were put on halt. In addition, Russian investors pulled away en masse from their holdings in Prussia. This in turn led to a backlash where investors had to rethink their strategies in other markets, such as the car industry. As companies saw their profits turn red, factory owners had to lay off some of their workers or face bankruptcy of their own. The unemployment which the 1st Korwin-Mikke Cabinet had virtually rooted out was now back in full swing as a result of a global financial crisis.
The reaction of the government was crucial in relieving the short term effects of the crisis. The main problem for Prussia lay of course in the fact that investors who had relied on US banks, now had no other alternative to turn to as no one was willing or capable to provide credit anymore. Without money, companies lost their access to short term loans, which in turn led to wage bills not being paid. As factories began to close down, unemployment rose sharply, revealing an underlying weakness in the Prussian economy. In 2009, unemployment reached a peak at 15% of the Prussian active population. While in the US, a bipartisan effort came to the rescue of the economy, the European Central Bank did everything within its power to save the Eurozone from collapsing. In Prussia, Minister of Economy and Finances Jan Olbrycht (CD.P) initially stabilized the economy through monetary policy. By printing extra money, Prussia’s currency became cheaper, in turn making it more attractive to foreign investors. This allowed Prussian investors to find alternatives to the American banks that used to provide them with loans. By 2010, the US had begun the road to recovery and the huge EU cash infusions started to show effects in Byzantium, but things like unemployment and low purchasing power were still widespread. In Prussia in particular, renewed foreign investments had not yet fully kicked in yet and many people were still out of a job. As a result, the Prussian government eventually resorted to Keynesian measures to increase purchasing power and lower unemployment. By 2010, the unemployment rate in Prussia had dropped from 15% at its peak to 11.5% by the time of the 2010 elections.
Among the measures to increase trust in the Prussian mark was a new design featuring Immanuel Kant.
The War on Terror in Prussia
Against the backdrop of the 2008 global financial crisis, syndicalism as an ideology became increasingly more attractive to people who now found themselves out of a job or who opposed military intervention abroad. In Prussia, the Syndikale Aktion saw its membership grow over the course of 2008 and 2009. This caused fear among Junkerpartei-ranks that a Syndicalist uprising could topple the government. This fear was strengthened by events that shook Prussian society to its core. During the 2009 May Day Parade, while red banners waved among the crowd, a coordinated attack by syndicalists occurred throughout the country. At almost the exact same moment, a car bomb exploded in front of the Prussian Central Bank in Königsberg, a prominent factory owner and his family were shot dead in Posen and a police officer riding a horse was stabbed while trying to guide a parade safely through town in Danzig. As the news arrived on the Chancellor’s desk, he ordered all major parades to be shut down immediately to prevent further violence. The attacks were soon claimed by an organization known as the People’s Army and the Chancellor ordered Staatssicherheit to open an investigation into the terrorists. In June of 2009, the Landtag passed a law which would allow security services to share information with Interpol and allow for more data cohesion when building a case. By August of 2009, the names of several individuals had arrived on the Chancellor’s desk. Among them was a former SAP member and militant of the Red Banner, which had ties to the former Iraqi regime. As the individual was arrested, he revealed several more names, including more members of the SAP and even one parliamentarian who was regarded as Albrecht’s Schwartzmann advisor on foreign policy. Korwin-Mikke ordered the non-parliamentarians to be arrested for terrorism and put Staatssicherheit on Schartzmann’s advisor. After months of investigation, a big scandal rocked the Syndikale Aktion für Preussen. Staatssicherheit had uncovered that the SAP parliamentarian with ties to the People’s Army had been involved with a South American drug cartel and that he had been smuggling large amounts of illegal substances into Prussia via the port of Danzig, where he had been a prominent union leader. Under pressure of public outrage, Albrecht Schwartzmann was forced to expel his foreign affairs advisor from the SAP. The man was thereafter arrested by the police and charged with supporting terrorism and smuggling illegal goods into Prussia. The question however remains how widespread terrorist sympathies are within the SAP’s ranks. The voices within the Junkerpartei who called for an outright ban of the Syndicalists from the Landtag grew louder as a result of these affairs. Within the SDP doubts about the syndicalists is threatening the future of the Popular Front.
Prussian syndicalists protesting on May Day against Prussian involvement in UN Peacekeeping missions.
Unrest among Silesian minority (2009)
While syndicalists were parading through the country, Silesia was held captive by a whole other kind of protest. This time it was not the universal cause of the worker that was being shouted from the rooftops, but the ethnic cause of the Silesian minority in the south of the country. As the Bewegung für die Autonomie Schlesiens had disappeared from the Landtag, the Silesians came out onto the streets to demand their representation in the Landtag back. While the 2009 Ausgleich had seemingly solved ethnic tensions in Austria, the cause of the Silesians was threatened in its very existence. As expected, the local branch of the CD.P was willing to hear the protestors out and reported back to Vice-Chancellor Josef Tusk. A big concern for the Silesians was that their voices would slowly disappear from all branches of society. The 5% threshold had already made the BAS disintegrate, but the government’s education reforms threatened to leave the Silesian identity out of the official educational programs. Acknowledging their fears, CD.P Minister of Education Neuman added a special clause for Silesia in the updated programs. Local language and history would form a major backbone in the education of young people about society. While not all worries of the Silesians were being answered, Neuman’s openness led many to believe that the CD.P did have the Silesians close to their heart. In 2010, former BAS members again called their supporters to vote CD.P as many of their candidates in Silesia were ethnically Silesian and would represent their interests in the Landtag.
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Some of you will probably notice that I took your suggestions and put them in this update. Also, I'm not that good at explaining or even understanding economy, so I relied on various YouTube videos to understand the 2008 financial crash. I apologize if things are represented inaccurately here.
May the second Korwin-Mikke cabinet restore order and bring about prosperity to Prussia!
