The Story

The CDU have blocked the biggest reform of the German welfare system in close to two decades. On Monday, the new Bürgergeld welfare system failed to win a majority in the Bundesrat after CDU-controlled Bundesländer voted against or abstained.

You could be forgiven for not knowing what the Bundesrat is. It very much plays second fiddle to the Bundestag in federal politics. This is the first time in recent memory that it has blocked a major piece of legislation.

But it is itself a democratically elected body in that each of the state governments has a seat in it. It’s job is basically to ensure that strength of German federalism - any law written by the national government also has to be approved by the Länder.

In Monday’s vote, Bavaria’s state government, which has six of the seats in the 69 seat council, voted against, while enough others abstained to deny the law the necessary absolute majority of 35 votes.

Why did the CDU take this unusual …