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Vice Blog

BERLIN - DE-REUNITE GERMANY

The best thing about living in Berlin is living in Berlin. The rest of Germany only exists in some kind of peripheral thoughts or possibly on some maps or… in Bavaria. So if you walk down the streets of Berlin and look at these new posters the Bavarian Party just put up a couple days ago, your first thought might be: Why not? Seriously, there are people who'd like to rip the Federal Republic of Germany apart on its 60th anniversary after the reunion. They have strange thoughts about secession and it seems like they want to throw Germany back into the dark ages of sectionalism. Richard Schöps is the spokesman of the Bavarian Party and painted a dark picture of Germany without Bavaria for us…

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Vice: Can you tell us what this Bavarian Party is all about?
Richard Schöps: The Bavarian Party is a regionalist party. The centrality of the Federal Republic of Germany is our worst enemy. State decisions should be made on the lowest level.

The lowest level--what do you mean by that?
The citizens should decide for themselves in which country they live and who makes the rules for them.

That's called direct democracy isn't it?
Yes, we are a democratic party and reject the European Union with everything that comes along with it. We want a European continent consisting of different regions. By the way, Germany only has its so-called Grundgesetz (Fundamental Law) and no real constitution. Bavaria however, does have one.

OK, just to make this clear, if Bavaria wasn't a part of Germany any longer and you created your own funky little state like that, what would your government look like?
As I said before, we would keep the Bavarian constitution. We would have a democratically-elected head of state and the people would rule everything. Under no circumstances would we boss people around like they do in Bruxelles.

Well but there are historical reasons why the Germans should not vote directly… is Bavaria capable of being an independent country at all?
For sure! Bavaria is the most productive economic region in the whole country. We are nearly as good as the Swiss. And by the way we would be the ninth biggest country in Europe. Even bigger than Italy! Bavaria without Germany, Germany without Bavaria!

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And that's why you plaster the whole of Berlin with these posters no one cares about?
Yes. We can articulate our goals quite easily in Bavaria but in the rest of the country we face a lack of understanding. That's why we want to make our point with these quite provocative posters—and hopefully make our way to Bruxelles like that.

Got it, so your plan is to annoy the people outside of Bavaria, so much that they want to get rid of you. So once you make it to Bruxelles, what would you do there?
We want a deep reformation of the European community. The omnipotent rule of the EU has to be stopped and we want a Europe with independent regions instead.

Sure… but what would happen to the rest of Germany if Bavaria became independent?
That's up to the different regions. If for example Nordrhein-Westfalen wants to become independent too, that's none of our business really.

I am from Franconia and we Franconians feel like we're the Scots of Bavaria. We want to be independent, too. Now what do you say?
Franconia is a part of Bavaria. On the European level Franconia would be too unimportant. Even our Franconian members say that. But there might be the possibility to make Franconia an autonomous region. That would be an option for sure.

Well, so Bavaria is important enough to become a separate state but Franconia is not. Thanks anyway. I'll stay in Berlin.

FELIX NICKLAS