Country profilesGermany

Humanitarian profile

Germany has been one of the world's largest bilateral donors for the past two decades, and it has played a leading role on global issues such as linking climate change with development. Facing criticism of its unwieldy aid system, in 2009 the government streamlined its development co-operation to focus on seven priority sectors: good governance; education; health; protection of climate, environment and natural resources; rural development; private sector development; and sustainable economic development. In mid-2010, the cabinet approved a plan to merge Germany's three international development agencies.

Country snapshot

Germany is Europe's biggest and the world's fifth-largest economy, heavily dependent on exports of cars, machinery and other precision goods. Until recently, it did not have the political clout to match, humbled by the shame and defeat of World War Two and then, as a reunified giant, eager not to scare its neighbours.

Today Germans have learned to love their country again, but remain nervous at any military involvement, as with NATO in Afghanistan. Germany is one of the twin engines of European Union integration, along with France, and one of the main investors in eastern Europe.

Europe's biggest country with 80 million people, it is seeking a permanent seat at the U.N. Security Council to match its status, as fears elsewhere of a resurgent reunited Germany have faded away.

Government

Germany is a stable democracy where consensus is valued highly. The two main parties - the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) on the right and the Social Democrats (SPD) on the left - have dominated politics since the federal republic was founded in 1949, though sometimes relying on environmentalist and free-market allies for a coalition.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of the CDU, re-elected to a second term in 2009, is the first woman and the first former East German to run the federal republic.

Regionalism is strong in the 16 states.

Voting is by a system based on proportional representation every four years. Parliament has two houses, the Bundestag and the upper chamber, the Bundesrat, representing the states. The president is a largely ceremonial figure.

Economy

Germany dominates Europe economically and excels in manufacturing high-quality, hi-tech products such as cars, tools and machinery.

The country was pivotal in the creation of the single European currency, the euro, whose central bank was modelled largely on Germany's Bundesbank which prized price stability above all after the nightmare hyperinflation Germans lived through between the world wars.

The euro's strength against the dollar during the financial crisis hampered its export-driven economy. The government pumped billions of euros into some banks crippled by bad U.S. mortgage debts to keep them afloat.

Germans themselves are quite cautious borrowers and the country did not have its own house-price boom and bust.

History

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the reunification of East and West Germany barely a year later are the defining events of modern German history.

Yet they were merely the consequence of the period which still haunts and shames the nation - Hitler's Nazi empire and World War Two, in particular the extermination of some six million Jews and other people deemed unworthy of life.

At the start of the Cold War, West Germany enjoyed the Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) with huge support from the United States and Allied powers who were keen for the ruined country to get back on its feet to serve as a bulwark against the Soviet bloc.

East Germany lagged behind and imploded once Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev made clear he would no longer help its leaders stifle the will of its people. Much of the east is still economically depressed despite an enormous transfer of wealth from western Germany, much of it via a special income tax surcharge that was meant to last a few years but is still in place.

Germany, for centuries a patchwork of principalities, dukedoms and city states, came into being in 1871 during Europe's period of nation-state building.

Legal snapshot

Germany's legal system is based largely on civil law, with the constitution at its heart. The Federal Constitutional Court can review legislation. Berlin has not accepted compulsory International Court of Justice jurisdiction.

Justice is administered in five branches: ordinary, labor, administrative, social and financial courts. In a normal case there are three higher tiers that can re-assess court decisions.

Non-governmental organisations operate freely in the country and the state-funded and private media operate free from government control.

Germany ranked 14th in Transparency International's 2009 index measuring the perceived level of public-sector corruption in 180 countries (1st position is perceived as least corrupt).

In late 2009 engineering manufacturer Siemens AG, emerging from the biggest corruption scandal in German corporate history, settled with managers including two former chief executive officers accused of failing to halt a culture of bribery. Investigations in more than a dozen countries had revealed kickbacks and bribes to win contracts.