Index
Once a year, during the Berlinale film festival, the world of the silver screen focuses its attention on Berlin. And the city’s inhabitants are used to global interest. After all, the people of Berlin have lived in a capital city since 1458. However, there is also a shady side to the city’s history: the rule of the National Socialists and the East German regime, which built a wall right through the heart of the city. Since German unification in 1990, Berlin has once again been the undivided capital city. The Museum Island, the Berlin Philharmonic and more than 50 theaters ensure the city is unique in terms of cultural life. The “academic capital” boasts 39 universities and institutes of higher education, while also being home to businesses such as Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, while ITB, the worlds leading travel trade show, accentuates the slogan “Berlin is worth seeing”.
Capital: Berlin
Population: 3,866,385
Surface area: 892 km2
In line with the federal system, structuring and coordinating economic and financial policy is the joint task of central government, the federal states and municipalities. They cooperate in various committees. Furthermore, the Federal Government seeks the advice of independent economists. Every January the Federal Government presents to the Bundestag and the Bundesrat the Annual Economic Report, which among other things describes the government’s economic and financial goals for the year as well as the fundamentals of its planned economic and financial policy. One prerequisite for economic life in Germany being able to function is free competition, which is protected by the law against restrictions on competition. It prohibits anti-competitive practice on the part of both companies and the state. Likewise, company mergers, state subsidies and market barriers are assessed to establish whether they impair competition.
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The Federal Government and cabinet is made up of the Federal Chancellor and the Federal Ministers. While the Chancellor holds the power to issue directives, the ministers have departmental powers, meaning that they independently run their respective ministries in the framework of those directives. Moreover, the cabinet abides by the collegial principle, in disputes the Federal Government decides by majority. The affairs of state are managed by the Chancellor.
The International Frankfurt Book Fair has taken place every autumn since 1949 and is the outstanding annual international book trade get-together. The highpoint of every book fair is the award-giving ceremony for the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, which has been won by the likes of Margaret Atwood, Carolin Emcke, Navid Kermani and Susan Sontag. Since 2005, to mark the beginning of the Book Fair, the German Book Prize is presented for the best novel written in German.
There are around 130 German professional orchestras, first and foremost among them the Berlin- Philharmonic, the Berlin Staatskapelle, the Gewandhausorchester, the Bamberg Symphonic and the Munich Philharmonic