The Millionaire Party: Germany's Free Democrats Accused of Serving the Rich

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Rösler's next goal is to make the pharmaceutical industry happy. To do so, he will first have to eliminate Peter Sawicki, the head of the Cologne-based Institute of Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG). The institute and its director have long been a thorn in the side of the pharmaceutical industry, which sees their critical assessments of the efficacy of new drugs as a threat to sales. Whenever Sawicki's staff discovers that a drug is ineffective or disproportionately expensive, it publishes the results and recommends that the statutory health insurance companies refuse to approve the costs of the drug.

That will soon change, if the FDP and the pharmaceutical industry have their way. This week, representatives of the health ministry, doctors, the statutory health insurance companies and hospitals on the board of IQWiG will decide whether to extend Sawicki's contract.

Many experts have now publicly voiced their support for the professor. "The institute performs an important function for patients and citizens, because it truly creates transparency with its evaluations," says Wolf-Dieter Ludwig, chairman of the Drug Commission of the German Medical Profession.

But this doesn't seem to impress the FDP health minister, who wants to see the institute take a new direction -- with a friend of the pharmaceutical industry at its helm. Half a year ago, in his former post as the economics minister of the northern state of Lower Saxony, Rösler supported a decision by the Conference of German State Ministers that characterized the institute's methodology as being "economically unacceptable." According to the conference, new criteria were needed in the cost-benefit analysis of drugs. "These include competitiveness," the ministers stated, "particularly of domestic pharmaceutical companies."

Thanking Their Liberal Friends

The fight against the unpopular director, Sawicki, has become increasingly unsavory of late. Some critics now claim that he used institute funds to pay for personal expenses, and there has also been talk of a scandal involving the use of official vehicles. In his defense, Sawicki says that the accusations could amount to such relatively minor infractions as his having submitted tax receipts on which the points of departure and arrival were not specified. A committee has been formed to look into the accusations.

While the pharmaceutical industry gets its hopes up, many other industries can already thank their Liberal friends for the work they have done. At the head of the line are hotel owners who, as a result of the reduction in the value-added tax, will receive an annual benefit worth at least €1 billion a year.

Ernst Burgbacher, the tourism spokesman of the FDP parliamentary group, sponsored the legislation to approve the de facto subsidy. It mirrors a concept by the German Hotel and Restaurant Association, which is headed by Burgbacher's fellow FDP member from the southern state of Baden-Württemberg, Ernst Fischer. The two men are already working on their next coup: a reduction in the value-added tax for restaurant owners. Economics Minister Rainer Brüderle has already agreed to support the measure.

The FDP has also devised a tax giveaway for another segment of the population: heirs. Siblings, nieces and nephews of the deceased will now pay taxes of between 15 and 43 percent on their inheritance. The previous rates ranged from 30 to 50 percent.

More than Happy to Help

Those who hire a tax accountant to prepare their tax returns, hoping to reduce their tax liability, could also be getting a bonus. The FDP wants the costs of private tax preparers to be made tax-deductible once again. This benefits all high earners and, of course, the tax accountants themselves, who have traditionally been strong supporters of the FDP.

The Liberals have not forgotten some of the other groups they favor. Were independent pharmacists complaining about mail-order pharmacies and drugstore chains making incursions into their market? The FDP was more than happy to help out, with a proposal to ban such competition in the future. Was "Haus und Grund" ("House and Property"), an association of real estate owners, dreaming of gaining the power to evict tenants more quickly in the future? The FDP, eager to oblige, announced a proposal to amend the law of tenancy to adjust periods of notice for landlords and tenants in the future.

There is nothing new about this pattern of behavior. But whereas the state was able to cope with Liberal idiosyncrasies in the saturated 70s, 80s and 90s, they now feel like a provocation.

The party leadership has yet to engage in a self-critical discussion about the FDP returning to its old ways. The term client party has only been heard more frequently within the Junge Gruppe, an association of young FDP members of parliament who would like to see their party expand its base. Now they fear that their efforts have been in vain.

'Obligations to the Entire Country'

If the young FDP members of parliament are to receive any support, it will have to come from the CDU/CSU. There is growing resentment within conservative ranks over the egotism of their coalition partner, even though the FDP has gladly included a few giveaways to the CDU and CSU in its lawmaking efforts. But only now are the conservatives realizing how many favors to lobbyists the FDP managed to slip in during the coalition negotiations.

"The FDP must finally become aware of its obligations to the entire country," says CSU General Secretary Alexander Dobrindt. "It cannot simply pursue a policy of lobbying for its core constituency."

For CDU politician Wolfgang Bosbach, it has become a source of constant irritation to open the paper and read that the Liberals are determined to stick to their guns when it comes to substantial tax cuts. "At face value, it seems admirable for the FDP to say that it isn't backing away from its campaign promises," says Bosbach. "But at some point the party will have to ask itself whether those campaign promises are consistent with reality."

By Katrin Elger, Markus Feldenkirchen, Alexander Neubacher, René Pfister, Barbara Schmid and Merlind Theile

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• Part 1: Germany's Free Democrats Accused of Serving the Rich
• Part 2: Criticism from Merkel's Conservatives on the Rise