Contents page 1 — How political should we be? Page 2 — the FC Bayern and the DFB of the common good? On a page
Who decides what is good for the General Welfare of our society? Always there were quarrels, if someone with the claim began to know better and to speak for all the others. Since the Federal Finance court has deprived of the globalization-critical Alliance Attac the non-profit status, however, argue Germany about what serves the common good. It is not a question of whether there can be organisations which represent the interests of the General public. The question is, which clubs serve the General Welfare or whether they are pursuing only the interests of a minority. Controversial it is, but of How far an organization should go and how political should it be?
In the case of Attac, the Bundesfinanzhof held that: The network act to politically and turn in the politics of the day. By doing so, it forfeited its charitable status. Attac does not want to accept this and by the Federal constitutional court to clarify whether the judgment is lawful. However, regardless of this clarification, the judgment has brought a stone into the roles that could be an avalanche: politicians smell Combine well with other unpleasant the Chance to you can as “too political” fire-brands, and the list of non-profit. Many Union politicians think primarily of the German environmental aid (DUH). The CDU associations, in particular, their involvement in the diesel scandal, and its action shaft for driving bans in cities like. Other environmental organisations such as BUND or Greenpeace, as well as the campaign platform Campact be criticized as being too political. The withdrawal of charitable status threatens them, too?
The judgment against Attac is also among lawyers controversial. Some see it as justified, the Bundesfinanzhof referred to the non-governmental organization in their place. The German tax Union, about argued, it “should be opened no locks”, so that’s not a huge unregulated NGO-market form, the engaging increasingly in the area of the established parties and elected representatives of the people. Finally, the parties according to the basic law, responsible for political education, the political activities of the NGOs would have to be narrowed. Other experts warn this is exactly what non-profit organisations are already at a disadvantage in the public debate and should not “be suppressed, and, in their field of concentrated”. Otherwise you exclude political dissenters completely out of the decision-making process, argued about the former Federal constitutional court judge Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem.
the German environmental aid is now threatening the same fate as Attac, but is considered unlikely. There is a fundamental difference between Attac and the DUH, which may be inferred from the tax code, says Anna Leisner-Egensperger Professor of public law at the University of Jena. The tax code (AO) is the basic law of the German tax law. It defines when an organization can be recognized as a charitable organization and no tax must pay and when this is not true. And the AO shall designate 25 non-profit articles of incorporation the purpose for non-profit, including the promotion of science, education, art, culture, international understanding, local history, health care and environmental protection.
If the clubs have to apply to the Treasury for the benefit to the public or the courts to decide, it is crucial which of these purposes you can assign. In the case of the DUH the, unquestionably the area of environmental protection, which is the case of Attac is less clear. The NGO describes itself as an “education movement”. The FTC laid out according to the lawyer Leisner-Egensperger the Definition, but a relatively narrow one: Attac of the promotion of the democratic state to prescribe, engage in political education, “and the theoretical formulation of solution-proposals for the politics, but the attempt, through further measures to enforce one”. Attac launches online petitions, for example, for the financial transaction tax, and called on the Chancellor to Act. “Which is exactly what the movement has come to the parties too close,” says Leisner-Egensperger. “The Problem was not in the content of the claims of Attac, but in how the organization is trying to achieve politically.”
“legal situation, the other”
is The German environmental aid does not act, however, not less political, they appealed only to the Chancellor, but complains against the Ministry of transport and asks about access to files in the exhaust gas scandal. You are allowed to do this? “In the case of the German environmental aid, the legal situation is followed in this respect, other than this organization, Yes, certainly the purpose of the Funding, namely the protection of the environment,” says Leisner-Egensperger. Political press should, therefore, insofar as it serves the objective of environmental protection.
their critics from the Union, but to question whether the environment can support help the individual plaintiffs in processes or whether it loses that is precisely the interest of the General public from the eye. For law Professor, but this is OK, because both “the lawsuit success,” as well as “the resulting action are” encouraged, Yes, ultimately, the protection of the environment was enshrined as a state objective in the Constitution. With the same arguments should be able to defend, therefore, of environmental associations, such as the FEDERAL or Greenpeace’s claim to charitable status.
