Herzog delivered his speech Aufbruch in das 21. In unsparing terms, the president took the political community and the general public alike to task for a lack of vision and an unwillingness to act on the problems facing Germany.
Pessimism is the dominant mood at present.
Germany, Herzog argued, needs to make sweeping reforms in several areas, in health and education policy as well as in its tax and pension systems. With an eye toward recent debates over tax and pension reform, the president warned the political community of the consequences of postponing reform or allowing reform to fail for partisan electoral reasons. Those who want to postpone or obstruct the major reforms must understand that our nation as a whole will pay a high price for that. Above all, according to Herzog, avoiding reform will mean continued high unemployment. In such a society, he explained, there will be a more equitable division of labor and a stronger sense of solidarity among its members.