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September 9, 2013

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Silence speaks volume in German polls

Source: Agencies | September 9, 2013, Monday | Print Edition

“One in two Germans feels troubled by noise,” Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) state in their election manifesto. “We want to change this.”

Germany already has some of the world’s most stringent noise regulations and citizens only too eager to reprimand neighbors for loud children or taking out rubbish too early on a Sunday.

Chancellor Merkel’s husband Joachim Sauer famously filed a complaint about an open-air theater group performing opposite the couple’s apartment in central Berlin back in 2001 for violating a 60-decibel noise limit by eight decibels.

In their programmes for the September 22 election and to an extent never seen before, political parties are outlining how they intend to make German skies and roads even quieter.

Noise is mentioned 12 times in the CDU’s manifesto, 19 times in the programme of her junior coalition partners the Free Democrats (FDP), 38 times in the Greens’ election manifesto, 9 times by the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and 8 times by the far left Die Linke.

Some noise seems to be acceptable. The CDU and the FDP both stress that in 2011 their government abolished regulations allowing Germans to file legal complaints against kindergartens or playgrounds because of the “noise” of kids at play.

“The sound of children is not damaging to the environment,” the new law made clear.

Many of the parties are promising the same remedies: traffic speed limits to reduce noise, increased use of a road surface known as “whispering asphalt” and more investment in sound insulation of roads and railways.

Then there are the more abstract pledges aimed at reassuring frazzled voters.

The CDU mentions Germany’s worshipped concept of “Nachtruhe” or night silence — the preservation of silence from 10pm to 6am.

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