BALANCE
By John Spencer
1972John SpencerItaly and Germany Read the scan at ETOL (PDF) →Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: headlines and words can be misread, and a caption or advert can run into the text. For anything you quote, read the scan.
W GERMAN chancellor Willy Brandt is facing a no-confidence vote parliament tomorrow which could end his two and a half years in power.
The opposition Christian Democrats, led by Rainer Barzel and Josef Strauss, have tabled a motion of no confidence for parliamentary debate on Thursday.
The motion was tabled only a few hours after the CDU's victory at the polls in BadenWürttemberg.
It also followed the defection from Brandt's coalition of Free Democrat Wilhelm Helms, the fourth coalition member to join the opposition since Brandt took office.
The Free Democrats are divided over the two crucial issues facing the government" its relations with the working class and its treaties with Poland and the USSR.
Like the Weimar governments of the 1920s, the Brandt coalition has been plunged into crisis by the worsening world economic situation. The German employers are demanding a government which will confront the organized workers and adopt a more aggressive foreign policy.
In particular, they oppose the pacts signed with Poland and the soviet Union which effectively seal the division of Germany.
AROUND-THE=WORLD The treaties come up for ratification next week.
Brandt's government has .a majority of only three in the Bundestag and Barzel said yesterday he had reason to believe the treaties would not get a majority. In order to oust Brandt, the Christian Democrats must get an absolute majority for a new Chancellor.