The unconstitutional way to new Elections in Germany

The German chancellor Schröder wants to hold new election this fall. The problem is the German constitution does not allow the parliament to suspend itself. The ruling Socialdemocrats and Greens are trying a trick now to circumvent this obstacle. They purposely want to loose a vote of confidence in the parliament to enable the President to suspend the parliament. In 1982 the Constitutional Court ruled that suspend the parliament does not only require the lose of the vote of confidence, which could be abused too easy, but in fact the government lost its support in the parliament. I doubt that this is the case this time.

• Forbes: Germany's Schroeder seeks approval of July 1 vote of confidence
• A very good wikipedia entry (in German)
• The Constitutional Ruling BVerfGE 62, 1 (Bundestagsauflösung) (in German)