by proldic » Wed Oct 19, 2005 10:23 am
BBC Tuesday, 18 October 2005<br><br>By Ray Furlong <br>BBC <br><br>Elke Reinke has said there was an unreal quality about her first day in Germany's parliament, the Bundestag. <br><br>A month ago she was supplementing her unemployment benefit by selling postcards for one euro (£0.6<!--EZCODE EMOTICON START 8) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/glasses.gif ALT="8)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> an hour. <br><br>She had been jobless for 15 years, ever since German reunification. <br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>And she entered politics via the mass protests last summer against government reforms which cut welfare payments for the long term unemployed.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <br><br>"It is important that there is someone here who knows what it is like, how one lives with the consequences of these reforms, with the reduced benefits and that it is not real life," Mrs Reinke says. <br><br>"Not actually a life worth living. And I hope that I can change something. I hope and I'm fighting for this," she says... <br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>She is one of 54 MPs for the new Left Party which emerged from last summer's protests.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->...<br><br>But Mrs Reinke insists that her aim is to get the welfare reform repealed and says she will have one of her old benefit documents framed and put on her new office wall to remind her where she comes from. <br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4354142.stm">news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4354142.stm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
