This is done by means of the snappily named Länderfinanzausgleich, a
(horrendously complicated) mechanism by which all 16 federal states pool
resources and redistribute surpluses to those in need. In the early years of
the German Federal Republic, Bavaria was still the country’s poorhouse and
the heavily industrialised state of North-Rhine-Westphalia sent a sizeable
proportion of its Deutschemark surpluses south; in recent years, the tide
has turned and it is now Bavaria which is paying back this historic debt
into what has become Germany’s rust-belt.

This stands in stark contrast to the Barnett formula, of course, which
guarantees Scotland over-the-odds public spending regardless of the economic
performance of various parts of the UK, and so it is interesting that on the
morning after the referendum, Simon McDonald, the British ambassador here,
mentioned that Germany’s federal structure might be of interest to the
British government
– just half an hour after David Cameron’s Downing Street address in which
he broadened the question of Scottish autonomy to encompass the whole set-up
of the UK.

In general, I’m a big fan of Germany’s federal system: it puts decision-makers
with budgets one step closer to universities, businesses and public
services, steering against the neglect that characterises so many forgotten
areas of highly centralised countries such as Britain and France. Also, it
allows different parts of the country to develop and pursue their own styles
of politics, creating clashes of opinion at a national level that often
result in the kind of robust, sensible compromises that characterise the
German approach.

On the other hand, there are parts of German federalism that British
constitutional planners would do well to steer clear of. First off, in 1949,
the Allies, for a mixture of historical and tactical reasons, opted for a
bizarre pot-pourri of large and small states, creating monoliths like
North-Rhine-Westphalia (17 million inhabitants – ie 70 per cent bigger than
Belgium) and mice like Bremen (roughly the size of Bristol). So the mayor of
Hamburg, for example, is also the head of the city’s very own federal state,
giving him political influence on a national level denied to the Mayor of
similar-sized Munich, who is subordinate to the Bavarian state president.

The fact that there are so many states of varying size and financial firepower
sometimes has hair-raising consequences: each state, for example, runs not
only its own police force, but also its own spooks. The dangers of this
system have been tragically revealed by the enquiry into how a group of
neo-Nazi fanatics were able to spend six years murdering across the nation
with near impunity; one of the key revelations is that the states were
sometimes employing the same people as moles without each other’s knowledge
– and that you can’t expect fiscally puny, 2.7-million-inhabitant Thuringia
to mount a serious intelligence operation.

And finally, let’s spare a thought for the children: each state runs its own
education system and has its own exam boards. Besides the difficulties of
deciding on who gets the peachy August summer holidays,
this pedagogical proliferation creates oddities all of its own: Bavaria is
convinced that its Abitur (A-Levels) is worth more than that of the northern
states, and so forbids teacher training graduates from other parts of the
country from taking up positions there. If you thought the difference
between Scottish Highers and A-Levels was confusing, you ain’t seen nothing
yet…

Then again, this level of self-determination (read: the ability to snub other
regions of the country) is probably the best reason why Angela Merkel can
sleep easy. Bavaria doesn’t want a referendum on independence, because it’s
independent enough already.