“Pacta sunt servanda”, agreements must be adhered to? Not so in the traffic light coalition, as the dispute over pensions proves once again.
You don’t have to make Franz Josef Strauss a legend and certainly not a role model. But when the classical philologist fell into Latin, he sometimes announced principles that could also be worthwhile for today’s coalition members to follow. “Pacta sunt servanda,” is how the CSU leader once popularized a principle of Roman law: agreements must be adhered to, even if they are not always to his liking – in this case, not the Willy Brandt government’s treaties with the East.