Chancellor Friedrich Merz will deliver his government statement on Wednesday from the open deck of a chartered icebreaker, the «Frostige Vernunft», as it circles the Baltic Sea at a steady eight knots, according to the Chancellery's new maritime protocol office.
The Bundestag has been converted into a waiting room with numbered tickets and a single functioning coffee machine. Lawmakers must now queue for up to nine hours to hear the statement through a loudspeaker mounted on a buoy. «We find the sea air clarifies the coalition's position on everything,» a Chancellery spokesman said, adjusting his life vest.
In Hamburg, the trial of an alleged Nord Stream saboteur has been moved to a floating dock after the defendant requested a jury of merchant sailors. The court has agreed, and the proceedings now pause every time a ferry passes.
Not to be outdone, the AfD and BSW in Saxony-Anhalt have demanded their Ukraine motion be read aloud from a rowboat on the Elbe, with each paragraph punctuated by a cannon salute. The state parliament has approved the request but ruled that the boat must remain tethered to a parking meter.
By Thursday, every ministry in Berlin is expected to adopt the same practice, and the Chancellery has already ordered a second icebreaker for the Finance Ministry's budget debate.