Germany to Bolster Child Care

With the votes of the ruling coalition parties, the Social Democratic and Green parties, Germany's Bundestag passed a law to increase daycare offerings for children below three years. The government hopes it will provide 230,000 more spaces for care by 2010. Although the opposition Christian Democrats and Liberals agreed on the need to provide more care for small children, they abstained from voting because they said the bill had not been backed up with an adequate financial plan. In western Germany only 2.7 percent of children below three have spaces in crèches.