Apologies for a sketchy diary, but thought the community would like to know. In Germany, government talks are headed for a grand coalition between conservative CDU (Angela Merkel's party) and more liberal SDP. One of the policy demands of the SDP in the talks is a national minimum wage, which would help workers in the former DDR (east Germany) especially. Heard late this afternoon on Deutsche Welle Journal. Difficult if not impossible to imagine such a thing happening here, but it is a different system of governing.
Perhaps someone else can get more info and a link, as my main experience here is as a lurker and quilter.