GERMANY: German family minister Ursula von der Leyen has single-handedly prevented "Grand Coalition Berlin" from slipping into a coma.
The scientist, doctor and mother of seven has established herself as an energetic and determined cheerleader for young families and working mothers.
But her plans have raised the hackles of politicians across the political spectrum who were beginning to enjoy the confrontation-free marriage of convenience between the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats.
Dr von der Leyen has taken aim at Germany's falling birth rate - the lowest since 1945 - and vowed to make family and career complementary for German women by helping them return to work if they choose without facing financial penalties and social stigma.
More than 60 per cent of German women never return to the workplace after giving birth and those who do - just one in five, three years after giving birth - risk being labelled a Rabenmutter.
Literally translated as "raven mother", the term is a moral cudgel used to beat "uncaring mothers" who leave their child in childcare - and a bitter irony in the country that gave the world the kindergarten.
"The experience of working mothers in other countries has been more relaxed whereas here it creates an endlessly guilty conscience for a mother," said Dr von der Leyen yesterday.
"Gender roles and tasks have remained stuck in the 1950s."
A German woman's work - as defined by the three Ks of Kinder, Küche, Kirche: children, kitchen, church - originated in the 19th century and became state policy in the Third Reich.
After soldiers returned from the second World War, women left the factories and returned to the kitchen, in west Germany at least. Thus Dr von der Leyen faces deep-seated prejudices with her proposal to boost the birth rate by replacing the children's allowance with a "parents' allowance", paying stay-at-home parents 67 per cent of their income, up to €1,800 a month, for 10 months.
More controversial is her proposal to make payment of a further two months' allowance dependent on the other partner - in most cases the father - also taking time off work.
Irritated conservatives and liberals say the state has no place dictating the terms of childcare. Others have suggested that such cash incentives have no proven positive effect on birth rates and, at an initial cost of €4 billion, could prove an expensive mistake.
Meanwhile, Dr von der Leyen raised the ire of left-wingers by meeting with Christian leaders last week to discuss "value-based child-rearing", excluding other religious groups.
She has further plans for full-time childcare - something that already existed in east Germany - and greater tax write-offs for families, but her critics are increasing the volume.
Der Spiegel magazine ridiculed Dr von der Leyen's "crusade" this week, her well-off family background and impressive academic qualifications.