The usually well informed Spiegel runs an article on its website with the title: “Striking ATC-controllers during Soccer World Cup?”
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,407826,00.html (sorry, German only)
“A strike was more than likely, according to a member of the German ATC-union after talks in the Federal Ministry of Traffic at the end of last week.”
“Worst case is said to be a complete paralysis of air traffic right on time for the Soccer World Cup at the beginning of June.”
Reason given is a dispute over a new law that would allow non-government-bonded outside (not necessarily foreign) engineers to do maintenance on German ATC equipment. The union fears that this law would open the flood gates to allow part-timers into the whole ATC system. Apparently, the federal government’s own “Deutsche Flugsicherung” (German ATC) already started a subsidiary, “The Tower Company”, for the purpose of employing ATC-controllers from, among others, Eastern Europe.
That is in addition to potential visitors possibly having to deal with overflowing garbage cans, closed physicians’ practices, etc.
I am just the messenger here, so I will duck and let the xenophobic shots go over my head…