That number looks bound to soar if the Christian Democrats flag badly in Lower Saxony.
But despite a recent amendment by the German federal government, the law still guarantees Lower Saxony's veto.
Still, that issue will not be decided until the first half of March after the Lower Saxony election.
In Lower Saxony, which he has run since 1990, his rhetoric has been better than his record.
Besseres Hannover is accused of issuing threats against immigrants and distributing racist pamphlets at schools in Lower Saxony.
No one is enthusiastic about Mrs Merkel's pick for the presidency, Christian Wulff, the stolid premier of Lower Saxony.
The northern state of Lower Saxony has launched an investigation into allegations that 150 farms had mislabelled their eggs.
And Lower Saxony, a German state that is a major stakeholder in VW, said it opposes the French deal.
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On October 3rd the state of Lower Saxony will be host to the official ceremony marking German unity day.
The German state of Lower Saxony issued its own sukuk bond back in 2004--the first European government to do so.
David McAllister, the incumbent leader of Lower Saxony's government and close ally of Chancellor Merkel, had been hoping for re-election.
She and her party are riding high in polls, but the opposition hopes Lower Saxony will show she is vulnerable.
The letter outlined how the government had banned the organisation Besseres Hannover, (Better Hannover), a right-wing extremist group from Lower Saxony.
But if their quarrel persists, their parties could yet pick another candidate, such as Christian Wulff, the premier of Lower Saxony.
His rival may well put himself out of the race anyway, if he does not win well enough in Lower Saxony.
So far, even her most dangerous internal opponents Christian Wulff and Roland Koch, the premiers of Lower Saxony and Hesse respectively have stayed loyal.
Mrs Merkel is backing Christian Wulff, the lacklustre premier of Lower Saxony.
Some 6.1 million people are eligible to vote for a new state legislature in Lower Saxony, which occupies a swathe of northwestern Germany.
Thanks to the new uncertainty about Mr Kohl, pressure is growing on Mr Lafontaine to announce his party's candidate well before the Lower Saxony poll.
The sale of a bunker built on the site of a former synagogue in the city of Braunschweig in Lower Saxony also is currently being negotiated.
That institution happens to be the house bank of Porsche, part of the Volkswagen group, on whose supervisory board Mr Wulff sat during his Lower Saxony premiership.
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That cosy relationship with Lower Saxony (whose blocking stake the European Commission is seeking to remove) might become a burden if VW needed to make swift cuts to maintain profitability.
Chancellor Schroeder has continued to stand by his minister, but some Social Democrats have blamed Mr Scharping for the SPD's poor showing in local elections in Lower Saxony at the weekend.
The SPD leader in Lower Saxony, Stephan Weil, said before the result that a victory in the state polls as a sign that his party will be taken seriously in September's national elections.
Nor can he prove his mettle as the opposition's best hope until early next year, in Lower Saxony's next state elections, when anything less than holding his own as premier would sink him nationally.
With characteristic bravado, he has pledged that he will not seek to be the challenger if his support in Lower Saxony this time drops more than 2% below the 44.3% he won in 1994.
The founding family's controlling shareholding, and a blocking stake held by the state of Lower Saxony, where VW is headquartered, allow it to resist short-term pressures to pull out of any market that turns difficult.
After the debacle the Christian Democrats suffered in Lower Saxony, this would be the second shocking setback within two months for Mr Kohl, who is national chairman of his party as well as head of government.
This is exactly the way Porsche, and presumably Mr Piech, want things to be, though they have met resistance from Volkswagen's other major stakeholder, the German state of Lower Saxony, which fears Mr Piech is too powerful.
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About 25 workers at the company in the town of Steinfeld, Lower Saxony, helped themselves to the filled bread rolls Tuesday after they were left in two boxes that said they were to be eaten, police in nearby Cloppenburg said.
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