Every year around harvest time, thousands of seasonal workers from Poland and other eastern European countries cross the border to sweat in German fields. They help farmers bring in asparagus and cucumber crops while the country's more than four million unemployed line up for dole money. And every year, this pattern provokes a debate about whether Germany's jobless are too well paid (or lazy) to do hard manual work.

2005 is no exception. Labor Minister Franz Müntefering wants to limit permits for foreign seasonal workers and force up to 65,000 unemployed Germans to become more closely acquainted with their own soil in 2006. But farmers complain that they won't be able to find enough skilled or motivated Germans. Newspaper commentators -- none of whom would presumably consider a stint picking asparagus -- say the debate has once again highlighted the "German disease": lethargy brought on by decades of easy living.

"What kind of country do we live in?" complains tabloid Bild Zeitung. "It cannot be true that we have 4.5 million unemployed and still have to bring in hundreds of thousands of seasonal workers from the east to harvest asparagus, strawberries or apples for us. Can't we do that ourselves? Is it really too much to ask that someone receiving tax money to help him though hard times might temporarily bend his back and get his hands dirty to contribute a little to his own livelihood?

"Müntefering has put his finger on it," the paper continues. "Only when everyone understands that unpleasant work is better than no work at all will Germany realize what the welfare state really means: you have to help the poor, not the lazy!"

Conservative daily Die Welt points out that previous attempts to recruit unemployed Germans for farm work have failed, even though people were offered training courses and free transport to the fields. Most people weren't up to the physical outdoor work and called in sick after a short time, writes the paper. "Farmers prefer to rely on their tried and tested Polish help."

Other commentators lay into Angela Merkel's new government for preaching budget restraint while shelling out money for every possible project. Social Democrat finance minister Peer Steinbrück and conservative family minister Ursula von der Leyen have been bickering publicly over money in recent days. In fact, says the center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung, Merkel has been lucky that the controversy over CIA flights in recent weeks has diverted public attention away from what has been a decidedly shaky start for her government on the domestic front. As in the early days of former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, writes the paper, "Laws have been initiated that haven't been properly coordinated between the ministries ... Money is cheerfully being handed out, even though the government had promised the opposite." The current squabbles involve tax breaks for families; but as a rule, writes the paper, Merkel mustn't allow the quarrels among her ministers to get out of hand. "She should intervene at the right time or she'll have an unpleasant winter drama on her hands."