Rotating doner kebab spits may not always look appetizing, but few Germans suspected that the meat was actually rotten. That is, not until it was discovered that wholesalers had been selling rotten meat. Authorities in Bavaria last week linked 110 tons of bad meat -- some of which was more than four years out of date -- to a Munich wholesaler. The meat went not only to kebab shops and restaurants in Munich but also to other countries in the European Union.

It's hard to overestimate the scandal's ripple effect: So far a manager at the suspected wholesale company has committed suicide ; there has been a national debate about Germany's bargain-seeking mentality; and even the nation's food culture  has been questioned.

Now commentators also wonder if some blame for the scandal can be placed on Germany's federal system. Quality control in other countries is legislated by the central government, but in Germany it's up to individual regional states to clamp down on malpractice -- or not, as critics are saying. Have local authorities turned a blind eye in the interest of supporting local businesses?

The right-leaning Die Welt assesses whether the measures now being discussed are adequate. "The key words in the new 13-point plan seem strangely familiar. Not surprising, considering that they are all already included in the 10-point plan which the government and the individual states already decided on last November" -- after a previous rotten meat scandal. There's one important difference between the two plans, though: "Until now, anyone has been able to call themselves a meat wholesaler. Butchers have to be properly qualified, but meat wholesalers don't need any training in order to sell pork loins, minced beef, roast duck or chicken legs. It's hardly any wonder that the industry attracts criminal elements." Regular inspections of meat wholesalers , the commentator concludes, should weed out the black sheep.

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, on the other hand, views the new legislation as nothing more than political opportunism by Edmund Stoiber, the governor of the southern German of Bavaria, where much of the rotten meat has come from. The problem "is a clear symptom of the faulty development of the culture of bureaucracy, in which, as in so many things, Bavaria excels. After every major case of abuse, the bureaucratic structures are thrown into disarray, special commissions and special units are set up, and there is much talk of 'optimization' and 'quality control.'" But all of this simply serves to perpetuate the problem, believes the commentator, by making rigorous nationwide standards even harder to apply and check.

The left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung also casts the scandal in terms of a struggle between Germany's national government and the individual states. "Horst Seehofer (the Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection) wants to use the unappetizing affair to give the government more influence in food quality control … Every new scandal gives him another argument for more centralization." Although the commentator believes there should be minimum standards enforced across the whole country, the final responsibility should rest with the individual regional states -- with the idea that states can introduce stricter standards and use those standards in advertising. "'Quality controlled in the state of X,'" writes the paper, "could then be a reason for consumers to buy."

For the center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung, however, stricter national standards would not necessarily undermine Germany's federal system. "Federalism is how the state enables contact with its citizens -- or rather, that is how it should work. In the rotten meat scandal," however, inspectors and meat wholesalers were too close. The paper argues that individual states promote their regional industries by ignoring problems like the meat scandal -- so introducing a nationwide police force for food standards, the paper argues, would actually help federalism. "Effective inspections of large businesses," writes the commentator, "would help small firms and thereby protect regional variety."