ELENA stands for Elektronischer Entgeltnachweis and was introduced in Germany at the beginning of 2010.

Companies now have to report details about their employees on a monthly basis to a new Government agency.  These include their wages, but also the number of days holiday or even on strike that they had.

The German Government has claimed that it will reduce paperwork and beaurocracy for companies, but my experience with the new system this week left me with a different opinion, as you can hear in the podcast:

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UMTS stands for Universal Mobile Telecommunications System – and although the German translation would have the same abbreviation it is usually just the term UMTS that is used.  In English it is often referred to as “3G”.

UMTS is a new form of transmitting and receiving data over the mobile phone network.  Unlike GPRS it does not use the same frequencies as GSM, so that in Germany the licenses for UMTS were issued separately from the normal mobile phone ones.

UMTS allows data speeds of up to 7.2MBit/s, as long as the necessary hardware and network are available.  For UMTS-access, most laptops use a special USB-stick, although some of the latest models now have the modules built-in.

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

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ppa is an abbreviation for the Latin “per procura”, which translates into “in Vollmacht” in Germany.  In English, one might say “on behalf of”.

Whilst it is common in English-speaking countries to see a letter signed with “p.p.” by a secretary, in Germany the letters ppa are used in front of the signature of a person in the company who holds the title of “Prokurist”.  This is usually someone who represents the management, eg. in a limited company (GmbH).

The Prokurist can approve payments, and many other things that are normally only carried out by the highest management.  What he or she can do exactly, is usually agreed in a special contract.  eg. represent the company in court or hire and fire employees.

Other common abbreviations are i.V. (in Vollmacht) and i.A. (im Auftrag), which are used by normal employees to show which role they have in signing a document.  i.A. is the most common, one example of usage being a simple letter to a customer.

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

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