 However, the Bundestag later voted to criminalize organizations that assist patients seeking to terminate their lives in return for payment and makes assisting a suicide punishable by up to three years in prison.Amid the financial crisis of 2007–08, Künast proposed to solve the state-owned banks' financial woes and to merge the Germany's then eight regional banks into one institution, which would concentrate on regional economic development.In a 2008 interview with newspaper "Welt am Sonntag"