test="" not taking value of attribute

Hi XSL-list I am running into difficulties right here.
I am using XSLT 1.0 with Sablotron.

[.snip]
<xsl:variable name="veranstaltungen" select="//news/month" />
<xsl:when test="$veranstaltungen[@year=../@date]/@name = substring
(@name,1,3)">
   do something
</xsl:when>
[.snip]

Why does the "../@date" in the while clause not contain (at least it
seems so) anything?
If if print out the content of "../@date" with <xsl:value-of
select="../@date" /> it shows me "2007".
This does not produce an error, it just neglates the condition which
always results in "false".
If I manually replace the ../@date with 2007 (or whatever string I
know is good) in the test case it works.