Angela Merkel finally came off the fence. After five days of intense negotiations with the Social Democrats, whom she hopes to have again as her coalition partners, the German chancellor threw her hat into Europe’s ring. To be more precise, she responded to Emmanuel Macron’s plans for the European Union. Merkel is at last dealing with unfinished business over Europe.
Ever since Macron was elected last May, the French President has repeatedly and consistently spoken about the need for a more integrated Europe and a reform of how the eurozone functions. Merkel shillyshallied over his proposals, preferring to wait until after the German federal election when she would have a free hand to react.
But the outcome of the September 24 poll was a disaster for both Merkel’s Christian Democrats and for the Social Democrats led by Martin Schulz. Voters drifted in the hundreds of thousands to the far-right, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. It is now the third-largest party in the German Bundestag having run a campaign based on opposing Merkel’s decision to take in almost one million refugees fleeing the wars in Syria and Iraq during 2015.
When Merkel’s own attempts to form a coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats and the Greens collapsed, she turned to the Social Democrats. Briefly, after weeks of sounding each other out—as if they didn’t know what both parties stood for—Merkel and Schulz agreed the outline of a new government program. Macron was thrilled. And no wonder. Pushed by Schulz, a former president of the European Parliament, the interim accord put Europe at the top of its program.
It spoke about allotting “specific budgetary resources for economic stabilization [and] … social convergence.” It could be the “departure point for an investment budget for the eurozone,” it continued. And Berlin could “increase Germany’s contribution to the EU budget.” These were issues that Merkel would not contemplate in the past. She was always more on the side of the member states and their national interests rather than community or commission policies.
The reason for Merkel’s change is that she is desperate to clinch a deal with the Social Democrats. Failing that, she faces the prospect of calling fresh elections or leading a minority government. Both would lead to further uncertainty about the future of Europe’s direction at a time when Europe is waiting for a stable Germany to join France in taking the EU further.
Yet for all the sense of relief by Merkel, Schulz, and Macron, the deal could unravel—and fast.
Schulz is already facing a rebellion from the grassroots of his own party. Social Democrats in the state of Saxony-Anhalt and in Berlin rejected the interim accord but Brandenburg supported it. Just wait until January 21, when Schulz has to sell the deal to a divided party congress. It’s not only his future that’s at stake. The entire coalition deal could be torn asunder.
As a party, the Social Democrats don’t want to play second fiddle yet again to Merkel’s conservative bloc. They did it twice before, between 2005 and 2009 and then again between 2013 until today. And after each election, they lost voters. The rank and file believed the party was losing its identity; that it was walking away from its traditional values of social democracy.
The reality is that the Social Democrats had turned away from old, left-wing values when Gerhard Schröder was chancellor. He was one of the few German leaders who introduced a radical overhaul of the labor market and of the social welfare and unemployment benefit system. Schröder paid a high price for those reforms. He lost the 2005 election to Merkel.
The fact that Germany has record levels of employment is in large measure due to Schröder’s labor reforms, not to the successive coalition governments led by Merkel. Indeed, business leaders bemoan the absence of economic reforms over the past dozen years. Tax, health, and education reforms have been put on hold.
These were the issues that the rank and file of the Social Democrats wanted Schulz to address during the interim coalition talks. In particular, they wanted a universal health system, not one based on the present two-tier private and public system. Yet for all that, Schulz can tell them he managed to persuade the conservatives to increase the payments for pensioners and children. Schulz’s leadership is on the line. If things go badly wrong for him on January 21, Merkel’s hand will be further weakened too.
This would be bad news for Germany and bad news for Europe. No doubt some of Merkel’s critics in Poland and Hungary, Greece, and of course in Russia, would be delighted to see the back of her. But it is not yet time to write off Merkel. This interim coalition deal, if Schulz can sell it to his party, is really about Merkel dealing with unfinished business. That unfinished business is about Europe.
Comments(3)
Question is whether European nations want to be taken "further" in integration. Militarily, they are defended by NATO, and abandoning NATO is Moscow's long-range plan. Economically, with stronger integration the stronger EU members would disadvantage the weaker ones rather than engaging in competition with them. It was Margaret Thatcher that first observed that EU is a way for Germany to dominate Europe. Ergo, why set up goals European nations (with the exception of the strongest ones) do not want? Or do German and France want to imitate Soviet Moscow and the article's author agrees with them?
Germany has many unfinished businesses: 7,000-ton Baden-Württemberg frigate, Berlin airport, Transrapid running only in China, PISA scores, crumbling infrastructure, an explanation on how hundreds of billions were lent to Greece (and crawled back from pensioners), absence of EU uniform taxation (Apple tax heavens in Europe, not acceptable), digitization. At EU level, it is clear that something is not working as designed, when Germany is looking for workers, while Spain, Greece and Italy have high youth unemployment. At world level, Germany is now the most trusted, so it is probably time to get a voice (and increase the military budget, and participate in Article 5 mandated NATO high impact kinetic operations). All these should have been asked loudly by the electorate, long ago, trigger crisis, and hopefully get solved. Instead what toppled the government and affected Germany’s standing in the EU was a million refugees (the economic immigrants would probably be identified and sent home), including the idea that any of them wanted to go anywhere but in the wealthier Western EU members. To make it worse, an inability to understand that the Eastern and Central EU members fought centuries to protect the West against invasions (the Mongols probably didn’t bother to conquer London because it was too poor). The interim accord, which puts the EU at its center (at least on paper), will (hopefully) became the basis of a new coalition and a new EU. The way both the EU and Germany work is that any leadership intent can be invalidated through a voting process, so pessimism. The Rostock and Hoyerswerda Riots aside, the foundation of AFD rise is not justified for a public with the level of access to information existing in Germany (as well as education). Ideally, through the existing, democratic channels, the EU should have been challenged by the electorate on the absence of international weight. The largest, wealthiest entity in Western history, two permanent members of the Security council, huge combined military budget, should have participated more forcefully in upholding internationally ascribed rules, especially in the space of their former imperial playgrounds. It is easier said than done, but it is time for the EU to become an independent contributor to the international order. The world is moving in a direction of severe instability, which could have catastrophic consequences, especially if the last act of the war of 1914 will be fought, this time with nuclear weapons.
Germany has always come across as extremely conservative a mation that refuses change. Despite the image that Germany built after the 2006 world cup and the crowning of Merkel in 2015 as some liberal champion/queen. Gerrmans do not like change. This nation is punching far below its weight. Its roads and infrastructure need upgrade, its military needs it ,and quite frankly its politicians need it. A Kurz like leader would be a blessing for Germany they should ask him to be chancellor. BTW the greying is most pronounced in this inability to feel that the times are changing. Germans should seriously consider a "birth service" like a military service for women between 18 and 35 to have at least 2-3 children.
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