The obituaries are in. All the hopes of the German government now rest on Mesut Ozil and Thomas Muller. They aren't members of the cabinet, they're the new stars of the national football team. If anybody could, they might turn the destiny of Chancellor Angela Merkel's hopeless coalition. If they win the World Cup in South Africa, the whole country will party relentlessly and nobody will worry any more about the disastrous government. At least that's a possibility. It has worked before: poor governments have carried on thanks to a wave of football fever. “Drink beer, watch football,” said one Christian Democratic Union member of parliament the other day, when he was asked by a journalist how to survive the following weeks.
Germany has a similar coalition to Britain's: an agreement between the conservative CDU and the liberal Free Democratic Party. But, unlike Britain, there was never a honeymoon in Berlin. From the start, last September, there has been constant infighting, disagreement — chaos. Cabinet members refer to each other as “ Gurken ” (cucumbers) or “ Wildsau ” (wild boar). Merkel's once ideal partner, the pro-business FDP has turned out to be a nightmare.
While the CDU has become a modern conservative party with a strong interest in social equality, gay rights and environmental protection, the FDP is stuck in the 1980s and is a single-topic party: it wants to cut tax, or at least block tax rises. Under the guidance of its erratic leader, Guido Westerwelle, the foreign secretary, its members happily ignored the pressing problems of the international financial crisis.
And up to now, the coalition has managed to disagree on everything — the budget, health reform, how to help the struggling carmaker Opel.
The most recent low point was last week, when Merkel and Westerwelle presented what they called a “saving package.” They want to save €80bn by 2014, mainly by cutting social spending, and support for poor parents and the long-term unemployed. It read like the wish list of the FDP. There was an immediate cry of outrage — and not only from the opposition. CDU members found the package socially imbalanced, they said, claiming that wealthier people do not contribute at all. About 20,000 people demonstrated at the weekend against the proposed cuts in Berlin, and the papers published obituaries of the coalition government. “ Aufhoren !” (“Stop!“) reads the cover headline this week of the German news magazine Der Spiegel , above a picture of a troubled-looking Merkel and Westerwelle.
Merkel was once dubbed the Queen of Germany because of her presidential style. In the grand coalition with the social democrats (SPD) she was able to remain less hands-on, and merely moderate the process of governing. She had strong counterparts like finance minister Peer Steinbruck. But confronted with a very different coalition partner she appears remarkably weak — almost paralysed, and unable to control the constant arguing of the coalition members. The electorate wait in vain for some inspiration or explanation of how to go on. Merkel herself does not appear to know what the purpose of her government is. She has made uncharacteristic mistakes: she did not go personally to persuade the president Horst Kohler to stay, before he threw his job away. Instead she talked to him on the phone. She also humiliated important allies such as the work and labour minister, Ursula von der Leyen.
Merkel's weakness is felt in Europe, too. With the currency in crisis, previous German chancellors would have taken a leading role. She, on the other hand, seems uninterested. Her actions are lacklustre; she's happy to leave the initiative to France's Nicolas Sarkozy to agree new rules for the European Central Bank. At the most recent meeting of Sarkozy and Merkel, the differences were emphasised — both talked about a common European business policy but they seemed to be referring to different things. Merkel just wants better co-ordination and tougher punishments for countries who spend too much; Sarkozy demands more solidarity from Germany — in the past he has criticised German spending cuts. The unity once shown by Francois Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl has long gone.
The crunch day will be 30 June: that day the new president will be elected. If Merkel's candidate, Christian Wulff — the bland CDU first minister of Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony) — doesn't get enough votes, it will be the end of this coalition government and new elections would have to be held. But it is unlikely to happen, since many MPs would lose their jobs in that process. They're likely to grit their teeth and hope for 11 July. That's the day the World Cup final takes place. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2010
( Sabine Rennefanz is an editor at the Berliner Zeitung.)
