Angela Merkel

Germany's most influential party has a new partner

After the parliamentary elections in Germany, a new ruling coalition is formed. With the return of the liberals to power, both in domestic and foreign policy, one should not expect serious changes. The New Times dealt with the peculiarities of German coalition building

Guido Westerwelle has something to rejoice at: he returned free democrats to the ranks of the ruling coalition

The Social Democratic Party (SPD) did not seem to have a reason to celebrate: the oldest party in Germany suffered a crushing defeat in the elections to the Bundestag. 23% of the vote is the worst result of the SPD in its entire post-war history. However, on the night after the election, members of the party and guests of their headquarters merrily drank beer, eating it with sausages and pretzels. One of the Social Democrats’ PR people, who has already drunk more than one mug of Berlin, admitted to The New Times that “four more years in the“ grand coalition ”would have buried the party, so we should not grieve, but start working seriously.” In previous elections, the SPD and the CDU/CSU association led by Angela Merkel won almost an equal number of votes and were forced to make peace for a while in order to rule the country together.

Failure of the bureaucrat

During the four years that Merkel was Chancellor of Germany, she managed to maintain the confidence of the Germans. Even the crisis that broke out could not make the Germans lose faith in Angie, as she is affectionately called. Their lives got worse, but all the blame, it seems, was placed on Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who, according to the SPD quota, held the posts of Vice-Chancellor and Foreign Minister of Germany in the government. “The scandalous defeat of the SPD was due to the weakness of Steinmeier's candidacy. He is a typical bureaucrat and does not know how to fight in elections. In general, the election campaign by the Social Democrats was a failure, ”Vladislav Belov, head of the Center for German Studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told The New Times. Although Steinmeier at the final rally of the party at the Brandenburg Gate vomited and metal, and Merkel spoke quietly and boringly at a similar event in the Arena concert complex, this did not save the Foreign Minister.

Black and yellow coalition

Merkel, who won the election, has already begun talks with the Free Democratic Party (FDP) to form a government coalition. Together, these two parties received more than 330 mandates out of 598. In Germany, everyone calls the new coalition black and yellow (according to the colors of the party symbols).
It is the leader of the Free Democrats, Guido Westerwelle, who can be considered a real triumphant election. “The 15% gained by the FDP is a personal victory for Westerwelle. Although if people read carefully the ultra-liberal market program of the party, then in times of crisis they would never vote for the FDP,” says Vladislav Belov. Absolutely does not interfere, if his non-traditional sexual orientation does not add popularity to Westerwelle. He stopped hiding it back in 2004, when he came to the 50th birthday of Angela Merkel with his partner.
Long before voting day, Merkel openly announced that she wanted a black-and-yellow coalition. In turn, Westerwelle said that he was ready to unite only with the CDU / CSU. Nevertheless, the negotiations promise to be difficult. Despite the apparent similarity of positions, the two parties also have differences. “The Free Democrats are a classic party serving the interests of business. The CDU are conservatives with much broader working-class support,” William Paterson, director of the Institute for German Studies at the University of Birmingham, explains to The New Times. The future coalition allies do not exactly have different views on economic reforms. It's just that the junior partner takes a more radical position on all controversial issues. For example, Merkel suggests carefully reforming the health care system, while Westerwelle assures us that we just need to abolish state medicine and give it entirely to private hands. Or here the free democrats are in favor of a complete transfer of the army to a professional basis, and the CDU / CSU wants to partially preserve the conscription. The same is true of pension and tax reforms. True, Paterson is confident that the FDP will eventually give in on all fronts, because it "desperately wants to enter the government."

Return to power

The Liberals were the junior partner in the coalition without interruption from 1969 to 1998. Of these, the last 16 years - just together with the CDU / CSU. The symbol of the party is still Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who headed the German Foreign Ministry for 18 years in a row. A member of the Hitler Youth at the end of the war, in the 80s Genscher determined the country's foreign policy and played one of the main roles in the unification of Germany. He will now secure the continuity and assist Westerwelle as a foreign policy adviser. All hope is on him. “Westerwelle is still very weak in foreign policy and international relations. He has catastrophically little experience, ”Belov believes. According to Paterson, foreign policy will be determined by Merkel and only Merkel for a long time to come. True, the CDU / CSU and the FDP have practically no disagreements in this area: both parties are in favor of Germany's participation in the NATO operation in Afghanistan and for deepening cooperation with the United States. No changes are expected in Germany's relations with Russia either.
According to a tradition not spelled out in the legislation, the leader of the party - the junior partner in the coalition, has recently become the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Now the German press is actively discussing the option according to which Westerwelle, for the benefit of all Germany, will agree to become the Minister of Economics, which the liberals quite logically claim, and the Foreign Ministry will be headed by a more experienced diplomat.

Four years of reflection

As for the SPD, while Merkel and Westerwelle fight the crisis and carry out unpopular reforms, the Social Democrats will sit in the opposition. Steinmeier, immediately after the disastrous exit-polls results were announced for him, announced that he would head the SPD faction in parliament. Experts agree that defeat in the elections and going into opposition should save the SPD from deepening the crisis in which the party has been since the 90s. “Steinmeier, as a fairly right-wing politician, should remain for the time being in order to give way to a more left-wing successor before the elections. The SPD as a whole needs to change its rhetoric and politics in order to win back the votes on the left that they have lost,” says Paterson.
Indeed, those votes missed by the SPD went to the Left Party, which gained almost 12% in September. Only the left opposed the participation of the German military in the operation in Afghanistan and the Treaty of Lisbon, which is intended to replace the European Constitution. As a result, they managed to gather the entire protest and far-left electorate, bypassing their main competitor, the Green Party.
In the next four years, the leaders of the SPD will have something to think about. For example, about why at the CDU / CSU party after the elections beer was poured for free, and at the headquarters of the Social Democrats they took € 1 per glass.