Germany’s two principal political parties finally have broken the stalemate that followed the Sept. 18 elections, and the result is a precarious coalition that will be hard-pressed to deliver the economic revival that is the goal of new chancellor Angela Merkel.
Her Christian Democratic Party won a paper-thin plurality over the Social Democrats and two-term Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, but it took three weeks to work out a coalition that will seem unwieldy to most Americans, and to most Germans, too.
A strong, stable Germany is essential to the health of the European economy, but it will be no easy feat for the “grand coalition” worked out by the parties.
Merkel, who once held a 20-point lead in polls, won only 35.2 percent of the vote to Schroeder’s 34.2 percent. In a parody of the 2000 U.S. election that dragged on undecided for five weeks, Schroeder, who said Wednesday he won’t be part of the new government, refused to concede until Merkel’s CDU picked up an additional seat in an Oct. 2 election in Dresden. That bolstered her and brought the SDU – which had ruled in coalition with the Greens – to terms.
And favorable terms they are. To secure the chancellor’s position, the Christian Democrats offered eight of 14 ministries to the SDU – foreign, finance, labor, justice, health, transport, environment and development. The CDU and its ally, the Christian Social Union, will keep the economy, defense, interior, agriculture, family and education ministries.
Only once since World War II – in 1966- 69 – has Germany been ruled by a grand coalition. This one requires the first female chancellor, born in East Germany, to tread carefully to push the CDU agenda yet keep the fragile coalition intact.
Although postwar West Germany was an economic powerhouse, economic and social problems have beset Germany since reunification. Its population growth is zero, and in 25 years it could lose 20 percent of its working-age people. Unemployment is 12 percent, caused in part by the cost of one of the world’s most generous social welfare programs. Merkel’s proposals would make it easier to fire a worker (it’s almost impossible now), and she has suggested a flat-fee health care premium to reduce labor costs as an incentive for employers to create more jobs.
Merkel is friendly to the U.S., but with the foreign ministry in the hands of Social Democrats, a thaw could come more slowly than she’d wish. Still, we hope to see Merkel smooth ruffled trans-Atlantic feathers while working with the SDU to solve Germany’s urgent economic problems.
