Germany Votes: Where To Now

• advantage
• 3 years ago
• Categories: Deep stuff, Europe, leadership

Germany is up for Federal election tomorrow and it’s pretty important for the stability of the European Union.

In a more clear-cut version of the New Zealand system, if your party doesn’t get 5% of the vote you just don’t get in. Zero seats.

It will take a few months of argument before they form a new government, in part because there are several stable variations this time that could be formed. There’s a “Jamaica”, a “Traffic Light” and a few more colour-of-your-party variants in play.

It marks the end of Angela Merkel’s remarkable 15-year run as German Chancellor, and bets are hard to pick on who might replace her. There’s still an outside chance that one of the minor party leaders like the Green’s Annalene Baerbock, though unlikely. In fact which coalition the Greens go with is itself one to watch.

Germany’s election is of crucial importance to sustain stability within the German government, which in turn is important to keep the strength of European Union momentum. Germany was one of the leading forces in last years’ decision to issue common European debt to support the bloc during the corona-induced virus. What became known as the Next Generation EU plan was achieved with real speed. This was unusual in the otherwise often sclerotic bureaucracy. The plan is designed to raise up to EU800 billion, and has already been deployed across the 27 nations. Debt is of course the key to forming deep and multi-generational common interest between all nations in the EU. It’s been used really badly before in the aftermath of the GFC, but much more effectively this time around and with much greater support. If the SPD social democrats and the Greens form the basis of government in Germany, that EU debt instrument is likely to continue and to grow.

Angela Merkel’s long and gradualist leadership has generated high trust in many EU nations over time, and that makes her pretty good contender for EU President at some point. Beyond the personalities, Germany’s contribution to the strengthening policy evolution of the EU can only get stronger. Merkel’s gradualist approach has succeeded whereas the bold proposals of France’s Macron haven’t taken root.

Key policy questions for a new German government include:

1. Sustaining Cosmopolitanism.
   
   Whether a new government can resist and then overcome the growing sentiment in Germany’s eastern states against immigrants and the stubborn growth of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party. I would hope Germany sends much stronger signals of condemnation against Victor Orban of Hungary, for example. But it also needs to show that fine balance between bringing in the right people at the right time to do the right things, and also targeting high social redistribution and very low unemployment in states where resentment remains stubbornly high.
2. Social Cohesion Under COVID
   
   The Querdinker (“lateral thinker”) movement has opposed COVID-19 measures and pushed far-right conspiracy theories. The growth of climate change and environmental damage impacts continue to generate tensions with key power nodes in Germany such as coal producers, car producers, labour unions, and different kinds of environmental activist. The new government will need to respect how hard and how important it was for Angela Merkel to sustain political and social cohesion under such a sustained and unplanned crisis.
3. Germany’s Fresh Role
   
   I remember being in Paris at midnight 1998 when they changed to the Euro, and there was the biggest fireworks display I’d ever seen and all the bridges were lit up in EU colours, and everyone was running around with gay abandon yelling Bon Annee Bon Annee! Immediately a candle at Notre Dame went from a couple of Francs to a full Euro. But to step back for a bit, from that point where Germany and France felt like co-EU leaders to now, and then Germany shifting its capital from Bonn to Berlin and revolutionising Berlin from the inside out, the strengthening of the EU through successive crises right through to the end of the Merkel era … well that kind of feels like the end of one chapter.

Germany must surely articulate a clear shape to the next chapter. It can’t rely on any other EU country to make the running on that.

What will a bold new government dare to achieve for Germany? Might there be a time to strengthen and unify foreign policy resolve with Germany’s leadership?

Can it rise to meet the challenges of Big Data throughout the economy and clearly regulate social media?

Can a bolder Federal German government show greater skill in supporting Ukraine and other close-by countries facing tyranny?

Can it reassert a stronger role for decarbonised energy production and energy use throughout society? Indeed can it save its forests and river valleys from disease and destruction?

How can Federal government assist an ageing and more diverse German society find common purpose in the next decade?

Will it seek to increase the influence of Germany on the post-BREXIT world stage by encouraging EU membership by Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey? Even Ukraine, again?

The decline of so many democracies world wide means we must take every open election as a great opportunity to celebrate the vote as an exercise in distributing power, momentarily and decisively, into the hands of the millions. But that’s especially the case in Germany, a country that after Brexit takes on a far greater global role than Britain can.

This time it is also by proxy a vote on post-Prexit Europe and its future leadership and scale and ambition. That makes it doubly important in a world where federal and multilateral agreement across states and across nations is, like democracy itself, under sustained attack from all who would strip such powers of resistance away. Even small states like ourselves need Germany to assist with our trade agreements and trade opportunities. As a politics and as a land, New Zealand now has more in common with Germany than it does with England.

Germany, for those reasons, is holding the world’s most important election of 2021.