The Guardian view on Germany’s election: slow and steady
Germans head to the ballot box next Sunday. If polls are anything to go by (in Germany they’re deemed reliable), Angela Merkel is heading comfortably for a fourth term in office. The economy is doing well, confidence is high, and Mrs Merkel’s main opponent, the Social Democrat Martin Schulz, has failed to land any damaging blows on her.
So the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) is steady in the polls at 37%, and the SPD (Social Democrats) can only muster 20%. Most of the suspense centres on what kind of coalition might emerge under Mrs Merkel this time. The CDU and the SPD have been in coalition since 2013; will that be renewed? Or will a different pattern emerge, perhaps one excluding the SPD but combining the CDU with the liberal, business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP), 9.5% in the latest polls, and the Greens, currently at 7.5%? Few now expect the kind of political upheaval which might produce a coalition between the SPD, the Greens, and the former communists of Die Linke.
This placidity is a tribute to the resilience of Europe’s most powerful leader. At the age of 63, Mrs Merkel, who was first elected in 2005, is on her way to reaching her mentor Helmut Kohl’s record of being modern Germany’s longestserving chancellor. Just as she was underestimated when she first entered politics in 1990, as a young physicist from East Germany, Mrs Merkel’s talent for political survival was somewhat overlooked in the aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis, which some thought would lead to her downfall. Two years on, Germany’s “welcome culture” may have faded, but for most voters Mrs Merkel remains a safe pair of hands. She has always had an instinct for the centre ground, where a majority of voter sympathies lie, and the slogan she is running under makes this clear: “For a Germany where life is good and we enjoy it.”
This may be dull to the point of smugness, but a Germany sticking to moderation, and not wading into rash, fringe or extremist politics, is good news for Europe and for liberal democracy at large. And after the defeat of Marine Le Pen in this year’s French elections, it brings vital confirmation that there is nothing inevitable about a populist wave overtaking the continent. But there are ripples of that wave even in this election. The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is set to enter parliament for the first time, with polls giving it between 10 and 12% of the vote. Originally created in 2013 by a small group of academics and intellectuals opposed to the EU single currency, the AfD later morphed into a xenophobic entity, feeding anti-immigrant sentiment. Most importantly, it has captured the malaise of eastern Germans who feel they were given the wrong end of the stick after German reunification in 1990 – their social woes left unaddressed, their identity disregarded. A country with substantial trade and budget surpluses still struggles to convince parts of its population that it won’t be left on the sidelines.
Germany’s role in Europe has grown spectacularly in recent years when a series of almost existential shocks threatened the European project – the financial crisis, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, and the great influx of Syrian refugees. What comes out of this election matters greatly to the EU’s future. German policies on Brexit are unlikely to change, whatever some leavers here may hope. But French plans to introduce a budget and a finance minister for the eurozone – which deserve support – may be obstructed if the next coalition includes the FDP, a party strongly hostile to anything that smacks of financial transfers. Mrs Merkel owes her likely re-election to German domestic factors, not least the strength of the economy. But she has also been a driving force for the EU, despite obstacles and in the face of criticism.
If Europe is to truly catch “the wind in its sails”, as Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU commission president, urges, the chancellor will have to think and act increasingly as a European politician – not only a German one.