Merkel’s mandate

Only Bismarck and Helmut Kohl have served as German chancellor for as long as Angela Merkel. Both were associated with building new nations – in Bismarck’s case the unification of the German states and in Kohl’s the West’s merger with the East after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Mrs Merkel, whose CDU party won the most votes in Sunday’s election, has presided over the least turbulent period in her country’s history. In the campaign she emphasised Germany’s stability and prosperity, yet only one third of Germans supported her – hardly an enthusiastic endorsement. She was blessed with a lacklustre opponent in Martin Schulz, the socialist leader, whose SPD fared especially badly. The big gainer was the AFD, a Right-wing nationalist party. It was formed just four years ago but did far better than expected. The AFD is now Germany’s third-largest party – evidence that the immigration issue could yet destabilise Mrs Merkel’s government.

The UK is hoping that, with the elections out of the way, Mrs Merkel will start to focus her attention on Brexit and help to engineer the mutually beneficial agreement that the EU’S political leaders must see is in their interests, even if the bureaucrats of Brussels don’t. With the UK leaving, the power of Germany inside the EU will be greater than ever, and it is resented by many other member states. Mrs Merkel can use that to forge the superstate that the Commission wants, or help to create a much looser confederation of nations of the sort that Britain tried and failed to bring about. Bismarck and Kohl were centralists. Which way will Mrs Merkel go?