Merkel decision’s profound impact
The era of Angela Merkel is ending. Germany’s chancellor, Europe’s de facto leader and the world’s most powerful woman, will step down in December as leader of her center-right party, the Christian Democratic Union. She will not seek a fifth term as Germany’s chancellor when her current mandate expires in 2021.
While Merkel has said she is “prepared” to continue as chancellor until then, odds are that she won’t, either because whoever emerges as leader of her party may try to replace her, or the Social Democrats, the junior partner in her coalition government, may bolt the government after being repeatedly hammered by voters at the polls. That could lead to early national elections.
Merkel’s departure will be profound for Europe. She has helped the continent weather a conflation of crises, including the 2008 Great Recession, Russian interventions in Georgia and Ukraine, and successive Greek bailout negotiations that challenged the stability of the eurozone. Through it all, she remained a cautious, principled coalition-builder.
Twice she took another path, each time with mixed results. In the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Merkel announced that Germany would abandon its reliance on civilian nuclear power and fossil fuels and turn to green energy. That surprised and angered neighboring countries dependent on Germany’s energy grid. Since then, Germany has spent hundreds of billions of euros subsidizing renewables, yet it remains heavily dependent on dirty lignite coal, has failed to lower its greenhouse gas emissions and has abandoned its near-term climate goals.
The next time she acted unilaterally was in 2015, when she was faced with a mass of humanity fleeing the conflicts in Iraq and Syria. She took the principled decision to open Germany’s borders, eventually taking in more than 1 million refugees. Her government badly managed the inflow, however, and she failed to get European partners to share the burden. For that, she and her party were punished at the polls. The resulting political backlash has fueled virulent right-wing populism in the form of the Alternative for Germany, which has become the largest opposition party in the German parliament and is now represented in all of Germany’s 16 state legislatures.
Merkel’s successes and failures alike underscore that during her tenure Germany, the country that once embodied Europe’s divisions, has once again become Europe’s central power, the key swing state on a continent in tremendous flux. It is a country with great weight, yet uncertain power. It is selectively strong. Yet it retains significant vulnerabilities and is often beset by self-doubt.
As Germany rose, Merkel understood the hesitations of her neighbors and the doubts of her compatriots. She managed Germany’s evolution in a way that reassured other countries about Germany and reassured Germans about themselves. That is perhaps her greatest legacy. What comes next? Behind Merkel’s comforting visage is a Germany that has become less reticent internationally yet more pressured economically. German society is older and more diverse, more open yet less settled politically than when Merkel became chancellor. What used to be a predictable democracy dominated by two big-tent parties has fragmented into a sevenparty free-for-all.
Germans remain committed to multilateral solutions to international problems. But they have become less inhibited about defining terms of engagement in ways more conducive to German interests. They are still committed to European integration, but they have come to realize that the slogan “more Europe” isn’t always an answer to German questions. German leaders still object to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Georgia and Ukraine and feel less bound by World War II guilt when it comes to dealing with Moscow. But after Merkel, pressure will build to relegate eastern European concerns behind efforts to define a new rapprochement with Moscow.
Merkel’s departure also comes at a time when Germany’s relationship with the United States is undergoing profound transformation and redefinition. German opinions of America soared to new highs with President Barack Obama. They have dipped to new lows with President Trump. Merkel’s generation identified with an America that contained Soviet power, ensured Germany’s security, promoted European reconciliation and integration and served as trustee for Germany’s peaceful unification. Many younger Germans harbor other associations: Iraq, Guantanamo, casino capitalism, NSA eavesdropping, climate change denial, regular mass shootings and lack of gun control, and their own uncomfortable dependency on what many perceive to be a reckless and erratic superpower.
As a result, trans-Atlantic deficits in expectation and trust have become as important as those in trade or military capacity. Trump’s America expects more from Germany. But Merkel’s Germany has come to expect less from America.
After almost 30 years, united Germany’s evolution continues. Along the way, Angela Merkel has offered orientation to neighbors and countrymen alike. I don’t envy her successor.