With Angela Merkel announcing that she will step down as leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and not seek re-election as chancellor when her current term expires in 2021, Germany is approaching a turning point. The country has only had eight chancellors since 1949, which means Merkel's departure will be anything but an everyday event. Moreover, change at the top of Germany is usually accompanied by broader political and social change.
A. Merkel's decision was not completely unexpected. German voters elected her for the fourth time in September 2017 and there was little chance of giving her a fifth term. People get tired of leaders after a while. Even without her recent announcement of retirement, one could have assumed that her current mandate would be her last.
But the current transformation of Germany's domestic and foreign policy position is more important than the change in leadership. International fissures are shaking the very foundations of German post-war democracy. Under President Donald Trump, the US has rejected the West and everything it stands for. On 29 March 2019, Great Britain will leave the European Union. And to the east, China has emerged as a new global power.
Reorganization of the party system
More broadly, the world's economic center of gravity is rapidly shifting from the North Atlantic to East Asia. The digital revolution, big data and artificial intelligence are changing the way we work and live. And the internal crises in the European Union not only continued but also intensified, while the chronic storm in the Middle East and Africa represents a constant external risk for the stability of Europe.
These and other events shook Germany's once stable foreign policy stronghold. For years, the country's economic model and security strategy were centered around integration with the West and Germany's role within the EU. But today's challenges require a new strategy. The question for the next chancellor will be: "Where are you going, Germany?"
Wherever Germany heads, one thing is already clear: the transition from Merkel to her successor will bring a far-reaching reorganization of the country's party system. For decades, the CDU, as a center-right party (in alliance with the Christian Social Union from Bavaria), and the Social Democratic Party served as the two great guarantors of political continuity and stability. But as the leading parties across Europe, the CDU/CSU and the SPD are now in crisis. The SPD has lost so much support that it may not survive; and while the CDU/CDS remains the strongest force in German politics, it faces a profound structural challenge.
Since 1949, the CDU/CSU "sister" structure has routinely enabled that alliance to secure the chancellorship as the largest bloc in majority coalitions. But in an enlarged, reunified Germany, with seven parties represented in the Bundestag, that arrangement no longer works as well as it once did.
In the years before Angela Merkel's first election as chancellor in 2005, Germany was governed by a coalition consisting of the SPD and the Greens (the party in which I was vice chancellor and foreign minister). During that period, Germany went through a painful adjustment as the welfare state had to deal with post-unification realities, when the unemployment rate was high and a new economic geography was present. At the same time, German foreign policy had to be adapted to suit the country's new role in the context of the post-Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and to deal with the threat of international terrorism after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Fall of the Berlin Wall
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, reunification, and a period of high unemployment and seemingly endless reforms, Germans experienced a lot of excitement. A. Merkel's work as chancellor should have ended all that. Cold pragmatism became her way of working. With the economy growing it seemed the sun was always shining and the clouds were always blue. Towering over it all was “Mutti” (“Mother”), who simply let things take their course. German voters saw no reason not to elect her three more times.
Now the sunny days are over. The emergence of a new global order presents policymakers and politicians with difficult strategic questions that cannot be ignored or postponed. Chief among them is what role Germany - and Europe - should carve out for itself in the coming years. A decade from now, where will we as Europeans stand and what will we stand for?
Merkel does not offer satisfactory answers to such questions. With her perfect pragmatism, she became her own worst enemy. Even when she made big - truly historic - decisions, they were based on narrow, short-term political considerations. Merkel's dismantling of Germany's nuclear power plants, suspension of conscription and responses to the 2008 financial crisis were mere tactical moves. One exception occurred in 2005, when she took a moral stand and opened Germany's doors to a million refugees. Merkel's approach to the financial crisis will prove to be her biggest mistake. At the time, she opposed a common European response, advocating instead measures at the national level and mere coordination among eurozone governments. The whole European project has been off course since then.
Of course, we will remember Merkel as the chancellor of the "peace dividend" and, perhaps, as the last chancellor of the post-war (Western) German party system. But Europe's dominant crisis will now be part of her legacy and will pose a difficult challenge for her successors.
No one knows what will follow. Much will depend on whether Germany, along with France, will continue to follow the European mission.
(Project Syndicate; balkans.aljazeera.net)
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