Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Ramadan 17, 1445 H
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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Merkel’s power weakened as opposition gained ground

Andy-Jalil
Andy-Jalil
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In the end it was the German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s policies that failed to work for her despite her lengthy stint as the head of Europe’s powerhouse. Through critical periods over the years in the European Union when others were losing their heads, she managed to keep hold of hers. For over a decade Merkel was not only the most powerful politician in Europe, but she was respected throughout the world.


But with the rise of the far right in Eastern Europe, the strength gained by the opposition parties, the potential effect of Brexit on German industry, she appears to have had enough and it was of little surprise that she decided to step down as her country’s leader in 2021 rather than to stand for a further term.


While the German economy has been relatively stable since the 2008 global crash — apart from a minor dip in 2013 — Merkel’s migration policies have fuelled the gravest political divisions in Germany after her decision to unilaterally let in more than a million refugees.


Her decision to allow migrants in such huge numbers to come to Germany in 2015, as Europe experienced its biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War, went badly against her at the ballot box.


The nationalist Alternative for Germany party (AfD) played on the concerns raised by the public over a migrant influx to gain third place in last year’s federal election, going from nil to 94 seats in the Bundestag.


Merkel’s problems escalated when the coalition parties CDU/CSU, of which Merkel is the head, lost 65 seats, and was forced into protracted talks with the centre-left SDP to form a government.


It wasn’t until March this year — six months after the vote — that Merkel’s fourth term as Germany’s Chancellor officially began. But it wasn’t the SDP which caused her the biggest problem, but the CSU leader, Horst Seehofer, an interior minister in the ruling coalition.


In June, he threatened to unilaterally impose tougher restrictions on migrants coming to Germany, including turning away those who had been registered in another European country.


Merkel initially balked at the suggestion as it would potentially undermine the border-free Schengen arrangement on mainland Europe.


Public opinion backed Seehofer, and Merkel had to reach a compromise with him in order to keep her shaky coalition intact.


The CSU may have control of just 46 out of 709 seats in the Bundestag, but so weak was Merkel’s grip on power she had no choice but to go along. Any sense that a crisis had been averted came to end in a series of regional elections in recent weeks. The CSU lost its majority in the Bavarian regional parliament in mid-October for the first time since 1957, and just over a week ago Merkel’s CDU and her SDP coalition partners both saw their votes fall by 10 per cent in the state of Hesse.


It wasn’t just the AfD which saw a pick up at the ballot box. The Greens have also been attracting more voters, and in the Hesse elections, 10 days ago, polled equally with the SDP. One person repeatedly flagged up as Merkel’s successor is Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the general-secretary of the CDU, sparking rumours of a succession plan being put in place.


The impact Merkel’s retirement will have on the EU depends very much on her successor. She has been resolute in her support for the European project, willing to use her own taxpayers’ money to bail out Greece and Italy — albeit while driving a hard bargain on those governments’ spending plans — refusing to bend rules on free movement ahead of the UK’s EU referendum, or the tenants of the single market in the Brexit negotiations.


Indeed, the problems with her CSU allies stemmed from her wanting to find a Europe-wide solution to the migration crisis, rather than resorting to a bilateral deal with Austria.


One person who may have mixed feelings over Merkel’s departure is French President Emmanuel Macron. With Merkel gone, his attempt to position Paris, not Berlin, as the heart of Europe could be made easier, although the opposition to that from Germany should not be underestimated.


Should the next German Chancellor be less of a Europhile than Merkel, Macron may find he is the one responsible for keeping the increasingly fractured European Union project going. (The author is our foreign correspondent based in the UK. He can be reached at andyjalil@aol.com).


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