 |
61%
dos alemães dizem que Merkel não deve receber o Nobel da Paz
Quase
dois terços de alemães julgam que a chanceler Angela Merkel, citada
entre os favoritos para o Prémio Nobel da Paz, não deve receber
este galardão, segundo uma sondagem publicada no jornal Handelsblatt
esta quinta-feira.
Uma
larga maioria (61%) julga que Angela Merkel não é uma “candidata
apropriada” para receber este prémio, que será anunciado na
sexta-feira, em Oslo, enquanto 34% tem opinião contrária, segundo a
sondagem feita pelo instituto Forsa, realizada com uma amostra de
cerca de mil pessoas.
Angela
Merkel está a ser citada entre os favoritos para o Prémio Nobel da
Paz pela sua mediação no conflito na Ucrânia e por ter aberto as
portas de seu país aos migrantes, num momento em que a Europa está
a ser confrontada com uma crise migratória excecional.
TVI / 24 |
“Merkel
“clearly underestimated the pressure posed by the refugee crisis”
and is pursuing a policy “which drives large parts of her party up
the wall,” he said. “She’s risking a lot.”
“Warnings
have come from the top federal law-and-order official, Interior
Minister Thomas de Maiziere, and Joachim Gauck, Germany’s
president, who used celebrations marking 25 years of German
unification last week to say the country’s ability to absorb
refugees is limited. Merkel’s Social Democrat coalition partner is
pressing her for stronger measures, including a cap on arrivals.”
Merkel
Risks All as International Praise Runs Into Party Outrage
Arne Delfs Patrick
Donahue
October 8, 2015
Angela Merkel could
go down in history as the chancellor who won a Nobel prize for a
policy decision that seals her political fate.
The bookmakers’
favorite to pick up the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her stance on
refugees, Merkel is causing a storm at home with her open-door
policy, alienating political allies and a skeptical public. Her
approval ratings, already in decline after this year’s standoff
with Greece, have plunged by a third since April to the lowest in
almost four years.
With her coalition
partners openly querying her stance, Merkel looks to have lost her
sure political touch and has started to attract comparisons with her
predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder. He also took on his party and pushed
through a socially divisive overhaul that was credited with turning
the German economy around, only to be voted out for his troubles.
“This is by far
the biggest challenge during her chancellorship,” said Jan Techau,
director of Carnegie Europe in Brussels. Merkel “clearly
underestimated the pressure posed by the refugee crisis” and is
pursuing a policy “which drives large parts of her party up the
wall,” he said. “She’s risking a lot.”
Having grown into
Europe’s dominant leader over her decade in power, Merkel’s
insistence that Germany can’t seal its border and needs to set an
example -- “We will do this,” she says -- is testing the limits
of public acceptance. The chancellor sees no alternative, won’t
reverse course and accepts declining approval ratings as the price to
pay, according to a person with direct knowledge of her views who
asked not to be named. She’s staking her political future on it,
the person said.
With Volkswagen AG
embroiled in an emission-cheating scandal, Deutsche Bank AG posting
its biggest quarterly loss in at least a decade and German exports
declining the most since 2009, Merkel also faces growing economic
headwinds just as she tells Germans the country can handle the inflow
of 800,000 or more refugees his year.
Caution Overboard
By taking a stand
based on humanitarian principles, Merkel is departing from the
cautious, coalition-building approach to policy that’s served her
well at home and in Europe. This time, she said in an hourlong
interview on national television, her call for Germans to present “a
friendly face” to the world’s refugees comes “from the heart.”
The Lutheran
pastor’s daughter also draws a parallel with the changes that swept
Europe after the Cold War and dealing with the stream of refugees
from war-torn countries such as Syria. Closing borders in Europe
might sound like the answer, but is unrealistic -- Merkel is not
willing to build another wall in Europe, the person familiar with her
thinking said.
Critics say Merkel,
on her lofty perch, is ignoring the day-to-day strains on ordinary
Germans, the challenge of integrating Muslims and the risk of a
political backlash in Germany, where no anti-immigrant party sits in
the national parliament.
Warnings have come
from the top federal law-and-order official, Interior Minister Thomas
de Maiziere, and Joachim Gauck, Germany’s president, who used
celebrations marking 25 years of German unification last week to say
the country’s ability to absorb refugees is limited. Merkel’s
Social Democrat coalition partner is pressing her for stronger
measures, including a cap on arrivals.
Schroeder Moment
Schroeder, the last
Social Democratic chancellor, fell a decade ago after sections of his
party revolted against labor and welfare reforms he pushed through to
combat record unemployment. A senior party member who remembers those
days and asked not to be named criticizing the chancellor, said
Merkel is now facing her Schroeder moment.
Schroeder, 71, made
the point himself at a book event with Merkel in Berlin on Sept. 22.
“You have to be
ready to run the risk of losing office when it’s required to
implement political goals,” the ex-chancellor said. “That’s the
risk I took with the Agenda 2010 reforms.”
Polling Evidence
Party polls suggest
Merkel’s hold on power is safe for now and, in any case, she has no
obvious successor pushing at her back. And she’s seen worse: her
approval rating was lower in 2010 during the height of the debt
crisis that spread from Greece, and then again in 2011 when she
reversed her stance on nuclear power following the Fukushima
disaster.
What’s more,
Germany’s first woman chancellor and its first from the former
communist east has made a career out of being underestimated.
All Merkel can do
now is stay the course, said Manfred Guellner, head of Berlin-based
pollster Forsa. Support for her party bloc declined to 39 percent in
this week’s Forsa poll compared with 43 percent as recently as
August, and Merkel’s approval rating fell 2 percentage points on
the week to 47 percent. It was 75 percent in April.
“There have been
many phases in her chancellorship where she was below 40 percent,”
Guellner said by phone. “The biggest mistake Merkel could do right
now would be to change her policy. That would be seen as
opportunistic.”
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