Phew!
Merkel didn’t win
There
is German relief on missing out on a Nobel.
By KONSTANTIN
RICHTER 10/9/15, 3:41 PM CET Updated 10/9/15, 4:28 PM CET
BERLIN — Angela
Merkel must be glad she didn’t make the cut after all.
The Norwegian Nobel
Committee’s decision to award the Peace Prize to the Tunisian
National Dialogue Quartet rather than the German chancellor comes as
a relief at a time when Germany is not in party mode. A few days ago,
when London bookies had Merkel at the top of their betting sheets, a
survey here found that only 19 percent of Germans wanted her to win
the thing. Give it to the Eritrean priest, the Germans seemed to be
saying, or to the Pope for God’s sake, but please leave us alone.
Even Merkel herself
said she didn’t want the Nobel. In a television interview on
Wednesday she admitted that the thought of winning “almost
depressed” her. There is too much work still to be done. With
thousands of refugees arriving in Germany each day, Merkel is in the
midst of an intense political debate on how to stem the influx and
what to do with those who have already arrived.
Even Merkel’s
supporters felt that a Nobel would have been premature. It would be
like the Literature Prize going to a promising novelist for a book in
progress.
Merkel’s decision
to open the doors to refugees stranded on their flight from war-torn
Syria came as a surprise. This is the same chancellor, after all, who
stuck to a hard-line position on Greek debt relief. Only a few months
ago, protesters took to the streets of Athens, carrying posters of
Merkel with a Hitler moustache. Merkel is more popular in Germany
than in Greece, of course, but she definitely wasn’t considered
peace prize material until recently.
Her rise to power
has been attributed to a mix of strong nerves and political
pragmatism. Public opinion matters to her and tends to influence her
decision-making. In 2011, after Fukushima, she committed to shutting
down all reactors, knowing that the German public is deeply skeptical
of nuclear power.
This time is
different, though. Merkel’s “we-can-do-it”-approach is not
necessarily a popular one in Germany. Her ratings have dropped, and
the conservative members of her own party, the CDU, are up in arms.
Right-wing movements like Pegida seem to be on the rise again. And
yet, Merkel has stuck to her position, puzzling even those who have
known her for years.
Tunisian mediators
from the Nobel peace prize-winning institutions, at a press
conference in September 2013 in Tunis, Tunisia. (Left to Right) The
President of the Tunisian employers union (UTICA), Wided Bouchamaoui,
Secretary-General of the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) Houcine
Abbassi (L) , President of the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH),
Abdessattar ben Moussa and the president of the National Bar
Association, Mohamed Fadhel Mahfoudh.
Some believe Merkel
is guided by her religious upbringing as the daughter of a Lutheran
pastor. She may have felt uneasy with her tough stance on Greece and
is now seeking to make amends. Others claim that Merkel is taking the
long view, hoping to address Germany’s demographic problem or to
boost its soft power in global politics.
When U.S. President
Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel in 2009, it didn’t help him
domestically. Obama haters felt vindicated by the fact that some
Scandinavian goodie-two-shoes thought he was prize-worthy.
Merkel is not as
divisive a figure, but there’s been a popular backlash against
Germany’s new Willkommenskultur — the culture of welcoming
immigrants — and the peace prize could have ended up fanning the
flames.
In the recent past,
the Norwegian Nobel committee has shown that it wants to use the
prize as an instrument for political change. Maybe this time, they
sensed that awarding 8 million Swedish krona to the German chancellor
would not have done her any good. It might even have been
counterproductive.
The Tunisian
mediators are definitely a safer bet. The Germans wish them well.
Konstantin Richter
is a POLITICO contributing writer, a regular contributor to Die Welt
and the author of “Bettermann” and “Kafka was Young and He
Needed the Money.”
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