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German
interregnum
By Mehreen
Khan in Strasbourg
February
11, 2020
Angela
Merkel’s critics have often mocked her for making a fetish of “stability”. As
she enters the twilight of her chancellorship, some of those critics — in
Berlin and Brussels — are realising that stability might not be so bad after
all.
Yesterday’s
news that Merkel’s struggling heir apparent Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (AKK)
will step down as leader of the Christian Democrats and end her chancellorship
aspirations has sparked a leadership battle that is being portrayed as a fight
for the heart of a party dominated by Merkel for two decades. Der Spiegel’s
Melanie Amann calls AKK’s retreat the squandering of a “historic opportunity”
to ensure a “dignified” end to Merkel’s reign.
Amid the
recriminations, four men will probably be battling it out for the succession.
Bloomberg profiles the candidates: “dark prince” Jens Spahn; AKK’s defeated
rival Friedrich Merz; towering Bavarian Markus Söder; and a name that will be
familiar in Brussels circles, former MEP Armin Laschet. He’s arguably the most
centrist of the four and thus the continuity candidate.
Brussels
has also begun digesting what the CDU’s leadership battle will mean for the EU.
Bruegel’s Guntram Wolff thinks AKK’s departure will be a case for EU
integrationists of being careful what you wish for.
AKK
infamously announced herself on the European stage last year with a provocative
op-ed that antagonised France by calling for the abolition of the European
Parliament’s seat in Strasbourg. “Those who sighed with relief at news of her
departure should realise it is completely unclear now where Germany will go,”
says Wolff.
He expects
the German interregnum to put a pause on all EU initiatives as the CDU gets its
house in order. “There will be huge infighting and introspection on the CDU’s
strategic orientation towards Europe. We are in for a year where no major
decisions will be taken,” adds Wolff.
EU capitals
are getting used to German power vacuums. In 2017, Emmanuel Macron’s reformist
agenda was frozen for months as Merkel tried to put together a working
coalition. This time, diplomats point out that Berlin’s soul-searching will
coincide with Germany taking hold of the six-month rotating presidency of the
EU from July 1 — a time when its European leadership will be put under the
microscope.
“There are
two big things that Merkel will need to get done under the presidency: the
budget negotiations and the migration pact,” says one senior official. Money
and migrants are the most sensitive European subjects that divide the
conservatives in Berlin from their centre-left coalition partners.
In the
longer run, some EU diplomats are already beginning to fear the consequences of
a rightwing lurch under any new CDU leadership, breaking away from Merkel’s
studied and often frustrating centrism. One official warns that for grand
Brussels projects — such as the Green
Deal — “all bets would be off”.
mehreen.khan@ft.com; @mehreenkhn
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How Angela Merkel blew it
In German chancellor’s messy exit, echoes of her rise
to power.
By
ALEXANDER CLARKSON 2/12/20, 4:48 AM CET
Alexander
Clarkson is a lecturer in European studies at King’s College London.
It could all have been so different.
A little
over a year ago, it seemed Angela Merkel had pulled it off again. The German
chancellor had headed off an internal crisis within her Christian Democrats,
outmaneuvered conservative factions that sought to replace her as party leader
and engineered the rise of a close ally poised to take over as chancellor in
2021.
In typical
Merkel fashion, she had won the upper hand in bruising factional battles within
the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, by pushing
aside an old rival — Friedrich Merz, who made a spectacular return after 15
years in the political wilderness — and placating challengers gathered behind
an up-and-coming minister, Jens Spahn.
In Annegret
Kramp-Karrenbauer, her chosen successor, Merkel found someone who would protect
her legacy and prevent any further drift to the right — something she worried
would alienate the CDU’s moderate base, encouraging those voters to turn to the
Greens, whose star was on the rise.
In misjudging the timing of her exit, Merkel has put
her party’s dominant role in German politics at risk.
That plan
has now fallen apart — in dramatic fashion.
The
political crisis in the eastern German state of Thuringia — where regional CDU
figures agreed to work with the far-right Alternative for Germany to prevent a
left-leaning government in the region — broke a long-standing taboo and
demonstrated just how far the authority of the national CDU leadership under
Kramp-Karrenbauer had collapsed.
That Merkel
was forced to step in and steady the ship showed just how badly she mismanaged
the transition of power.
The
situation is particularly ironic given that Merkel’s mistakes echo those made
by her predecessor as chancellor, Helmut Kohl, whose demise enabled her own
rise to the top.
In the
aftermath of elections in 1994, Kohl worked to boost the profile of his CDU
colleague Wolfgang Schäuble — now the German Bundestag president — within the
party and claimed he would eventually hand over the leadership to him. Yet as
his final parliamentary term dragged on, Kohl became less willing to leave,
causing deep frustration within party factions close to Schäuble, who was then
leader of the CDU/CSU in the parliament.
Tensions
escalated in the buildup to the 1998 elections after Kohl decided to stand
again rather than allow Schäuble to take his place. The CDU/CSU went on to lose
those elections, and Kohl was finally brought down two years later when,
seriously weakened by his role in party funding scandals, an Eastern German
politician whose career the former chancellor had fostered shoved Schäuble
aside and rallied support among the membership for a complete renewal of the party’s
leadership.
That same
Eastern German politician is now making many of the same missteps that
unraveled her one-time mentor’s succession plans.
Merkel’s
decision to remain in office as chancellor until elections in 2021 made it
impossible for Kramp-Karrenbauer to consolidate her own power base. CDU
politicians struggled to balance loyalty to a new CDU leader with the need to
keep a line to the old CDU leader and current chancellor. The situation
undermined Kramp-Karrenbauer’s authority in the party and government — and also
helped blow a succession of gaffes out of proportion and weaken her hand
further.
The task of
reforming the German military — something Merkel had hoped would help
Kramp-Karrenbauer boost her profile — also proved a poisoned chalice,
distracting the CDU leader from the basic party management that could have
helped her head off infighting.
What
happened in Thuringia was less the primary cause of the CDU leader’s downfall
than the symptom of an untenable situation orchestrated by Merkel.
Even a clever tactician like CSU leader Markus Söder
will struggle in an election if his partners in the CDU are wracked by
infighting.
Kramp-Karrenbauer
lacked the authority to discipline CDU members and was unable to sustain a
party-wide consensus against cooperating with either the far-left Die Linke or
the far-right AfD. With local CDU figures in dialogue with Die Linke on a
district level in Brandenburg and tacit cooperation between parts of the CDU
and the AfD on the regional level in Thuringia, rival factions within the party
found themselves pursuing contradictory approaches to governing in an
increasingly fragmented political landscape.
In
misjudging the timing of her exit, Merkel has put her party’s dominant role in
German politics at risk.
Each of her
potential successors within the CDU will struggle to reach out beyond their own
faction and unite the party. With the CDU weakened, its sister party in Bavaria
the CSU could make a claim to put forward the alliance’s next candidate for the
chancellery. But even a clever tactician like CSU leader Markus Söder will
struggle in an election if his partners in the CDU are wracked by infighting.
We may yet
see history repeat itself again. It looks increasingly likely that Merkel will
see her long reign ended by a resounding electoral victory by a coalition of
the left spearheaded by exuberant Greens — just as Kohl did more than 20 years
ago.
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