Commentary
Can two weak parties navigate Germany’s stormy seas?
Unsurprisingly, voices in both parties have been protesting that too much has been conceded to the other partner and too much of their own convictions left aside. It is, in short, worse than a rerun of the past.
In the end, Friedrich Merz was elected chancellor, despite the unprecedented and resounding failure of the first ballot in the new Bundestag. No alternative was in sight. Nevertheless, coming to power buoyed by at least some confidence – even if not an actual wave of enthusiasm – is one thing; doing so as a fallback option, or as a choice forced by adverse circumstances, is quite another.
Who the maverick voters in the secret ballot were, or what their calculations and motives might have been, is beside the point. What matters is that the failure to reach an absolute majority on the first vote reveals an inescapable fact: the government Merz is about to lead rests on a compromise between a party that didn’t quite win, the CDU, and one that lost disastrously, the SPD. It is weakness joining up with weakness, with both parties just as lacking in direction and with the heavy presence of the AfD looming over them.
That reality is fully mirrored in the long, convoluted policy document of this “small” Grand Coalition, where the fear of losing yet more support far outweighs any capacity for proposals or for political initiative that would rise in any way above the merely pedestrian. The program tries as hard as possible to adapt to the prevailing mood – hardly upbeat in today’s Federal Republic – while paying little heed to any more consistent political culture, or to more clearly formed social demands. Unsurprisingly, voices in both parties have been protesting that too much has been conceded to the other partner and too much of their own convictions left aside. It is, in short, worse than a rerun of the past.
During the negotiations, the would-be coalition partners secured a generous fiscal base, thanks to the outgoing majority’s last-minute decision to shelve the previously untouchable debt-brake. This gave them the belief that they could keep almost everyone happy. But it all ended up with plenty for the advocates of rearmament and industrial expansion, and very little for those who favor the ecological transition and social redistribution.
The new government must also steer through one of the toughest international situations in decades, redefine Germany’s role in Europe and the world, and set decisive new courses for federal policy. Forced to act in such difficult circumstances is a worn-out political class, on a long trajectory of losing support and original ideas, and often out of its depth. Merz himself is the embodiment of this context: a figure of the Christian-Democratic right that has been long sidelined during the Merkel era, now back in the spotlight amid a broader shift to the right in German politics but sharing the stage with a formidable rival, the AfD, which the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has labelled as belonging to the radical right, hostile to a number of constitutional principles.
Nevertheless, the AfD is likely to profit from the stumbles of a revived yet lifeless Grand Coalition. It can readily exploit one of the chief fetishes of German public opinion: stability. On this point, the rocky start of the chancellor has real impact, foreshadowing further slips. For decades, the two historic “popular parties”, the SPD and CDU, have been persuading their electorates to swallow anything in the name of stability and continuity, pointing to the far right as a grave threat to those sacred principles. Yet the situation in Germany today is anything but stable, and a chancellor elected with difficulty will not manage to restore the Federal Republic to the certainties of old.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/due-debolezze-e-un-mare-in-tempesta on 2025-05-07