Merkel, Putin, Trump, and the New Abwehr: Putin and Merkel as the the New Abwehr creations for post-Soviet era | Trump Presidency as the dramatic backdrop for the final victory curtain of Angela Merkel, as designed and performed by the New Abwehr - 10:55 AM 11/24/2019
Merkel, Putin, Trump, and the New Abwehr
Angela Merkel and the New Abwehr | Putin and Merkel as the the New Abwehr creations for post-Soviet era | Trump Presidency as the dramatic backdrop for the final victory curtain of Angela Merkel, as designed and performed by the New Abwehr
"Merkel chancellorship has benefited from reforms of the labour market and welfare system introduced under the Social Democratic chancellor Gerhard Schröder. But it has also profited very significantly from external circumstances." - Angela Merkel must go – for Germany’s sake, and for Europe’s | Timothy Garton Ash | Opinion
Merkel, Putin, Trump, and the New Abwehr
Angela Merkel and the New Abwehr | Putin and Merkel as the the New Abwehr creations for post-Soviet era | Trump Presidency as the dramatic backdrop for the final victory curtain of Angela Merkel, as designed and performed by the New Abwehr
"Merkel chancellorship has benefited from reforms of the labour market and welfare system introduced under the Social Democratic chancellor Gerhard Schröder. But it has also profited very significantly from external circumstances." - Angela Merkel must go – for Germany’s sake, and for Europe’s | Timothy Garton Ash | Opinion
10:55 AM 11/24/2019 – Post Link
Angela Merkel and the New Abwehr
Putin and Merkel as the the New Abwehr creations for post-Soviet era
Trump Presidency as dramatic backdrop for the final victory curtain of Angela Merkel, as designed and performed by the New Abwehr
A step-by-step guide to utterly botching a simple handshake …
https://mashable.com › 2017/07/06 › trump-merkel-bad-handshake
Jul 6, 2017 – German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump execute … start and end wars — to alter the very course of our species’ existence. … like this: You enter a room and stand in front of a backdrop or whatever.
Missing:
|
chilled campaign: Still on Vacation? – Handelsblatt
https://www.handelsblatt.com › today › opinion › chilled-campaign-still-on-…
Sep 1, 2017 – Chancellor Angela Merkel was still on holiday at the time and in … President Donald Trump and the drama surrounding White House … I looked up to see a smiling photo of Ms. Merkel against a backdrop … And when they made their debut, there were many stories hyper-analyzing the placards. … Prev. Next.
Missing:
|
Memes of Angela Merkel speaking to Barack Obama go viral …
https://www.dailymail.co.uk › news › article-3116506 › The-Sound-Munic…
Jun 9, 2015 – A photograph of Angela Merkel engaged in an expressive conversation … Alpine backdrop has gone viral and inspired dozens of new memes online. … relaxed looking U.S. president outside Elmau castle in the Bavariam village …. have been strained in the last couple of years by spying rows but Merkel …
Missing:
|
POSTS REVIEW: 04/01/19 … – TRUMP INVESTIGATIONS REPORT
https://trumpinvestigations.blogspot.com › 2019/01 › trump-investigations-r…
The newly elected progressive lawmakers made their intentions clear. … Mike Flynn – Turkey – Germany connection points to the New Abwehr’s ….. Daily President Donald Trump’s surprising electoral victory in 2016 launched a wide array of …… Trump Investigations Report: Angela Merkel: A profile by Anne McElvoy – BBC …
|
Web results
Russian President Vladimir Putin | greatcharlie
https://greatcharlie.com › category › russian-president-vladimir-putin
Sep 23, 2019 – Posts about Russian President Vladimir Putin written by … (If that is truly the case anywhere, greatcharlie respectfully suggests that those leaders find new, more …. end, Trump tried to tidy up the mess that the French President made with ….. drama being played out between Trump and the US news media.
|
How FBI swiped under the carpet Hillary Clinton email scandal
www.softpanorama.org › Skeptics › Political_skeptic › Neocons › hillary_…
President Obama and top White House staff become aware that Clinton is using …… Begins To End Judicial Watch Hints At Explosive New Clinton-Lynch Tarmac Docs ….. Trump Hopes Justice Will Finally Be Done As FBI Reopens Probe Into Hillary …… subconsciously by the political consensus that Mrs. Clinton would win.
|
Review Of News And Opinions … – The Trump Investigations Report
trumpinvestigations.org › page
IRAN President Trump is expected to decertify Iran’s compliance with the 2015… …. must have cheered in his grave when President Donald Trump made a veiled t
|
Lew Rockwell Institute | Il portico dipinto
ilporticodipinto.it › Aggregatore di feed › Sorgenti
Excerpted from Roger Stones new book: The Making of the President. … that are missing,” Mr. Trump said in an apparent reference to Mrs. Clinton’s deleted emails. … At the end of the campaign, the Democratic meme morphed into the narrative pushed by … In the aftermath of Trump’s victory, the widely read economics blog …
|
• How the ‘Chosen People’ Arranged and Won WW2
https://big-lies.org › how-master-race-won-ww2
They have decided it’s time for a new cull of whites, as Jews and their ….. and Other Puzzles: Trump | US ‘Education’ | Race Wars | Thugs | Man-Made …. of the Central Powers were held to the effort to achieve a complete victory. …. For four years the drama of the war had obscured the social question which …… Jew Merkel
|
The attempted Clinton-CIA coup against Donald Trump [Archive …
https://deeppoliticsforum.com › forums › archive › index.php
Dec 10, 2016 – How in that case, if Trump does win, would he as President be able to … report into Russia’s role in the election confirms every point that I made. …. This was the most popular Ukrainian fascist salute and had to be performed according to …… “
[PDF]
|
Lobster 74 – Lobster Magazine
https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk › free › lobster74 › lobster74
operation in which the CIA traitor, Philip Agee, played a leading part.’ 4 …. New *. Ed Herman RIP. Edward Herman has died. He subscribed to Lobster, God bless him. ….. In the end President Trump caved in to the hated ‘deep state’ and blocked the …… Angela Merkel has successfully suppressed any debate about German.
[PDF]
|
Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism – University of …
https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk › site › books › book30 › download
by A Populism
Published. Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, …. authoritarian populism, dealing with Trump, various right-wing populist …… of the Republican Party, then to the American presidency – and by dramatic …… is one directed not against cultural change per se insofar as Angela Merkel.
|
Trump Daily News – 2019-02-16 – STATOPERATOR
https://statoperator.com › research › trump-daily-news-2019-02-16
Feb 16, 2019 – President Trump declares national emergency to unlock billions for wall, 21 …. In executive order Trump to dramatically change US approach to ….. Angela Merkel rejects Donald Trump’s claims that German cars are a threat, 2 …. The Operation Trump and The New Abwehr: A Study In Psychohistory by …
|
ENGLISH DEMOCRATIC PARTY OFFICIAL WEB SITE – FREEDOM …
englishdemocraticparty.org.uk › public_html
… the sources say. Reid chose to badmouth U.S. President Donald Trump. ….. If we all push, 2019 will see final victory against the Khazarian mafia. By Benjamin
[PDF]
|
The EU, Germany, Central Europe and Russia – Bibliothek der …
https://library.fes.de › pdf-files › bueros › prag
Vladimír Handl: Germany and Central Europe: New Normality and Seeking … What re – ally changed Europe’s centre dramatically and profoundly, however, is the …. Chancellor Merkel became the only head of a major EU -state to partici – pate in the ….. from the OSCE); and neither NATO nor Russia has made up its mind as.
[PDF]
|
nuremberg – David Irving
www.fpp.co.uk › books › Nuremberg › NUREMBERG
by D Irving – Cited by 1 – Related articles
participants in this final drama of World War Two – those, that is, who …. Dr Rudolf Merkel (counsel for the Gestapo); Dr Robert Servatius … Miss Susanna Scott-Gall performed some of the leg work involved …. Talking, later that evening, about which of the victorious …… Churchill however rejected the new draft made by the.
|
lstm-compress/english.dic at master · byronknoll/lstm … – GitHub
https://github.com › byronknoll › lstm-compress › blob › master › dictionary
played. performed. issued. maintained. achieved. obtained. acquired. shared. presented … designed. adapted. sent. granted. awarded. given. considered. allowed …. presidency … victory. residence. aid. assistance. growth. crisis. damage. resistance …. last. next. final. previous. primary. principal. dominant. sixth. inner. outer.
|
Donald J Trump – Wake Up New Zealand | What Does The …
www.wakeupkiwi.com › news-articles-69
He insisted that the ethical judgements inherent in the design of new …… created a Trump WWE video, which the president tweeted before the Fourth of July Holiday. ….. Only “the media” were permitted to perform that delicate operation and then …… the following article is offered as important background material: Their Final …
|
James “We are not weasels” Comey
www.softpanorama.info › Political_skeptic › FBI_mayberry_machiavellians
As of January 2018 Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, is starting to look ….. into the swamp will be done by the “interim” before a new director is appointed. ….. A Gross Negligence Prosecution Would Not Unfairly Single Out Mrs. Clinton” …. the “preservation of legacy” and the danger of Trump winning presidential …
| ||
| Putin and Merkel as the the New Abwehr creations for post-Soviet era – Google Search | ||
|
People also ask
Web results
Putin and Merkel – The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com › vladimir-putin-angela-merkel-russia-germany
Mar 12, 2017 – Vladimir Putin and Angela Merkel now represent the sharply divergent … Margaret Thatcher of Britain once forged with the Soviet Union’s last leader, …. in 1985 was stationed in Dresden, a backwater posting in East Germany.
Missing:
|
Merkel and Putin – The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com › world › europe › merkel-putin-russia-germany
Aug 18, 2018 – Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Vladimir V. Putin of … Throughout the Soviet era, Germany was Moscow’s most important trading …. Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s close relationship to Mr. Putin …
Missing:
|
Cold War past shapes complex Merkel-Putin relationship …
https://www.reuters.com › article › us-merkel-putin-insight › cold-war-past…
Mar 7, 2014 – After one of her first encounters with Vladimir Putin in 2002, Angela Merkel joked … chancellor has never harboured any illusions about the former Soviet agent, … collapse of the Soviet Union – an event the Russian leader has described as the … The new tone was a reminder of the different world views in a …
Missing:
[PDF]
|
From Ostpolitik to ‘frostpolitik’? Merkel, Putin and German …
https://www.chathamhouse.org › publications › INTA92_1_02_Forsberg
by T FORSBERG – 2016 – Cited by 83 – Related articles
1 See Walter Laquer, Russia and Germany: a century of conflict (New … 2 See Frank Bösch, ‘Energy diplomacy: West Germany, the Soviet Union and the oil … given her background in the dissident movement of the former German Democratic.
Missing:
|
Foreign policy of Vladimir Putin – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Foreign_policy_of_Vladimir_Putin
The foreign policy of Vladimir Putin concerns the policies of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin … In Asia, India has moved from a close ally of the Soviet Union to a partner of the United … Of course we must have new targets in Europe.” … Angela Merkel is often attributed to Merkel’s upbringing in the former DDR, where Putin …
Missing:
| ||
| Angela Merkel and the New Abwehr – Google Search | ||
|
Opinion | Is Angela Merkel Still in Charge? – The New York …
https://www.nytimes.com › 2019/10/31 › opinion › angela-merkel-germany
Oct 31, 2019 – HAMBURG, Germany — Two things make Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany look like an exemplary head of government: Donald Trump …
Missing:
|
People also ask
Web results
Germany Without Angela Merkel – The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com › 2018/10/29 › world › europe › angela-merkel-g…
Oct 29, 2018 – BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel has been a seemingly invincible figure in German politics. In office 13 years, she has been Europe’s most …
Missing:
|
How Trump Made War on Angela Merkel and Europe | The …
https://www.newyorker.com › magazine › 2018/12/24 › how-trump-made-w…
Dec 17, 2018 – No one was more of a constant target than Angela Merkel. …. (Poland offered to name a new military base Fort Trump.) Macron tried flattery …
Missing:
|
Web results
Reformpolitik im Wohlfahrtsstaat: Deutschland im …
Sven Jochem – 2009 – Comparative government
… die Vorsitzende der CDU, Angela Merkel, ihre Partei stärker in Richtung der … Horst Seehofer (CSU), verknüpfte sein politisches Schicksal mit der Abwehr …
|
Die DDR zwischen Mauerbau und Mauerfall
Heiner Timmermann – 2003 – Außenpolitik
An den Anträgen ist ebenso wie an der emotionalen Abwehr und dem … aus Thüringen sowie Angela Merkel aus Mecklenburg-Vorpommern vertreten.
|
Angela Merkel must go – for Germany’s sake, and for Europe’s …
https://fbireform.com › time-to-go-angela-merkel-germanys-sake-europes
18 mins ago – Most Germans probably still view the long period of Angela Merkel’s chancellorship … Or new elections, possibly leading to a black-green government
|
Ökologische Erinnerungsorte
Frank Uekötter – 2013 – History
In Abwehr ge- genjedwede Zweifel an der Rechtschaffenheit dieser Partnerschaft … unter Anwesenheit der Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel und des russischen …
|
Hey, dein Körper spricht!: Worum es bei Körpersprache …
Stefan Verra – 2015 – Family & Relationships
Angela Merkel. Ob Sie wegen ihrer … Da wird Armeverschränken mit Abwehr, Zurückhaltung und Verschlossenheit gleichgesetzt. Lächeln gilt als Zeichen von
|
mikenov on Twitter: The End of the German-American Affair …
https://fbireform.com › 2019/11/24
11 mins ago – Can Melania Trump be a German – New Abwehr – Mob – Russian AGENT? …. Angela Merkel must go – for Germany’s sake, and for Europe’s …
|
Rügen – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Rügen
Rügen is Germany’s largest island by area. It is located off the Pomeranian coast in the Baltic …. In addition to the colonization of the country and the building of new monasteries and churches, towns were also re-established. ….. Angela Merkel (born 1954), German Chancellor (CDU), has represented the constituency of …
|
PEOPLE ALSO SEARCH FOR
Reza Kazemi – Wikipedia
Reza Kazemi (* 24. Juli in Teheran) ist ein internationaler Politik- und Wahlkampfberater, … Diese Wahlkampftechnologie ist in Deutschland von Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel (CDU) und in Österreich von … in Brüssel bezüglich des Umgangs mit „Social Bots“ und der Abwehr von „Fake News“ in …. New York: Routledge.
|
Startseite – ZDFmediathek
https://www.zdf.de
Alle Videos und Livestreams in der ZDF Mediathek anschauen – ständig verfügbar und interaktiv! Entdecken Sie Filme, Serien, Sportevents, Dokumentationen …
|
TAGESVORSCHAU: Termine am 20. November 2019 – 19.11 …
5 days ago – … Afrikanische Staatschefs zu Gast in Berlin – Gespräche mit Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel (CDU), Berlin. DEU: Deutscher Handelskongress …
|
Free RSS to HTML Feed Widget from RSS Dog
https://www.rssdog.com › reader › folder_rss › unread › newslinks
Some of them can’t, but 38% might be swayable – New York Daily News …. animalistic, Hebrew-Abwehr mix, Mafia Beast, that you can see in many … …. Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democrats.
| ||
| angela merkel and stasi – Google Search | ||
 274 × 414
ripostelaique.com
Pour rendre justice au peuple allemand, il faut guetter les signes de la fin du monde imminente avec la Stasi de la bien-pensance et de la bienveillance soumise à l’invasion migratoire décidée…
Images may be subject to copyright. Learn More
Related images
| ||
| angela merkel and stasi – Google Search | ||
 347 × 500
Related images
| ||
| angela merkel and stasi – Google Search | ||
 723 × 512
Related images
| ||
| angela merkel and stasi – Google Search | ||
 346 × 395
Related images
| ||
| angela merkel and stasi – Google Search | ||
 620 × 382
Related images
| ||
| angela merkel and stasi – Google Search | ||
 259 × 194
Related images
| ||
| angela merkel and stasi – Google Search | ||
|
on Twitter: “3) Surely Horst Kasner had some …Angela Merkel will serve 4 more years as the chancellor of …
https://www.businessinsider.com › angela-merkel-early-career-2017-9
Sep 25, 2017 – German Chancellor Angela Merkel got her start as a research scientist in … At one point, the Stasi — East Germany’s secret police — attempted …
|
10 Things to Know About Angela Merkel – Providence
https://providencemag.com › 2017/10 › know-angela-merkel
Oct 3, 2017 – Angela Merkel has won a fourth term as chancellor of Germany, … told she would be required to join the Stasi (the East German secret police).
|
Angela Merkel – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Angela_Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel is a German politician serving as Chancellor of Germany since 2005. …. for getting the job, Merkel was told she would need to agree to report on her colleagues to officers of the Ministry for State Security (
Political party: Democratic Awakening (1989–…
Leader: Wolfgang Schäuble
Born: Angela Dorothea Kasner; 17 July 1954 …
|
PEOPLE ALSO SEARCH FOR
Merkel’s CDU still in denial about East German collaboration
https://www.irishtimes.com › news › world › europe › merkel-s-cdu-still-in…
Aug 11, 2017 – German chancellor Angela Merkel visits a former Stasi prison in Berlin-
| ||
| Merkel era – Google Search | ||
|
Opinion | What Comes After the Merkel Era? – The New York …
https://www.nytimes.com › germany-merkel-annegret-kramp-karrenbauer
Dec 8, 2018 – On Friday Germany’s Christian Democratic Union, meeting in Hamburg, elected Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to succeed Angela Merkel as the center-right party’s leader.
|
People also ask
Web results
The Angela Merkel era: 18 years at the helm of Germany’s CDU
https://www.ft.com › content
Oct 29, 2018 – Angela Merkel has signalled her intention to stand down as the head of Germany’s conservative CDU after the party’s dismal showing in …
|
Germany′s Angela Merkel at 65: The chancellor who defined …
https://www.dw.com › germanys-angela-merkel-at-65-the-chancellor-who-d…
Jul 16, 2019 – It’s been a veritable Merkel era, so much so that German teenagers today have known only her as Germany’s leader. Under Merkel’s reign …
|
The End of the Merkel Era and Its Implications for Global Politics
https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au › Australian Outlook
Oct 31, 2018 – Despite Angela Merkel’s announcement, Germany’s role in international politics is unlikely to change dramatically. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s …
|
Web results
Twilight of Merkel era is already closely watched in EU | World …
https://www.theguardian.com › world › oct › twilight-of-angela-merkel-er…
Oct 29, 2018 – When Angela Merkel announced that she would not seek another term as German chancellor, for Brussels it was more like lengthening …
|
The German center’s collapse brings Merkel era to a close
https://www.brookings.edu › blog › order-from-chaos › 2018/10/29 › the-…
Oct 29, 2018 – The morning after her unpopular grand coalition was trounced in a bellwether election, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced she …
|
Angela Merkel & Germany’s Era of Stagnation | National Review
https://www.nationalreview.com › corner › merkel-era-of-stagnation
Dec 31, 2018 – Back in November, I wrote an essay for NRDT comparing German chancellor Angela Merkel with the former Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, …
|
The beginning of the end of the Merkel era is here | Euronews
https://www.euronews.com › News › World
Dec 7, 2018 – HAMBURG, Germany — German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s final speech as leader of her party was met with an 11-minute standing ovation …
|
Industrial policy row masks deeper German struggle over post …
https://www.reuters.com › article › us-germany-politics-analysis › industria…
Apr 15, 2019 – At stake are both the direction the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) takes as it starts to chart a course for the post-Merkel era, and the …
|
The end of an era as Germany’s Merkel gives up party …
https://www.france24.com › Return to homepage › Europe
Dec 7, 2018 – German Chancellor Angela Merkel will hand off leadership of her party Friday after nearly two decades at the helm, with the race wide open …
|
German CDU: End of era as race to succeed Merkel hits … – BBC
https://www.bbc.com › news › world-europe-46457295
Dec 6, 2018 – There is an air of finality in Germany. A sense that, as the year begins to draw to its close, so too does the era of Angela Merkel. She will step …
|
Kramp-Karrenbauer liberates herself from Merkel era
https://www.irishtimes.com › news › world › europe › kramp-karrenbauer-…
2 days ago – Kramp-Karrenbauer liberates herself from Merkel era. Speech shows CDU leader betting Germans more restless for change than nostalgic.
|
Germany’s golden economic run of the Merkel era may be over
https://www.irishtimes.com › business › economy › germany-s-golden-eco…
Aug 23, 2019 – After a bumper decade, while its neighbours struggled with the euro crisis, Germany’s golden run of the Merkel era may be at an end. Following …
|
Germany in the post-Merkel era – Deutsche Bank Research
https://www.dbresearch.com › RPS_EN-PROD › PROD0000000000486134
Jan 17, 2019 – Kevin Koerner, Senior Economist explores how Germany’s post-millennials will struggle to remember a time before Angela Merkel was …
|
The Merkel Era Is Ending—What It Means for the German …
https://www.piie.com › blogs › realtime-economic-issues-watch › merkel-e…
Oct 30, 2018 – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s abrupt announcement that she would not seek … Union (CDU) constitutes the beginning of the end of the Merkel era.
|
The end of the Merkel era | The Strategist
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au › the-end-of-the-merkel-era
Oct 31, 2018 – At a press conference on Monday, Merkel conceded that she had traditionally opposed splitting the two posts of party leader and chancellor, …
|
Twilight Of The Merkel Era: Power And … – BERGHAHN BOOKS
https://www.berghahnbooks.com › title › LangenbacherTwilight
by E Langenbacher – 2019
Book description: Elections always have consequences, but the 2017 Bundestag election in Germany proved particularly consequential. With political upheaval …
|
Angela Merkel’s era is coming to an end | Brunswick
https://www.brunswickgroup.com › angela-merkel-s-era-is-coming-to-an-e…
Oct 29, 2018 – The era of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has ruled since 2005, is drawing to a close. She declared on Monday that she would not …
| ||
| Angela Merkel must go – for Germany’s sake, and for Europe’s – Google Search | ||
 1200 × 630
2 days ago
Related images
| ||
| Angela Merkel must go – for Germany’s sake, and for Europe’s | Timothy Garton Ash | Opinion | ||
If Germany is the heart of Europe, then it is currently the slow-beating heart of a well-fed businessman resting on his office couch after an ample lunch. For Europe’s sake, and for Germany’s own, that heart needs to beat a little faster.
It’s not that German elites don’t intellectually recognise the problems gathering all around them. Berlin, which is beginning to rival London as a thinktank hub, is pullulating with clever people who can tell you exactly why, faced with the challenges of Brexit, populism, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, climate change and AI – to name but a few – Europe needs more strategic autonomy, digital innovation and sustainable growth. What is missing is a sense of urgency and the ability to translate these abstract goals into dynamic policies that German voters will actually support. For now, Germany is effectively willing the ends but not the means.
Why this stasis? Because Germany has been doing quite nicely, thank you. It has not felt the pain that, one way or another, most other parts of the continent have experienced. Crisis, what crisis? Obviously, this is not true of everyone, but even those East Germans who have recently voted in shockingly large numbers for the far-right, xenophobic Alternative für Deutschland are not primarily complaining about their economic circumstances.
Most Germans probably still view the long period of Angela Merkel’s chancellorship – a staggering 14 years on Friday – as a stable and good time for the country. The German economy has done well over this period. This is partly because it can draw on all the familiar German business strengths, and partly because the Merkel chancellorship has benefited from reforms of the labour market and welfare system introduced under the Social Democratic chancellor Gerhard Schröder. But it has also profited very significantly from external circumstances.
The post-1989 opening-up of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and their subsequent accession to the European single market gave a wonderful opportunity for German manufacturers to relocate production facilities just next door, using cheap skilled labour in a kind of Mitteleuropa 2.0. Not least, the euro has kept the German currency at a lower external exchange rate than it would otherwise have soared to (witness what happened to the Swiss franc). So the German export machine has powered ahead, generating eye-popping trade surpluses. And because the country has an evangelical protestant commitment to running a balanced budget – the totemic “black zero” – and a constitutionally anchored “debt brake”, it has healthy public finances that most democratic capitalist countries would die for.
Yet beneath the surface of this success story there is a growing drumbeat of anxiety. Maybe the country has wasted the fat years, not investing enough in its ageing infrastructure? Maybe it is missing out on the digital revolution, so its fabled car industry now looks distinctly old-fashioned compared with the self-drive electric cars being developed by the giants of Silicon Valley and China. (Tesla’s announcement that it will build a factory near Berlin is both a tribute to Germany and a frontal challenge to national champions such as Mercedes, BMW and Volkswagen.) Maybe all that has been achieved over many decades will now be eroded thanks to immigration, Trump’s tariff war, populism and other uncertainties. The anxious leitmotif of popular sentiment, especially in the predominant western part of the country, is “let’s hang on to what we’ve got”.
So 30 years on from a peaceful revolution that opened the door to German unification, we have a defensive, conservative society underpinning a defensive, status quo power. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, impatiently wants to revolutionise Europe, giving the old continent Napoleonic strategic ambition, but Merkel’s Germany is not playing ball. As one adviser to Macron memorably put it to me: “Aristocrats don’t vote for revolution.” (If the Germans are the pre-1789 aristocrats in this analogy, does that make the French the sans-culottes?) German responses to Macron’s European initiatives have ranged from the lukewarm to the dismissive.
The politics match the economics and society. Germany is the only country I know where politicians actively strive to sound boring. This is part of a culture of responsibility, sobriety and moderation that embodies a conscious rejection of the wildness of German political behaviour between 1914 and 1945. The speeches can rapidly send one to sleep, but if the alternative is Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, I’ll settle for serious and boring.
For 10 of the last 14 years, Merkel has presided over grand coalition governments, bringing together the centre-right Christian Democrats and the centre-left Social Democrats. This has given continuous stable government, but at a cost. Consensual centrism has not encouraged the robust political debate essential to a liberal democracy. Conservative Germans have long complained that “we have two social democratic parties”. This is a perfectly competent government for undemanding times, but with none of the ambition needed to face the giant challenges of today. Meanwhile, having both main parties in power together for so long has strengthened support for the extremes, on both left and right.
Everyone knows that this is the twilight of the Merkel era, but the Merkeldämmerung is taking longer than the most epic Bayreuth production of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods). Yet in a recent Politbarometer poll, more than two thirds of those asked said they want Merkel and her government to continue until the end of the current electoral term, in autumn 2021. Of course, it’s entirely up to the German people to decide who they want to govern them, but I would respectfully suggest that this is not in the best interest of either Germany or Europe.
Merkel and her Social Democrat vice chancellor, Olaf Scholz, have a cunning plan to outlive even Wagner’s gods. First they have marked their own homework, producing a half-term report on the grand coalition government that suggests it has done, on the whole, quite brilliantly. Second, they had a nice little row about pensions that ended – surprise! – with a constructive compromise. Now they aim to get support for continuity at their respective party conferences: the Christian Democrats at the end of this month, the Social Democrats early next month.
Fortunately, even German politics are not that predictable. Merkel and her putative successor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, will face criticism from a rightwing challenger, Friedrich Merz. Scholz has to compete for the party leadership with a pair of contenders from the left. If, under Teuto-Corbynista leadership, the Social Democrats actually decided to leave the grand coalition, then a variety of possibilities would arise. Perhaps a Christian Democrat minority government? Or a “Jamaica” coalition of Christian Democrats (black), Free Democrats (yellow) and Greens (green). Or new elections, possibly leading to a black-green government.
Whatever happens, one thing seems to me clear: in Germany’s own long-term interest, and in Europe’s, it’s time for a change.
• Timothy Garton Ash is a Guardian columnist
|
The Guardian.
Comments
Post a Comment