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Angela Merkel Reaches Deal to Form Coalition Government in Germany Angela Merkel Reaches Deal to Form Coalition Government in Germany
(about 9 hours later)
BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany agreed on a coalition deal on Wednesday with her previous governing partners, including the Social Democrats, bringing her within striking distance of forming a new government after five months of political limbo. But the pact came at a steep price for her conservative party, which gave up the powerful Finance Ministry. BERLIN — After more than four months of tortuous negotiations, with her fate and Germany’s hanging in the balance, Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday announced a deal for a new government.
Nearly half a million registered members of the center-left Social Democratic Party, many of whom oppose joining another administration led by Ms. Merkel, will get the final say; the deal is contingent on their approval in a postal vote that analysts say is too close to call. The results of the vote are expected by March 4. But it was telling that Ms. Merkel, in power for 12 years, looked more weary than jubilant.
The Social Democrats will occupy the vice chancellorship and six other cabinet posts, including the Finance and Foreign Ministries, an unusually strong portfolio for a junior coalition partner. The news led political analysts to agree that they had done well in negotiations with Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democrats and their sister party in Bavaria, the Christian Social Union. The new deal with the same old coalition partners — her conservative alliance and the left-leaning Social Democrats — is precisely the government that Germans had voted against in inconclusive elections last September. It leaves the far-right Alternative for Germany as the country’s leading opposition party. And it comes at a high cost for Ms. Merkel, the incredible shrinking chancellor, who had to relinquish key ministries.
The coalition deal is “the basis of a good and stable government, which our country needs, and which many around the world expect from us,” Ms. Merkel said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. “I will admit here that the question of who gets which portfolio wasn’t an easy one.” But what is troubling for many Germans is not necessarily bad news for Europe, which for years has depended on stability in Berlin and has been waiting in limbo as Ms. Merkel stumbled toward a deal.
The Social Democratic leadership now has to convince party members that it wrung enough hard-fought concessions to justify entering into another coalition government, rather than leading the opposition. The new arrangement must still be approved by the Social Democrats’ rank and file. But if endorsed, the coalition may provide France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, with the partner he has been looking for to help buck up the European Union and move it away from the austerity policies that were identified with Ms. Merkel’s old team and often blamed for stifling growth.
Martin Schulz, the leader of the party, said that the deal, for the most part, had a “Social Democratic handwriting.” “Good news also for Europe!” tweeted Pierre Moscovici, the French finance commissioner of the European Union.
Hubertus Heil, who until last year was the secretary general of the Social Democrats, told journalists, “I feel like we negotiated well, if it did drag on a bit.” In the new coalition, the powerful German Finance Ministry, once led by a hard-line Merkel ally, Wolfgang Schäuble, will be run by a Social Democrat. The party was critical of the government’s tightfisted policies and may prove more flexible.
“We made progress in many areas that will make people’s lives better,” he added. “A slightly weakened Germany could be one of the things that helps create a sense of a more balanced Europe,” said Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin.
Details of the coalition agreement will be announced later on Wednesday, and if the deal is ratified by the Social Democrats, a new government could begin work by the end of March. “Certainly, the fact that Wolfgang Schäuble is not finance minister will be greeted with enormous relief,” he said, referring to anger in parts of Europe over painful austerity measures after the eurozone crisis.
The parties spent the last two weeks negotiating a governing pact, but if members of the Social Democratic Party reject the deal, the country could face more uncertainty and the prospect of a snap election. It is hard to overstate the scope of German influence over European affairs during the Merkel era, especially in economic policy. Following the 2007-08 financial crisis, Mr. Schäuble became the face of the German-led austerity policies imposed on debtor countries like Italy, Spain, Portugal and, especially, Greece. Even as the Obama administration and an array of economists called for looser policies, the Germans held firm.
In elections in September, both the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, long the two dominant parties in Germany, lost ground, while the far-right Alternative for Germany surged, becoming the first far-right party in generations to win seats in Parliament. The Christian Democrats and Bavarian Christian Union won a total of 246 seats out of 709, while the Social Democrats won 153, giving their proposed coalition 399 seats. Alternative for Germany won 92 seats. Beyond economics, Ms. Merkel has been the rock of European foreign policy, demanding a tough line on maintaining economic sanctions against Russia after the conflict in Ukraine while other European countries were far less enthusiastic.
Many Social Democrats argue that being in a coalition with Ms. Merkel is moving their party to the right and eroding its identity, and that entering a new coalition would leave Alternative for Germany as the leading voice of opposition. And it has been Ms. Merkel who has pointedly stood up to President Trump, to the cheers of many Europeans and others who have embraced her as a defender of the liberal order.
Mr. Schulz, who led the Social Democrats to the polls last year, declined to comment on reports in the German news media that he would hand the party leadership to Andrea Nahles, the minister of Labor and Social affairs in the last government. Ms. Nahles is, at 47, almost 15 years younger than Mr. Schulz, and she is more closely identified with the party’s left wing. But now the political landscape has shifted, not only in Germany, but also elsewhere in Europe.
Ms. Merkel, the chancellor for more than 12 years, governed in a “grand coalition” that included the Social Democrats from 2005 to 2009, and again from 2013 to 2017. The rise of Mr. Macron in France, if celebrated by those who support a stronger European Union, is also being interpreted as a rebalancing of power away from Berlin.
But France still needs Germany, not least to help bridge a growing rift between east and west on the Continent. Nationalist leaders in Central and Eastern Europe, led by Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, are challenging the liberal consensus at the heart of the European bloc.
The window to reshape Europe is short: Come fall, the last leg of the Brexit talks, a hard-fought election in the German state of Bavaria and the prospect of European elections will make it harder.
The answer of Ms. Merkel and the Social Democrats — in no small part to persuade Germans that their “grand coalition” straddling left and right was still needed — was to cast their lot fully with the mission to salvage the European project.
In what is otherwise a fairly unexciting governing pact, the Europe chapter — short and relatively vague, but prominently displayed on the first five pages of the 177-page document — stands out.
“A New Departure for Europe!” its ambitious headline reads, before listing proposals that include working toward greater powers for the European Parliament and creating a European Monetary Fund to help protect the eurozone against financial crises. Not all of Mr. Macron’s most prominent proposals, like a European finance minister, are featured in the coalition document.
But Germany will increase its contribution to the European Union budget, the paper pledges. And it will cooperate closely with European leaders on defense and migration.
“It’s the first time that Europe is the first chapter in a German coalition treaty,” said Henrik Enderlein of the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. “This is a clear signal that the government wants to work with President Macron on reforming and strengthening Europe.”
“On the open-to-closed spectrum, this was a signal for openness,” he added.
But unlike in France, where Mr. Macron ran on a transparently pro-European platform, campaigning with a European flag and playing the European anthem on election night, Europe hardly featured on the German campaign trail.
“The challenge is that this was never tested in a real election,” Mr. Leonard said.
Alternative for Germany immediately dismissed Wednesday’s deal as proof that Europe’s elites were ignoring the concerns of ordinary voters once again.
“One wonders, why Mr. Macron doesn’t just move into the Chancellery,” scoffed Alexander Gauland, a former member of Ms. Merkel’s conservatives who became a lawmaker for Alternative for Germany, known as the AfD. Ms. Merkel’s conservatives, he said, had betrayed their values and become “an empty shell.”
The fact that the Interior Ministry’s portfolio was broadened to include a “heimat” — homeland — department to address issues of identity and integration did nothing to appease the AfD. Björn Höcke, a well-known far-right firebrand in the party, called the coalition deal “un-German.”
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday afternoon, a tired-looking Ms. Merkel praised the deal as the “basis of a good and stable government, which our country needs, and which many around the world expect from us.”
For many, the coalition deal represented a bittersweet success, a sort of short-term fix with potentially steep political costs: a backlash in the making that could push ever more voters to the extremes.
In the two years since Ms. Merkel opened Germany’s door to more than a million migrants, the country’s political landscape has changed drastically, and much of the chancellor’s ability to forge consensus has eroded.
All three parties now returning to government had their worst election results since the 1940s.
“The Merkel era is synonymous with a strong and stable Germany; that’s what we had for the last decade,” Mr. Enderlein said. “That era is coming to an end. And we don’t yet know what comes after.”
There is no guarantee that this coalition will last a full term, he said. There is not even a guarantee that it will happen: The unhappy grass roots of the Social Democratic Party still need to approve it by postal ballot and many balk at the thought.
Two stints as Ms. Merkel’s junior partners saw the party’s vote share slump from 34 percent in 2005 to 20 percent in September. Recent polls give it 17 percent support, just two percentage points more than the AfD. Some worry that another four years in a coalition could see the AfD overtake the Social Democrats.
But the alternative may be no better: If the coalition collapses and Germany is forced to call a snap election, the extremes will benefit — both inside and outside the main parties, analysts predict.
“This is the worst possible outcome,” said Mr. Leonard of the European Council on Foreign Relations, “except for all the other ones.”