Merkel’s Flagging Coalition Partner Tries to Bolster Its Image
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Version 0 of 1. MUNICH — The struggling junior partner in Germany’s coalition government tried over the weekend to overcome its image as a bickering party lacking in leadership and solid policies at a party congress in Nuremberg where delegates heard rousing speeches, sharp attacks on the opposition and an election plan intended to attract voters concerned about maintaining German prosperity. The partner, the Free Democratic Party, is much smaller than its coalition partner, the Christian Democrats, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel. And its popularity has fallen so low that it is in danger of failing to win any seats in the new Parliament that Germans will elect in September. But Ms. Merkel’s bloc does not have enough seats to govern without it, so a strong showing by the Free Democrats is seen as crucial to her remaining in office. Five months before the election, surveys show the current center-right coalition running roughly neck and neck with its rivals, the center-left coalition of the Social Democrats and the Greens. The Christian Democrats suffered a drop in popularity recently, after a tax scandal involving a leading sports figure close to Ms. Merkel. The Christian Democrats remain the most popular single party, leading the Social Democrats by 10 percentage points in recent polls, but the popularity of the smaller partners in each coalition could be decisive. Though they won 14.9 percent of the vote in 2009, the Free Democrats have slumped to 5 percent in recent surveys — the minimum threshold for representation in Parliament. The Greens, meanwhile, have surged to 15 percent, according to a survey by the polling firm Emnid published on Sunday. That made the Greens a primary target for the Free Democrats’ oratorical fire at the party conference, as speakers sought to cast them as outdated relics of the old left. “The Greens are not forward-looking,” the Free Democrats’ leader, Philipp Rösler, said in a speech to delegates on Saturday. “They are stuffy and old-fashioned.” By contrast, the Free Democrats, who emphasize pro-business policies, approved a platform at the conference that calls for simplified taxes, rigid fiscal discipline and a minimum-wage plan that would be independently set by industry and by region — all policies that are meant to appeal to Germans who are wary of seeing their country held back by the debt crisis in other European Union states. At the heart of the party’s election program is continued reduction of Germany’s national debt and a rejection of any new taxes. The Social Democrats and the Greens say that if they win power, they will propose tax increases for the country’s highest earners. The Free Democrats also rejected proposals for issuing bonds backed in common by the nations using the euro, and for using state funds to create rescue packages for financially troubled companies. Rainer Brüderle, the head of the party’s parliamentary delegation, called the shared-debt idea “interest-rate socialism.” Mr. Brüderle also criticized President François Hollande of France, saying he had failed to make his country’s economy more flexible or more competitive. “One can observe in France what can happen to an economy that relies on distribution, high taxes, shorter working hours and early retirement,” he told delegates at the conference. “It results in lower growth, more public debt and reduced competitiveness.” Party leaders at the conference pushed through a proposal for setting a minimum hourly wage for nonunionized workers that would vary from industry to industry and region to region. The position is similar to Ms. Merkel’s, and contrasts with the opposition’s call for a single nationwide minimum wage of 8.5 euros (about $11.15) an hour. About 5 million workers in Germany are thought to earn less than that, and the issue has emerged as a key point of debate in the election. Many delegates opposed the minimum wage plan, saying it would make things worse for the country’s weakest regions by making them less competitive. But Mr. Rösler persuaded a narrow majority that pushing for higher wages for low-paid workers was a matter of social conscience. The Free Democrats will also campaign to allow immigrants to naturalize sooner and for new German citizens to keep their citizenship of birth as well. Current German law allows dual citizenship only in exceptional cases. Opinion polls indicate that the Free Democratic Party has an image problem. Voters tend to see it as a party of accountants and dentists, and are often reluctant to declare their support for it. Some commentators said that the clear policies adopted at the conference were well timed to help the center-right coalition retain power. Though the party had previously “gambled away every chance to be seen as a serious force of economic reason,” the weekly Bild am Sonntag wrote over the weekend, “now it seems that half a year before the election, they have come to their senses.” |