Is the EU doomed after the German elections? The Bavarian factor

Published in

EuVisions

6 min readOct 9, 2017

After the past elections of September 24, Germany found itself stuck in an unusual environment of political and institutional instability. Moreover, a radical right-wing party, the Alternative for Germany (AFD), entered the Bundestag winning more than 90 seats, and becoming the third force in the country.

Yet, one month after the electoral night, the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), the Liberal party (FDP) and the Greens are poised to kick-off official coalition talks to form a new Government.

49 percent of Germans want Merkel to stay as Chancellor

An alliance between the three forces has been labelled “Jamaica” as a result of the colours of the parties involved in the negotiations. Recent polls suggest that German citizens, as well as three out of four involved party bases, eye with favour the coalition (only a majority of CSU voters are sceptical of the prospects).

After four years in Government, the Grand coalition between the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the centre-right CDU/CSU Berlin will come to an end. As a matter of fact, the perils of the so-called GroKo (short for Grand Coalition in German) became manifest already on the electoral night, as Martin Schulz declared early on that the SPD would move to the opposition bench in the Bundestag.

Nevertheless, in the early days after the vote, some MPs from the SPD claimed GroKo could still be an option if … Angela Merkel gave away the Chancellery. Which obviously sounded like waiting for rain in the desert: 49 percent of Germans want Merkel to stay.

Is Europe doomed under Jamaica?

Across Europe question number one reads: what would a Jamaican coalition imply for the rest of the EU?

During the electoral campaign, FDP leader Christian Linder overtly criticised the politics of “solidarity”, the bailout process in Greece and Macron’s European visions. As such, one could expect an even less “solidaristic” Germany than before to take the lead in the Old Continent.

71 percent of voters who backed at least one of the parties that are engaging in the “Jamaican talks” hold integrationist views

Yet, a poll from the research project REScEU.eu points into a different direction and reveals a much less deterministic scenario.

Questioned about their views on the European Union, citizens across Europe were asked to choose among 4 options in describing their “imaginary” of the EU: a common house, a multi-apartment building, a playground, or a sinking ship.

The results show (somehow unexpectedly) that a majority of Germans share a rather “integrationist” view of the EU. An absolute majority of German citizens (54,6 percent) claim that the EU matches the image of a multi-apartment building. If coupled with those who compare the EU to a unique house shared by different nations, we end up with a solid 62 percent. On the other hand, only 11 percent think about the sinking boat when it comes to Brussels.

Any “Europe is doomed” view fails to weight the Greens, a hard-rock integrationist party, in the negotiations

Fair enough, but what does this tell us with respect to the Berlin’s Jamaican prospects? Not much. However, if we bundle together the two “integrationist options” (EU as a “shared house” or a “multi-apartment building”), on the one hand, and the other two more “pessimistic views”, on the other one, and timely check for voting intentions of respondents, it is possible to sketch the proportion of the Jamaican party base that holds integrationist views on Europe.

71 percent of voters who backed at least one of the parties that are engaging in the “Jamaican” talks hold integrationist views. All the more important, the party base of “Jamaica” is even scoring higher than the former “GroKo” (70 percent).

Obviously, the reasoning goes that parties somehow care about the preferences of their base.

But why then again is there so much talking about the Liberals? Not to mention that any “Europe is doomed” view fails to weight the Greens, a hard-rock integrationist party, in the negotiations.

Yet, the devil is in the details.

The Bavarian factor

It is often forgotten that the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) represents just one shade of the black in the “Jamaican” mosaic.

Indeed, the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), a long-lasting ally of Merkel’s CDU at the national level, holds little Europeanism in its veins: coming back to the above mentioned “imaginary” question, one of out of four in its party base thinks of “Titanic” when discussing the EU.

On the morning after the elections, the CSU force woke up squeezed between the comeback of the FDP, on the one side, and the AFD, on the other one

What is more important to grasp about the upcoming months of negotiations, is that the surge of the AFD represents an existential threat to the CSU, a party which has always thought of itself as the right-wing extreme of the (institutional) political spectrum.

On the morning after the elections, the Bavarian force woke up squeezed between the comeback of the FDP, on the one side, and the AFD, on the other one.

There is a chance that Germany’s stance will become more Eurosceptic in the upcoming months. But it’s not the Liberals, nor the Greens we need to look at. It’s Munich.