Germany’s Blueprint Coalition Plans and Merkel’s Future
Over 82 million people in Germany and just over 600 men and women could steer Angela Merkel’s political fate by 21 January. No, it’s not Election Day — yet. The last federal election was over three months ago, on a late summer day in September, when the international media quickly declared Merkel the winner once again and moved on. But almost four months later, Germany still doesn’t have a government. Last week, a breakthrough seemed near, with the announcement of blueprint plans for negotiating a governing coalition — but don’t count on it happening.
Merkel has dedicated most of her life to reforming her center-right Christian Democratic party in part by leading it into coalition agreements with the Social Democrats and the free-market Liberal Party. As a result, the party successfully captured a greater percentage of the female and urban vote. Merkel was capable of modernizing, shutting down opposition voices from within, and eliminating those that threatened her power, while still seeming generally agreeable to the wider voting public. Now, after more than twelve years as Chancellor, Merkel’s plans for her final years as Chancellor could be torpedoed by her political Grand Coalition partner, turned rival again in the recent elections: the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD).
But wait: Wasn’t there international acclaim for the blueprint coalition plans that came out last week? Didn’t these seem to indicate that the Christian Democratic Union / Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and SPD were on the brink of a new Grand Coalition? That all was to be well? Wasn’t the final 28-page document heralded as a “radical” and a “great day for Germany and an even greater day for Europe?”
True, the composite document released to the national and international press in the early hours of Friday morning seemed to indicate that Germany could soon be back on the international stage after a more than three months of domestic political paralysis. The blueprint — hammered out as a negotiation roadmap between the parties — prioritized Europe; hinted at renewed commitment to improved financial governance structures to strengthen the Euro; committed to European foreign policy; and mapped out an equitable solution to the refugee and migration crisis and a common European human rights policy. A commitment to continued military engagement in Afghanistan and Mali made it into the document, as did a strong stance to develop standards on drone usage in military conflict. These positions indicate that a renewed Grand Coalition might be more willing to step up its international commitments than the previous CDU/CSU-SPD coalition. Meanwhile, analysts praised the seeming reversal of the negotiation teams on retaining Germany’s ambitions climate change mitigation goals (a point which looked likely to end up on the cutting floor and would have put this new administration more in line with current U.S. policy). International analysts praised the freeze on EU accession discussions with Turkey and a commitment to conditionality on issues of visa liberalization. Negotiators were similarly lauded for their critical approach to conditional arms sales to countries involved in the ongoing war in Yemen. But not all points spelled improvement. Defense policy observers — including Germany’s own armed forces representatives — were sharply critical of the (lack of) explicit financial commitments made to the expansion of Germany’s military capabilities, which threatens its ability to meet the 2 percent spending goal agreed at the NATO summit in 2014.
And yet, most international feedback seemed to be blind to significant remaining hurdles to actually achieving a coalition. To make another Grand Coalition palatable to its membership, the SPD has built in two critical procedural steps. First, 600 state party delegates will meet to vote on the blueprint, which is in fact nothing more than an ideational mapping exercise toward full negotiations. Should delegates give a green light, and this is still highly questionable, negotiations will open on the basis of the issues set out in the guiding document. Following the conclusion of these negotiations, the entire SPD party base — around 450,000 members — will take part in a mail-in ballot to support or reject the conclusions of ultimate negotiations.
This process is an insurance policy for embattled SPD-party leader Martin Schulz, whose campaign ahead of the September election resulted in the worst result for his party in its modern, post-World War II incarnation. On 25 September, just hours after this historic defeat, Schulz had vowed to take his party into the opposition, to rebuild its profile and strengthen German democracy, while allowing the winning parties — Merkel’s Christian conservative coalition, the Green Party, and the free-market liberals — to attempt the formation of a government. “Never,” he said, “I’ll never be a part of a Merkel-led government.” And yet, here we are with Schulz’s party holding the Merkel’s fate in its hands.
Which brings us to Sunday, 21 January, when 600 SPD delegates will vote on whether the blueprint — and the tireless campaigning across the nation by their leadership — is enough to begin detailed negotiations with Merkel’s party and cement a deal for coalition government. A ‘no’ vote will likely send an already politically paralyzed Germany back to the ballot box in the early summer, as Merkel has already indicated she does not want to run a minority government. A ‘yes’ vote could signal the start of another set of negotiations, before the conclusion of a final coalition agreement, which then must stand the test of the SPD’s 450,000 member base. Either way, Germany remains on the sidelines of European and international policy at least for a while longer, instead of shaping decisions on some of the most pressing issues of our time.
If SPD delegates decide against compromising party principles, Germany will soon be embroiled in another election campaign, arguably with new players. Merkel is unlikely to stand for re-election, lest she risk losses beyond the eight percent she suffered in September and forever tarnish her political legacy. Such an election could also damage the SPD irreparably — but so could the return to a Grand Coalition, in which it can’t sufficiently assert itself to be seen as distinctive and credible by voters. In these scenarios, all of the classic, centrist people’s parties lose. Instead, there will be one outright likely winner: the right-wing Alternative for Germany. Perversely, two long rounds to form a government that would have represented the political will of most Germans will have, in fact, bolstered the country’s most extreme political forces.
If all goes well for Angela Merkel, and last week’s deal and subsequent negotiations survive the SPD’s procedural votes, she will be leading an alliance of necessity. Yet, what Germany and the world needs is visionary, committed leadership. Given international challenges — such as ensuring Europe’s physical and economic stability and fighting for the role of Western-led systems and institutions of international law — and the urgent need for domestic changes to anticipate the full impact of globalization, the world may wish Germany had its act together, but it’s by no means there yet.
Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook is a German-American and a Security Fellow with Truman National Security Project. She is the Executive Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School. Views expressed are her own.
