German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s announcement of her long-distance resignation is fraught with dangers, not simply to the last three years of her leadership but also to the humane and decent policies she has championed.
The decision was clearly prompted by the drubbing her Christian Democrat Union party and its Social Democrat coalition ally received in Sunday’s state election in Hesse. Their vote was down 11 percent. This comes after her Bavarian sister party the CSU saw a radical loss of support just over a fortnight ago in the key southern state. Though the CSU remained in power, it lost support to the Greens and the Islamophobic Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
In the wake of this latest electoral blow, Merkel announced she would be resigning as CDU leader and thus chancellor in three years time. If she imagines that this move will give her and her government breathing space, she is surely wrong. In delivering this long goodbye she has almost certainly created a multitude of problems. Probably the least of them is the race that she has started among leading CDU members to be her successor. “Mutti” (“mother”), as she has long been known affectionately by many of her countrymen, will have to struggle to maintain her authority and discipline within the party as her colleagues maneuver to try and take over her mantle.
The greater challenge will come to her position as the most senior and until last year’s poor Federal election showing, the most influential EU leader. With her former finance minister Wolfgang Schauble, she saw off the danger posed to the eurozone by a possible Greek debt default. But the threat represented by Italy’s new radical and EU-skeptic coalition government is far greater, as it defies Brussels’ warnings that its expansionary budget breaks EU rules. Then there is the cohesion of the EU itself with the European Commission clearly intent on driving harsh Brexit terms to punish the UK for leaving the Union. Without the British being made to suffer, the risk of other member states breaking away is evident. Brussels is already in confrontations with Poland and Hungary. An effective showdown with Italy will need a strong German chancellor at a time when it seems likely the ambitious President Emanuel Macron will be seeking to push for greater French European leadership.
Both domestically and within the EU, Merkel has a fight on her hands to avoid becoming a lame-duck chancellor, whose waning power and influence can be avoided by those planning to step into her shoes. It would be catastrophic if they were drawn by the siren analysis that Merkel has been undone by her welcome of more than a million mostly Muslim refugees largely from strife-torn Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Any calculation that the CDU and its coalition partners can restore their electoral fortunes by trying to steal the racist clothes of the AfD would be monstrous.
Merkel has stood up to the forces of bigotry and Islamophobia. Her tolerant and deeply humane political vision should not be allowed to go with her as she leaves the political stage. Too many German voters have once again started to listen to the siren voices of evil. Now is the time for the principles of tolerance and decency to be upheld with renewed vigor, not cast aside for political advantage.
