Angela Merkel
The Chancellor and Her World
ANGELA MERKEL
The Chancellor and Her World
Stefan Kornelius
Translated by Anthea Bell and
Christopher Moncrieff
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First published in German by Hoffmann und Campe Verlag in 2013 This translation, based on a revised German text including the additional chapter ‘The British Problem’, first published by Alma Books Limited in 2013
Copyright © 2013 by Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, Hamburg Translation © Anthea Bell and Christopher Moncrieff, 2013 Front-cover image © Armin Linnartz
The translation of this work was supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut which is funded by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Stefan Kornelius asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
ISBN (HARDBACK): 978-1-84688-307-1
ISBN (EXPORT EDITION): 978-1-84688-309-5
ISBN (EBOOK): 978-1-84688-308-8
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CONTENTS
Merkelmania
The Chancellor's New Power
Another World
A Sheltered Life in the GDR
In Search of New Frontiers
Breaking into Politics
Questions of Belief
What Makes Merkel Tick?
Necessary Evils
The Chancellor and Her Coalitions
Pacific Dreams
Yearning for the USA
On the Defensive
Angela Merkel and War
The Light of Zion
The Fascination of Israel
Russia and Putin: Parallel Lives
A Much Loved Country, a Difficult President
Business or Conviction
A Conflict of Systems with China
The Great Crisis
Angela Merkel's Battle for Europe
The British Problem
Keep Them in
The Prospects for Merkel?
The Post-Political Chancellor
Merkelmania
The Chancellor's New Power
In the eighth year of her chancellorship, Angela Merkel has reached the zenith of her power – again. She has now been at the head of the greatest and richest economy in Europe for two parliamentary terms. She is the undisputed leader of her party and faces almost no opposition. She presides over a cabinet of mostly loyal and obedient ministers. She has tamed her second coalition partner, putting to rest the initial negative impression of her government. She treats the opposition with disdain. Publicly, she enjoys a great deal of respect – no chancellor before her had been able to call on such high approval ratings in their seventh year of government. Economically, her country is not in a bad shape – compared to its neighbours. Nor is Germany troubled by any major problems at home.
Angela Merkel has risen to a position of power and worldwide influence. She is one of a small group of heads of state who can look back on a similarly long period in office. In the European Union she is the last of her generation of leaders: apart from that perennial, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, no one has been in power longer than she has. The President of the European Commission took office the year before her – but only with her help. Merkel is working with the second American President of her time in office, and she had dealings with their predecessor. She is engaged in a kind of hare-and-tortoise race with the President of Russia as to who will stay in office longest. In China Merkel has so far seen only one change of leadership: she eagerly anticipated her meeting with the new leaders, wishing to compare the new politicians in power with their familiar predecessors.
She has contributed to the peace process in the Middle East. She has an intense and sometimes even emotional relationship with Israel, partly because of German history of course, but also because of the kind of personal feelings that she seldom allows to interfere with international relationships. The intensity of the events in the Arab world also caught her off guard. With a certain degree of sceptical apprehension, she is monitoring the developments in the Middle East and in those societies, now in turmoil, that wanted freedom but ended up being cut off from power. Merkel knows something about freedom: she has a story of her own to tell on that subject, although she seldom does, because she dislikes any excess of emotion. In her view, freedom is a very individual matter: the yearning for unfettered development, a wish to push one's limits, discover new ground, understand and master a subject – all of which can be used to describe the personal quest for freedom of a woman who had to hide her ambitions and her talent for thirty-five years. And it seems as if her hunger is not yet satisfied.
It has been said at various points that she has reached the peak of her career. But Merkel does not believe in linear progression. To her, politics is a zero-sum game – an accumulation of positives and negatives, a constant stringing-together of success and failure.
And this is where the problem begins: success and failure are measured not only by a coalition's stability, voter satisfaction or the frequency of international visits. Those are the wrong parameters. The right parameters are events: asked by a journalist what could throw a government off track, the British prime minister Harold Macmillan once replied, “Events, my dear fellow, events.” Angela Merkel also carries a historical burden, the economic crisis – and it is this event alone that will determine the success or failure of her chancellorship.
She did not seek out the crisis: it was the crisis that came to her. It came first in the form of the banking crisis, then mutated into a full-blown world economic crisis – and finally it became the euro crisis. There are several problems lurking in its shadow that could do untold damage: a debt crisis, problems with growth and competitiveness and, ultimately, the collapse of the euro. The possible consequences are terrifying: a run on the banks, insolvency, the demise of entire sectors of the economy, a fall in exports, high unemployment, social tension, the rise of radical parties – and the political disintegration of Europe. When we look at these scenarios, we can appreciate the historical significance of the crisis.
Angela Merkel has been forced to confront this event and try to avert its potentially destructive effects. Unlike Helmut Kohl, she does not have the advantage of governing during a relatively easy period in German history. Kohl made the most of the favourable circumstances and the positive dynamics of European movements of political emancipation, and with a sure instinct led Germany to unification and Europe to a new era of prosperity. Merkel, on the other hand, is fighting a defensive war: she is battling against potential ruin. She cannot promise flourishing landscapes – she can only strive to prevent Europe from becoming a place of desolation.
The defining theme of Merkel's chancellorship, then, is Europe's crisis. Konrad Adenauer firmly anchored the Federal Republic in the West, and he carried through a political model which provided social reconciliation and a market economy. Willy Brandt began to ease the country's relationship with the East. And Helmut Kohl has gone down in history as the cha
ncellor who achieved the reunification of Germany. Merkel has now found her own historical mission, and this makes her position stronger. It must be admitted that the crisis has been beneficial to her career. Without it, her chancellorship would be considerably less relevant from a historical point of view. She now has the opportunity of joining the ranks of the great heads of state. Her decisions are momentous not just for Germany, but for Europe as a whole.
This elevation in her stature is not felt so much in Berlin as in the European political arena – for example in Brussels, at summits with the French President, or on visits to Athens. She is now a towering European figure – but in the process she has become something of a political loner.
There has been an increased focus on her personality, as if it were only up to her whether or not the Continent can overcome its problems. Her new status is confirmed by the many visitors to Berlin, the attention paid to her in Washington or Beijing, as well as the distortions and demonization that she has to endure.
Merkel became the protagonist of the current-affairs magazines during four crisis-ridden years. “The Mystery of Angela Merkel”, “The Lost Leader”, “Frau Europe”, “Mother Discourage”, “Achtung, It's Angela” – no caricature, no cliché went unused. Sometimes she laughs at the headlines or the cartoons – for instance the one in The Economist, which shows a ship called The World Economy sinking far below the surface and onto the seabed, while a plaintive voice on the bridge enquires, “Please can we start the engines now, Mrs Merkel?”
Such gentle humour, however, is the exception. As a rule the cartoons show Merkel with a Hitler moustache; Merkel topless, suckling the Kaczyński twins; Merkel with blood dripping from her shoulders; Merkel as a dominatrix treading the Spanish premier under her boots as he pleads for mercy. The imagery reached new heights on the cover of the New Statesman, where the Kanzlerin was given the face of a Terminator and a robotic eye. The story inside – besides containing the predictable comparisons with Hitler – described her as a greater danger to the stability of the world than Kim Jong-un of North Korea or President Ahmadinejad of Iran. Merkel was either depicted as a bully or as Nero fiddling while Europe burned.
The conservative French newspaper Le Figaro suggested the following scenarios: either France would join the German-dominated north of Europe, or it would “become part of the peripheral countries derided by the pan-Germanists as PIGS”. By pan-Germanists the paper presumably meant Germany and its vassals. The socialist economist Daniel Cohen called Germany “the China of Europe”. And the Spanish writer Javier Cercas made sure that Merkel became the pantomime villain in southern Europe: “The economic terms she is forcing on us cannot be met, and arouse feelings of resentment and humiliation comparable to those aroused in Germany after the First World War, when the victorious Allies dictated its economic programme.”
So Versailles all over again, but with the roles reversed? Germans underestimate the degree to which the economic strength of their country and Merkel's political power are resented by its neighbours. The American financial guru George Soros, a particularly vocal opponent of the German euro-rescue policy, warned Merkel that the rest of Europe would not love or admire Germany as an imperial power: “There will be hatred and resistance, because it will be perceived as an oppressor.” And that has been one of the less severe warnings. Far more dangerous was the revival of old conspiracy theories: it was claimed that after unification Germany threw all its weight behind the euro because it planned to rule the Continent through its monetary policy. What had failed twice in military terms was now to succeed in peacetime with the aid of the euro and the cent – Teutonic imperialism, a brilliant master plan.
Is all of this just ideological hyperbole? Or fanciful hysteria? Chancellor Merkel was sure to be at least aware of the tensions. The mismatch within Europe in terms of economic capacity and competitiveness had given Germany an unbeatable advantage. In addition, its exports machine ran so well because the Federal Republic profited from the vast single market and because Germany's powerful industry allowed no chance to competitors from southern Europe for instance, where the cost of labour was higher. Thanks to its economic strength, Germany also enjoyed the favour of the financial markets: credit had never been so cheap, and it had never been so easy to find takers for government bonds. Germany was seen as profiteering in a time of crisis, and Merkel as the orchestrator of an unprecedented master plan. Thanks to the Schröder government's rigorous social reforms and a moderate wage-scale policy, Europe's economy had shifted to the middle of the Continent. New markets were opened up in Asia and Russia. France had lost its traditional political and economic balancing role: in a Europe of twenty-seven nations, the political centre of power had shifted from Paris to Berlin.
The crisis gave Angela Merkel many advantages. Firstly, from the German viewpoint her rescue policy was both urgent and conclusive, so she encountered very little resistance from the opposition at home. Secondly, she was governing at a decisive moment for the executive. It was a time when heads of government in Europe – not the European Commission or national parliaments – were taking the lead. And thirdly, no road can bypass the Chancellor of the strongest economy in Europe; anyone wishing to save the euro would have to do so in conjunction with Merkel. Initially, therefore, the crisis put Merkel in a winning position, but she also bore a heavy responsibility. If the rescue operation went wrong she would be deeply implicated, even if she had done everything in her power to avert disaster. All eyes in Europe were focused on her. If Europe failed, then Merkel would have failed.
The Chancellor's special position was something entirely new in the history of the Federal Republic. Never before had a chancellor played such an important role in foreign policy. Even in Helmut Kohl's time it was accepted that he was steering the ship in Germany's interests at a favourable moment in history – but no more than that. Inadvertently, unintentionally, Germany has acquired an international significance that is alien to its nature, and which over the past few decades it has declined to assume.
History teaches us that Europe doesn't gladly tolerate the presence of a loner in its midst. The instant revival of ancient prejudices shows how delicate the Federal Republic's special position in Europe actually is. The country was ready and willing to share its power in Europe and fit into a post-national collective. The German Constitution and the history of its global alliances since the Second World War are evidence of the many safeguards that have been put in place to control this colossus. This was why Helmut Kohl gave a guarantee that Germany would be firmly anchored in Europe in return for unification. The Maastricht Treaty was signed in 1992 and the Deutschmark abandoned in favour of a European currency for the same reason. Suddenly the constants of post-war European history changed. The emphasis shifted.
It was at this moment that Angela Merkel became the focus of attention. Who was this woman who for so long had kept quiet, and who in only a few years had taken control of Germany's conservative party? Who was this politician who rose almost unnoticed to lead the leaders of Europe? The Germans have been pondering over the mystery of Merkel for many years, trying to interpret her character and the inner workings of her mind. But now the whole world wants to know: how did she get into politics? What is her worldview? What are her values, her yardsticks? Merkel enjoys an interest in her as a person that rarely wanes – yet another reason why she has once more conquered the summit. This time she has come under scrutiny in her capacity as a stateswoman, a foreign-policy expert. What will she do if Germany's objective increase of power is perceived as a threat? She has managed to make Germany's dominance seem tolerable so far – but will it stay that way?
Yes, Merkel bears a heavy burden – and naturally she relishes this new-found assertiveness, because she is convinced that the blend of regulations and structural changes she has prescribed will be good for Europe. But she has not yet found an answer to the dilemma described by Bismarck: Germany is too small to exercise hegemony in Europe, and yet too large for i
ts equilibrium. Or, to rephrase this in modern terms: Germany is too strong to be absorbed into the structures of Europe, and too weak to impose what it believes are the right policies on other nations. Historians refer to this as semi-hegemony – not a comfortable position for any country.
So here she is, catapulted into the leadership of Europe, constantly fending off the accusation that her sole aim is to make Europe more German. The future of the historical European project, the overcoming of former hostilities, is in her hands. Perhaps these thoughts crossed her mind as she sat in the City Hall in Oslo and watched as the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Europe.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has seen better days, once called her the most powerful woman on the planet. If further evidence of the German Chancellor's new power were required, this was provided by the Mattel toy company, who designed a Barbie doll modelled on her – claiming that Merkel was a role model for girls who dreamt of being able to become “whatever they wanted”. Merkel herself doesn't much care for role models. In her office there is only one picture: a silver-framed portrait of Sophie von Anhalt-Zerbst, later known as Catherine the Great. As ruler of Russia, Catherine pursued policies very much in the spirit of the Enlightenment, but she was also assiduously imperialist. She loved to play with power, converted to the Orthodox Faith, took a Russian first name, made use of men – all with the aim of expanding her authority. Merkel was given the picture by a journalist, and it has been in her office ever since. She tends to dismiss excessive interpretations – she admires Catherine as a woman and a reformer, nothing more. Not only that, the Tsarina ruled for thirty-four years – a period of time that will not be granted to Angela Merkel.
Another World
A Sheltered Life in the GDR
Young Angela Kasner's world was quite straightforward. It consisted of her mother, father, brother and sister, the Waldhof and its various businesses, and the road outside. Sometimes Angela crossed the road to go to the nearby shop and wait for her father, who was usually out and about. “I didn't venture any farther,” she said. As a little girl she didn't go to a crèche or kindergarten, and was afraid of horses – these are Angela Merkel's earliest memories. The Waldhof, a complex of residential and farm buildings, storehouses and workshops, was like an island in the idyllic little town of Templin. In 1957 her father, Horst Kasner, was asked to set up a college for Church administration, later known as the Pastoral College, and act as its head teacher. Curates and pastors would visit the Waldhof for several weeks to train or attend seminars on preaching. The Waldhof was an important institution for the Protestant Church in the State of Berlin-Brandenburg – it could be claimed that every pastor in the Church at the time would have been taught by Horst Kasner at some point in his life.
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