Germany: The End of Illusions
Neighborhood Militia, Berlin,Weimar Republic, 1926 courtesy of Wikicommons
The Historic Collapse
For the first time since the birth of the German Republic in 1949 – political leaders are unable to horsetrade their way to a governing coalition. The collapse of talks Sunday night following an indecisive September election has some observers even raising the specter of Weimar in the 20's and 30’s. They’re quick to point out of course that today's Germany has stood the test of time and is no longer a student when it comes to democracy but a teacher. After a glowing press crowned Angela Merkel's the new leader of the free world, they were reaffirmed in their faith by a new poll showing Germany knocking America from the pedestal and claiming top spot as top nation. Sunday's setback is surely just a bump in the road. "Wir schaffen das!" There will be a minority government or new elections (or a return to the Grand Coalition with the SPD) and it will be business as usual with Merkel 4.0. Merkel could yet cling to power. If so it will be against strong headwinds.
Clouding Differences or Building Bridges?
The election and the failed coalition talks lifted some of the smoke that has been obscuring the elephant in the room: migration and what to do with 1.6 million refugees and their family members sitting on suitcases in Syria and Iraq waiting to join them.
The coalition talks crashed and burned, as indeed they were doomed to because the circle cannot be squared. Migration is and will continue to be the Insurmountable Chasm that Conservatives, Free Democrats, and the Greens cannot cross together and survive without betraying their core voters. Any change in their respective positions would have seen them hurtling into the Abyss, never to emerge again in their current forms. The FDP's Moses, Christain Lindner, who led his party from the desert and back into parliament after it was booted out in 2013, understood the stakes best. Like his young contemporaries in the Elysee and Hofburg, youth makes it easier to overturn the Old Order. But by refusing to join a coalition that was doomed to be short-lived he's earned the scorn of the German political and media elite. That's unfair. Instead, Lindner should be heaped with laurels for pointing the way to a more stable future, one based on a workable arrangement to resolve Germany’s biggest challenge since reunification in 1990.
Migration: The Underanalyzed Costs of 1.6 Million Dependents
Only brutal honesty about the social and economic costs of migration will lead to a workable coalition and help Germany avert the polarization and weak minority governments that characterized Weimar. For over two years though, even discussing the total costs of the migration crisis has been neglected, even treated as a taboo. There are piecemeal figures, with the federal, state and local governments picking up various tabs. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble did put forward a debatable number. It amounts to about 22 Billion Euros annually. That's out of a total 2017 federal budget of about 329 Billion Euros. But there is no thorough accounting of current and projected costs. That has to change if voters are to take claims seriously that migration can be managed financially, let alone socially or logistically. Subsidiary conversations about its scope and depth will be just that, subsidiary and subject to financing.
Banning Weimar's shadow will require courage, honesty and plain speaking. Those virtues can be used for starters by ascertaining the actual financial costs of absorbing hundreds of thousands of migrants and determining how that process will be funded.
1.6 million human beings, with their all their hopes, dreams and longings, are waiting for answers and clarity. 82 million German citizens want the same. When Germany opened its doors, its government and citizenry assumed responsibility for the refugees it promised succor. How, and to whom, Germany makes good on those promises must be the center of a debate that includes all shareholders, including migrants and taxpayers.
A Minority Government Cannot Lead Europe
Minority governments can be relatively successful in countries like the Netherlands and Belgium. They are hardly a recipe for success in a large nation used to consensus but now fracturing along ideological lines. Unable to stitch up cross-party support for their own vision, how can Merkel and Co. hope to persuade Visegrad nations that mandatory refugee quotas, for example, are workable with their own electorates? Any future German government will have to craft a national consensus on migration if it is to stake a claim to leadership not only here, but on other pressing EU issues as well, like Ukraine, Russia, and Brexit. Until this is done, Berlin's authority will seep away in proportion to the time it takes to hammer out a Great Compromise on migration.
New Elections: Renewal or Instability?
A vigorous debate is unavoidable if Germany is going to avoid the consequences of political instability. A patchwork of shaky deals cannot replace a well reasoned and broadly supported policy initiative. The longer the hard work is shirked, the greater the risk of polarization and radicalization at both ends of the political spectrum Left and Right. The process of new elections can help move the nation closer to a just basis for dealing with the hundreds of thousands of migrants already here and the many more now on their way to Europe and especially to Germany.
Copyright 12/2017 by Brian Thomas All images courtesy of Wikicommons.
Feel free to use or quote any of this editorial. If you do so, please provide the appropriate attribution for your readers. Thanks!