Now that the Social Democratic Party (SPD) membership has voted to form a coalition with Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc, all the obstacles to the German chancellor’s fourth term in office have been removed. It’s time for Merkel to think about her legacy. Though no chancellor has given up leadership voluntarily, without an electoral defeat or a major scandal, none has served longer than Helmut Kohl’s 16 years and 26 days, and that makes it likely that Merkel, visibly exhausted by her never-ending battles, won’t vie for a fifth term in office in 2021.
Merkel is clearly thinking about an issue she has made a point of putting on a back burner for years: succession. Some analysis, German and foreign, have suggested that she has set up a duel between Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, or AKK as the party faithful sometimes call her, and Jens Spahn — two of the most popular politicians in the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Kramp-Karrenbauer, formerly first minister of the small state of Saarland, was last week elected the party’s secretary general with an unprecedented 99 percent vote. Spahn, the openly gay but outspokenly conservative favorite of the party’s youth wing, was appointed health minister as Merkel shunted aside a trusted ally to make space for him in the cabinet.
This isn’t quite a fair fight, though. Merkel has indeed positioned Kramp-Karrenbauer for succession, putting her in charge of revamping the CDU platform — a great way for her to get up to speed on the entire spectrum of national issues and get a feel for where the party base stands on them. As for Spahn, the chancellor may be setting him up for a fall. Though health is Spahn’s area of expertise, it’s also an area where the CDU will clash with the SPD, which exerts a strong influence on the coalition cabinet and which wants a comprehensive health reform to phase out private insurance. The argumentative right-winger doesn’t appear to be well-suited for navigating this minefield.
This has a direct bearing on how Merkel sees her legacy. Kramp-Karrenbauer closely resembles her: Their political views, including a pro-refugee bent, are practically indistinguishable; both are pragmatic, down-to-earth and compromise-oriented; both have a quiet, quirky sense of humor, though Kramp-Karrenbauer is a better public speaker. Merkel appears to have chosen a successor for full continuity rather than change. She wants more of the same.
More of what, though? Above all, more inclusiveness.
In a recent op-ed for The Sunday Times, British historian Niall Ferguson called Merkel’s reign “a political disaster,” largely thanks to what he calls, playing on Merkel’s affectionate moniker, “the Mutti of all errors” — the decision to open up Germany’s borders to refugees in 2015. But despite all the political costs of that move, including the switch of some of the most conservative Christian Democrat supporters to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), it’s been a prominent part of what Merkel consistently did throughout her long tenure. As Joyce Marie Mushaben argued in her recent book, “Becoming Madam Chancellor: Angela Merkel and the Berlin Republic,” “beyond serving as a role model for young women attracted to politics, Merkel’s ‘intercultural opening’ policies of the last decade have created new windows of opportunity for parliamentarians and administrators of migrant descent.”
In 2009, the newly elected German parliament had just 21 members with a so-called “migration background” — either immigrants or people born to immigrant parents. In 2017, that number was up to 58. That’s still only 8 percent, but it’s a veritable revolution in a country that long saw itself as monocultural, and it’s happening on more levels than just parliamentary politics. For example, the share of immigrants among police officers is growing visibly, though it’s still behind their percentage in the general population.
It’s easy to forget now that Merkel is the first woman to lead Germany. The country’s political culture, once patriarchal and conservative, is now open to women; a Catholic mother of three like Kramp-Karrenbauer likely wouldn’t have stood a chance at the chancellorship pre-Merkel. Under this chancellor, Germany passed laws to increase the number of women among decision makers and now has a higher share of women executives and board members in big business than the European average. Women’s workforce participation has also markedly increased, in part thanks to efforts to make it easier for working women to take care of their children.
Although politicians from other parties led the charge that brought about today’s universal acceptance of openly gay politicians — former Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit, an SPD member, is widely credited with opening the floodgates — it became a fact of German life under Merkel. Spahn’s meteoric rise in the CDU probably would have been impossible before her time.
Germany’s gradual opening to difference is a typical Merkel-led process: It’s slow, full of compromises and little defeats, but it leads to real change. What’s being simultaneously achieved is a new, guilt-free feeling of comfort about being German. Mushaben mentions it in her book, too — the ease of emotional identification with a nation that is open, nonthreatening and playing a decidedly long-term game. Fergusson condemns Merkel for reducing Germany “to a condition of parlous geopolitical and military weakness,” contributing to the “European mishandling of Arab revolutions” and making the financial crisis worse for southern Europe. But, like other post-World War II German politicians, Merkel largely worked with a set of domestic goals — and her staying power proves that Germans like living in a peaceful country that minimizes its foreign interference and works to reduce its foreign debt. It has generally worked well for them economically, and it’s getting harder to accuse Germany of mistreating neighbors as the euro zone leaves its crisis behind.
The combination of openness and a certain homey coziness defines Merkel’s legacy more than her big moves, even the refugee policy or the spur-of-the-moment decision to abandon nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster. One could argue that most Germans haven’t succumbed to this new country’s charms — the election results of centrist parties have worsened significantly under Merkel — but perhaps the public’s desire for more radicalism is natural after 12 years of Merkel’s pointed rejection of the spectacular. Merkel’s CDU, despite her swing to the left, is still by far the country’s strongest party. Her move to occupy more of the political center by giving up ground on the right may yet turn out to be a smart influence-perpetuating tactic.
I have warned about writing off Merkel, as pundits do at the slightest sign of crisis. I wouldn’t denigrate her legacy, either. It may not be flashy, but Merkel has, in her gradual way, changed Germany so that it’ll never go back to any of its old selves — the dark, threatening ones or the reflexive, self-doubting ones. It’s a happier country: While in 2013 Germans’ life satisfaction level was close to the rich country average, it’s significantly higher today. What leader wouldn’t want such a legacy?
Leonid Bershidsky | Bloomberg View
Bershidsky is a Bloomberg View columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru.
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