Frau Europa

'Frau Europa' titled the Times Magazine Edition this winter. Merkel was interviewed and the American magazine drew a benign picture of the leader who managed to be the first female and the first Eastern German Chancellor in the Middle European country. Her seemingly infinite self-control, quiet and thoughtful style and commitment to the battle against climate change impressed the foreign observers.

However, there seems to be noticeable a discrepancy between Merkel's image abroad and the public interpretation of her in Germany. Admittedly, Merkel is frequently voted top in the most popular politicians list, although surveys also show that an increasing percentage of German citizens are not convinced about her leadership skills; she is conceived as a tranquil person who prefers solving problems through backdoor politics rather than through open debate. Maybe she is introducing a degree of professionalism to politics which some of us are longing for. It might also just be her lack of eloquence.

Merkel has been Germany's Chancellor for five years now. But never before have there been as many problems as at the beginning of 2010. For the first four years, Merkel had to share power with the Social Democrats who were voted out of office after eleven years last autumn. The FDP, the German liberal party, is now the CDU/CSU's partner in the coalition with its chairman Guido Westerwelle, who is also Vice-Chancellor and Minister for Foreign Affairs (the CSU is the Bavarian version of the CDU; although separate parties, they have since the founding of the Federal Republic fought together. The CDU does not stand for elections in Bavaria; neither does the CSU outside Bavaria).

And this coalition of three parties, although long desired by all of them, is far from unanimous. The most debated topic at present is probably social policy. Germany's system of social security has long been in need of reform and was redesigned under Chancellor Schröder and his Agenda 2010. Guido Westerwelle, recently portrayed as Berlin's 'Hulk' by the magazine Der Spiegel, started the debate in February by stating he would feel some "late-Roman decadence" in Germany. He was alluding to the seemingly paradoxical fact that an unemployed person could 'earn' as much as a working person, occasionally even more. A particular focus of the debate is the Hartz IV concept, a heritage of Schröder's reforms in the early 2000s. A commission of economic specialists chaired by Peter Hartz had at the time developed a plan to reform the employment market in Germany which was then made law between 2002 and 2005. Behind all these discussions around how high unemployment benefits in Germany should be, the comments and subsequent discussions have kicked off a debate on the entire social security system. The finding of the Bundesverfassungsgericht, Germany's constitutional court, declaring the calculation method for Hartz IV unconstitutional, helped fire up the debate. Westerwelle demands a restart and wants to reform the welfare state altogether. The FDP's new general secretary Christian Lindner has in a philosophical attempt recently outlined his new liberalism as a response to, what he called, the new technocratic statism.

Here, we are encountering one of the deepest and longest debates concerning the welfare state. We are confronted with two opposing views: on the one hand, there is the image of the lazy unemployed person living off other people's well earned money. The main issue identified here is the danger of a lack of motivation amongst the people: "Arbeit muss sich wieder lohnen" ("Work must pay") is an often repeated phrase of FDP politicians. And thus the path to resolution is either a cut in social benefits or a rise of wages. The increasing equality between the lowest possible income and the highest possible state-provided benefits is thus deeply concerning.

On the other hand, we are presented with images of families hardly able to afford their children's school trip. A well-known Berlin senator, who we dedicated an article to in our last issue, became famous for assessing the exact price of breakfast, lunch and dinner and considering them as basis for social benefits calculations. The hereby portrayed jobseeker needs to think twice about spending a cent. Possible solutions are therefore raising social benefits or the introduction of minimum wages over the country which Germany has avoided for decades, thereby creating Europe's biggest low wage sector.

How are we to combine these images? Is there a 'right' one? I would like to argue that the FDP and many others are overlooking the 'intrinsic value of work'. Work is fulfilling; work provides prospects for the future and it satisfies. People want to work. The TV-watching, beer-drinking and unemployed citizen is a myth or at best an irrelevant reality.

However, that is not all: Westerwelle wants a "geistig-politische Wende" (that is, a U-turn in political spirit). No other politician is as present in domestic politics as Westerwelle at the moment; surprising for a Minister of Foreign Affairs. Another liberal minister, Philipp Rösler, the first minister with an immigrant background, and now responsible for health, has also been a centre of debate. As youngest member of the government, Rösler advocates a complete reform of the health system. At the reform's core lies the introduction of a flat-rate health tax for all employed people which is supposed to replace the income-orientated tax system in place at present. The Minister estimates the cost of this reform to be about 10 billion euros.

The Bavarian CSU estimates the cost to be around 21 billion euros. In a recent interview, the CSU's chairman, Horst Seehofer, told the German public that it was impossible to introduce a flat-rate tax in the next years, since there are no funds to finance it. This is especially so after the economic crisis and the commitment, which is now constitutionally prescribed, of the federal government to not take up more than 8 billion euros of debt per year from 2020 onwards, and of the Länder governments not to take up any more debt at all. The CSU even threatened the federal government to veto any attempt to introduce the tax. Seehofer and Westerwelle have since the coalition took office in autumn been arguing about almost every possible topic. Be it the tax reform or family politics, the CSU and the FDP seem to have become political antagonists. Recenlty, Seehofer stated the following in a beer tent during carnival, proving a good sense of humour: "Keine Angst, das ist kein Tsunami, sondern nur eine Westerwelle".

Merkel's CDU is somehow trying to mediate between the two. But it also joins in in the big quarrel. The Minister of Environment, Norbert Röttgen, CDU, is thinking about shutting down nuclear power stations till 2020, an objective which had been made law by the Social Democrats and the Green Party under Schröder, but which has been abandoned after the new coalition took power. The FDP is a proponent of nuclear power and also Merkel is convinced that it should serve as a 'bridge technology'. In addition, Merkel's CDU is suffering from internal disunity. The Prime Ministers of the numerous CDU-ruled Länder have announced resistance against the federal government's plans to certain tax projects.

The national German government is paralysed. The three parties of the coalition spend more time arguing than governing the country. Apart from tax reductions a couple of months ago, no big projects have been envisaged. Deadlock rules Germany.

The reason for this deadlock has been presented: the disunity of the ruling coalition. But how did this come about? And is it not normal that coalitions should debate and argue publicly, to a certain extent at least?

Whilst the continuous attacks from Bavaria and a certain degree of debate amongst the ruling parties are nothing unusual, I would like to argue that the situation of this coalition indeed shows a major turning-point and a structural change in the German political landscape. And Merkel as Chancellor finds herself at the centre of this change.

The German party system is changing substantially. Traditionally, the Federal Republic has been ruled by two parties. Either the CDU/CSU or the SPD went into coalition with the FDP. Two great coalitions (CDU/CSU and SPD) also emerged. But we have gone from a three party parliament, to a five or six party parliament now. The Green Party emerged in the early 1990s as parliamentary force and die Linke, the Socialists, have recently seen polls rising. But also the great union of CDU and CSU is falling apart. Whereas Merkel has modernised the CDU, the CSU has remained a conservative, but also a populist, stronghold. The CDU has moved left and has pushed the SPD off its social democratic throne. The FDP has remained relatively consistent and presents itself at the forefront of liberalism. Attempts to get rid off the rich people's party image were unsuccessful as recent debates about Westerwelle's dubious interlinks over private and state's interests show. The SPD has lost much of its popular support and suffered a historic defeat last autumn with 23 per cent of the votes. The CSU is fighting a desperate battle for its superior position in Bavaria, where it has been ruling almost uninterruptedly since World War II.

Although it seems as if though this government consists of a traditional coalition, Merkel is actually the first German Chancellor to rule a three-party government. Almost all parties have shifted their profile. The terms 'social democratic', 'liberal', 'conservative' etc. are not confined to one party anymore. Instead of ideological labels, coloured labels are now used in public debate: Merkel's government is 'schwarz-gelb' (black-yellow), black for the CDU/CSU, yellow for the FDP. In addition, the time of great 'people's parties', big political parties which accommodate for most of the population, such as the CDU/CSU and the SPD used to be, is over. Both parties will in the future need more than one partner party to govern the country with. The German public has long debated this issue and has mentioned the danger of increased fractioning within the political landscape. It seems strange that now that it happened no one seems to take notice of it.

The German government is everything but strong at the moment. Major debates are publicly fought, but the Chancellor remains silent. It's all quiet on the Kanzleramt front. Merkel, who completely lacks the conservative Biedermeier aura, continues to be the cold moderniser of her conservative party. But she risks losing her conservative image altogether.

It thus seems ironic that Times Magazine portrayed Merkel as a strong and benign leader, managing Europe's affairs, when it is clear that there is a country to be repaired at home. Hostile voices within her party are becoming louder and she might be at risk of following the destiny of her predecessor Kohl who became victim of a coup in that late 1990's. The coup's initiator at the time: none other than Angela Merkel.