While Germany prepares to put its new government together in a bid to submit it to the necessary parliamentary approval, the hidden agenda item most commentators are discussing is whether next year Germany will be compelled to go to the polls again.

The prospect of premature elections is beginning to loom on the horizon because although a government of sorts will be somehow put together under the aegis of a grand coalition, it still has to be seen how the differing party manifestos of the two major coalition partners can be reconciled together.

Particularly in terms of the neo-liberal direction, Merkel would like to push her country; regarding the warmer transatlantic relations she has been proposing as well as her programme for economic reform mainly in such sensitive areas as pensions.

Although Merkel won the chancellorship, it surely was not a winner takes all solution to the crisis, since some of the major key portfolios have fallen into the hands of the SPD party.

What will be intriguing will be whether the Germans’ will to get out of this crisis will prevail over the politicians in their quest for a common ground and a consensual approach to the problems they are facing.

Surely talk of premature elections at this stage by any German politician would be suicidal, particularly when the government that has just been put together has been described as a “government of national emergency that many Germans want to succeed”.

The success of this new administration will be determined by whether it can help inch Germany forward in restoring some of its lost economic clout and power.

The two major parties will be carrying a strong sense of responsibility in that the electorate will be focusing on them to see to what extent they will be willing to compromise.

If this government fails, extremism is likely to prevail in Germany, something which I understand none of the mainstream voters would like to see happen.

Germany might have an ailing economy but it still remains an important powerhouse of the European Union.

For this reason if this government fails it will be as much of a setback for Europe as much as the French and the Dutch referenda turned out to be.

It is interesting that although various formulae and permutations have been considered when polling took place among random samples of the German electorate, it transpired that the majority opted for such a grand coalition as they considered it to be the likeliest formula to work.

I personally think that the Social Democrats will be facing a stiffer challenge than Merkel in the sense that time will only tell how flexible they will be prepared to be to accept her programme or else whether they are going to put the breaks on her ideas regarding both domestic and international affairs.

I say so particularly because although Merkel’s programme is far more radical, the SPD lost most of its votes as a result of the much milder reform process it had underway, particularly at the time when various Lander elections were fought and lost heavily in recent months.

Being responsible as they will be for finance, foreign affairs and labour, the SPD will be mostly made accountable by the electorate for this new government’s economic and foreign policies. If they work in practice they will stand to get much of the credit, while on the other hand failure in this regard could start chipping away again at their electoral base, which made such a splendid recovery at the polls, when they came so close that they almost surpassed the CDU/CSU after so many lack-lustre electoral performances in a row.

Given Merkel’s strong campaign opposition to Turkey’s accession to the European Union, we still have to see how much pressure she will exercise on her SPD foreign minister in this regard, given the recent EU decision on Turkey.

One commentator remarked that in the long run this should not be such a problem, because the Turkish issue will be so long drawn out that it is well beyond the life span of a Merkel government!

We are winning the arguments

I was pleased to note that although Minister Gatt recently came down like a tonne of bricks with his mantra about what Malta really must do if it wants to succeed in building a knowledge based economy, a local daily newspaper which does not normally favour the Labour Party in its editorials, claimed recently that there is a huge gap between this government’s vision and reality, adding that even if it is closing, it is doing so too slowly, at least so far.

It added by stating the following:

“Ironically, given the direction of Dr Gatt’s finger-pointing, it was the Labour representatives on the committee, Leo Brincat and Carmelo Abela, who had the right idea: What is required is more coordination between the ministries for investment, education and competitiveness.”

This government’s biggest failure is that although it has imposed considerable pain on the working and middle classes, it has failed miserably in convincing them that there will be long term gain as a result of its strategy.

Leo Brincat is the main opposition spokesperson on Foreign Affairs and IT

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