Event: Germany after Merkel, a webinar from the RFI Berlin club

The RFI Berlin club and its partners are organizing a webinar on the German election year on April 30 at 6 p.m. The RFI Berlin club and its partners are organizing a webinar on the German election year on April 30 at 6 p.m.

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Text by: Pascal Thibaut Follow

6 mins

The RFI Berlin club and its partners (NEOMA Alumni and Sciences Po) are organizing a webinar on April 30 at 6 p.m. dedicated to the German election year.

Four parliamentarians will answer your questions in French.

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The year 2021 will be marked by a political caesura in Germany.

Angela Merkel will step down after the September 26 elections after 16 years at the helm of the country.

A longevity comparable to that of his father in politics, Helmut Kohl.

For the first time, a head of government withdraws of his own free will without being sanctioned by the ballot box, the victim of a reversal of the alliance, pushed out by his party or forced to resign as in the past.

For the Christian Democrats, tenants of the Chancellery for a total of 52 years since the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, this departure is a challenge. The one who was Angela Merkel's

runner-up,

Defense Minister

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, threw in the towel

last year and left the CDU leadership. The current quarrels between this party and the Bavarian brotherhood CSU movement to choose who will lead the conservative campaign and potentially be Angela Merkel's successor are reaching an unprecedented climax. Armin Laschet, the president of the CDU, elected in January, is the “natural” candidate because of the weight of his party present in 15 of the 16 German regions. But his unpopularity in the polls led Markus Söder, CSU boss and Bavarian minister-president, darling of opinion research, to try it all. A major crisis threatens the Conservatives and can scratch their chances of success. Their massive decline in the polls, painful failures at two regional meetings in March sound like warnings.Germany could in the fall be led by a coalition in which the CDU and CSU would not participate. Worse, the Greens, who are once again following the Conservatives in the polls, could be in the lead.

Environmentalists have been on the rise for months with more than 20% in the polls. They are very likely to be the dominant force on the left ahead of the social democrats of the SPD. This would also be a historic caesura, a little over forty years after the creation of the environmental party. Among the constellations that can be envisaged after the elections, the Greens are becoming essential. The current weakness of the Christian Democrats and the SPD makes an alliance between these two parties which ruled Germany from 2005 to 2009 and since 2013 impossible today. Other options involve the Greens whether it is a coalition of the latter with the Christian Democrats, a so-called Jamaican alliance with the conservatives and the liberals or a “traffic light” version associating the Greens, SPD and Liberals.A government supported by the three left-wing organizations (environmentalists, social democrats and Die Linke) is not excluded but unlikely. The hostility of the latter party towards NATO and external military interventions makes such an option unlikely today.

If the Greens become the rising force attracting new voters and disappointed other parties, social democracy is at a turning point. The scores of the SPD have fallen from election to election since the defeat in 2005 of the last Social Democratic chancellor Gerhard Schröder. The party, created around 150 years ago, a central force in German political life, is vegetating at around 15%. The early appointment of its candidate for chancellery Olaf Scholz, the finance minister, did not allow the party to take off in the polls. The SPD is struggling, stuck between a CDU more central since the arrival to power of Angela Merkel and the Greens. Their traditional marker, ecology, allows them to offer answers to central issues today;but their economic and social program more consequent than in the past created a strong competition for the social democrats. It is difficult to know what the profile of the SPD is today and for what reasons we should vote for it.

There remain the three smallest forces which are today with the Greens in opposition. The liberal party is evolving and emancipating itself from its traditional line, favoring the Christian Democrats as a “natural” ally. This flexibility could make this movement an important pivotal force in the fall in a three-party coalition, especially if its rise in the polls (around 10% today) is confirmed. The leftist party Die Linke did not take advantage of the presence of a grand coalition in government. The movement, heir to the East German Communist Party, retains its strongholds in the eastern part of the country. Its only prospect for one day to gain power at the national level would be to aggiornamento its opposition in principle to NATO and German participation in international missions.Some are in favor, but Die Linke remains divided. As for the Alternative for Germany, the far-right party, it will again be represented in the Bundestag for the second time. The AfD is going through various crises: internal divisions between the most radical and the others, an absence of credible proposals during the pandemic, the disappearance of the public debate of the central migration issue for the AfD, the threat of being placed under observation by the authorities deeming the party potentially contrary to the democratic order.an absence of credible proposals during the pandemic, the disappearance of the public debate of the central migration issue for the AfD, the threat of being placed under observation by the authorities, judging the party to be potentially contrary to the democratic order.an absence of credible proposals during the pandemic, the disappearance of the public debate of the central migration issue for the AfD, the threat of being placed under observation by the authorities, judging the party to be potentially contrary to the democratic order.

All these factors make the year 2021 an extraordinary electoral and political vintage. Many unknowns remain. The cards are reshuffled. Various constellations are likely to rule Germany in the fall. So many hypotheses that challenge abroad after the withdrawal of the tutelary figure Angela Merkel. What will Berlin's policy be after the elections? What accents in domestic politics after the pandemic to consolidate or review the German economic and social model? Are changes to be expected in Europe and beyond on the international scene? So many questions to which four German politicians will answer in French during the webinar of the RFI Berlin club and its partners NEOMA Alumni and Sciences Po.

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  • Germany

  • Angela Merkel