At first blush the results in Germany for the EU elections looked like nothing of significance had happened. The media trumpeted the regression of the right. Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) 11% after polling as high as 18% in 2018 made it look like Angela Merkel had weathered the storm against her chancellorship from the right.
But, in doing so, she opened herself up to attack from the Left. The combined results for the ruling coalition in Germany was only 45% with the Social Democrats (SPD) under-performing even their recent bad polling data, garnering just 15.8% of the vote.
It was the loss for the SPD in Bremen which voted for both the EU parliament but its own, however, that was most disturbing as the SPD lost to the Merkel’s CDU by a point. This was the first loss in any state-wide election for the SPD in Bremen in 73 years.
That prompted two big moves in the wake of the results. Merkel supposedly ‘un-retired’ as head of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and, more importantly, Andrea Nehles stepped down as the leader of the Social Democrats.
This has now thrown the future of the current Grand Coalition into doubt.
And the question now is whether it can survive until the next election in 2021. The recent spate of speculation on this after Nehles’ resignation lead me to believe there may be something pushing for this behind the scenes.
The Greens have surged to more than 20% and what looked early on as a protest vote over another four years of the SPD rubber-stamping Merkel’s EU-first policies has taken on greater significance. These EU election results imply that the SPD may be, like the Tories in the U.K., in terminal decline.
Greens in Germany are of the most hawkish variety. They are the most militant about bringing about societal change through Progressive politics and the SPD have played footsie, in their eyes, with Merkel for too long. These results will only make them more strident.
And it will have knock-on effects in the EU as well.
So, like I said in my last article, the center isn’t holding in Europe. And the days of centrist politicians like Merkel are numbered. Grand coalitions that stand for nothing except care-taking the advancement of the European project were the big losers last month from both sides of the political aisle.
The political radicals will now have a far greater say and influence over the course of Europe. And it starts with the rise of the Greens in Germany. They have held above the 16% level now for months and just came through a major election above that critical level.
This is now a social movement in Germany, not a protest vote. And that could easily bring down the Merkel government.
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