ANALYSIS:Some 100 days into German chancellor Angela Merkel's second term and the first reviews aren't pretty, writes DEREK SCALLY
RHINELAND COSTUME shops are always a good place to measure the public mood ahead of the annual carnival parades.
Held two days before Ash Wednesday, the festivities mix Halloween with St Patrick’s Day and allow costumed revellers one last bender before the sober weeks of Lent.
The most popular outfits this year are Lady Gaga and Captain Jack pirate gear, while from Cologne to Düsseldorf, shops are reporting unsold piles of Angela Merkel costumes.
Gone are the days when the German leader was the subject of so much flattery – Forbes magazine called her “the most powerful woman in the world” – that she felt obliged to say she ignored what the media said about her.
That’s just as well because, as British playwright Noel Coward once observed, if you believe your good reviews you have to believe the bad ones too. And 100 days into her second term, Merkel’s first reviews aren’t pretty.
“Insipid, Aimless, Dull” – the headline in one Berlin newspaper this week summed up the media verdict on her government while, in a public television poll, two-thirds of Germans are just as unhappy.
Things were supposed to be very different after September’s election when Merkel and her Christian Democrats (CDU) traded in the grand coalition – a marriage of convenience with political rivals – to share power with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), who kept Helmut Kohl in power. Now the self-described “political dream team” is so riven with dissent that, in a nod to the German capital’s famous orchestra, wags have dubbed Merkel’s team the “Berlin Disharmonic”. The new government has little of substance to show for its first 100 days: a budget with a record deficit, a few tax breaks for families and a generous VAT rate cut for hotels.Voters wondering why hotel VAT was such a priority were not impressed to learn that the FDP had received a multimillion pre-election donation from a leading hotel chain.
Not that the political standstill in Berlin is all that surprising. After all, the CDU general election campaign was so vague as to promise voters absolutely nothing except Merkel. So far, the CDU has kept its promise.
The second problem is the coalition agreement. Bashed out in just three weeks – a German record – the document is a classic Merkel fudge: less an agreement on outstanding issues than an agreement to agree in the future. This has tripped up the FDP twice so far. It insisted the programme for government reflect its ambitions to stimulate the economy next year with €57 billion in tax cuts. But the CDU has made the tax cuts conditional on this year’s tax take. So, until the numbers are in, the tax debate is nothing but inter-party sniping.
Controversial FDP reforms to how Germans pay for their healthcare have fallen victim to another fate: the May election in Germany’s most populous state, North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW). Losing power in NRW would mean losing the crucial government majority in the upper house, the Bundesrat, turning Merkel into a lame-duck leader.
So, out of deference to 13 million NRW voters, the government is sitting on its hands until after election day.
Even so, things are likely to get a lot worse for Merkel’s government before they get better. In Berlin, opposition parties are sharpening their knives for a parliamentary inquiry into why a German general in Afghanistan apparently flouted Nato guidelines to order an air strike last September that killed dozens of civilians.
The inquiry could be politically damaging if it emerges that, with an eye on the general election, Merkel’s last administration played down the severity of the air strike.
Meanwhile, later this month the government could face a new multibillion hole in its budget if, as expected, an appeals court rules that child welfare payments have been too low for years.
After 100 days, the CDU-FDP government is filled with unhappy campers, with FDP leader Guido Westerwelle cutting a particularly miserable figure. After winning a record 15 per cent on election night, FDP support is down five points already as the CDU blocks its reform ambitions. Merkel has turned a blind eye to her coalition partner but she has been stung by critics who say she isn’t so much leading her new government as moderating it.
On Monday, with uncharacteristic haste, she confirmed Berlin will spend €2.5 million on information stolen from a Swiss bank that reportedly names German tax cheats. While the Swiss fumed and some German lawyers call the move illegal, Merkel saw the political capital in moving quickly to chase €100 million hidden from the German taxman. The populist move won’t change attitudes to her first 100 days in office, but perhaps it will help shift some of those Merkel carnival costumes.
Derek Scally is Berlin Correspondent