Regards, Ivan
Posted on 01/11/2003 3:45:46 PM PST by MadIvan
A STRING quartet struck up a jaunty tune. Waiters carried steaming plates of bratwurst. Germany might be experiencing its worst economic crisis since the end of the second world war, but a surprisingly festive air infused a gathering of conservative businessmen in Hanover last week.
For the first time in more than a decade Lower Saxony, the home state and strong- hold of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, risks falling to the conservative opposition in an election next month. Unthinkable only a few months ago, the result for which the local business community yearns would inflict a deep political wound on the German leader.
Since his wafer-thin general election victory last September, Schröder seems to have lost the swagger for which he was renowned and he limps from one crisis to another amid concerns in his circle that after just over four years in power he may be losing the will to go on.
His popularity has plummeted as an unravelling economy, a weakening of German clout on the international stage and a nasty row with the press over stories about his domestic arrangements combine to make the Social Democrat leader once known as the Fun Chancellor merely a figure of fun.
Seldom has a European leader been so viciously lampooned. To cap it all Hanover, his home town, is putting the boot in, too, as it suffers a plague of corporate insolvencies and unemployment. Many of the election posters put up for Schröder’s SPD a few weeks ago were ripped down.
“People here who once loved him are now laughing,” said Dirk Toepffer, local chairman of the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU), whose supporters were clinking glasses over lunch on the outskirts of Hanover on Friday.
“When we win here — and polls suggest we will — it is probably all over for Schröder,” added Toepffer, noting that victory would give the Christian Democrats a decisive say in all major legislation presented to the upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat. “There will be enormous pressure on Schröder to resign.”
That may be wishful thinking. Yet the chancellor desperately needed good news as he prepared for a difficult discussion about Iraq with Tony Blair in Hanover last night.
Not a day seems to pass without some dire indicator of decline heaping misery upon misery for the German government. Thursday’s worsening unemployment figure of more than 4m ended notions of an improvement in the job market; statistics on bankruptcies, shrinking foreign investment and Konsum-Unlust, or a lack of consumer demand, compounded the woe.
Friedbert Pflüger, the CDU foreign policy spokesman, last week trotted out a much-told joke to illustrate the gravity of the situation. “Schröder and his finance minister were out boating on a lake when their vessel sank. Question: who was saved?” He paused for effect. “Answer: Germany!”
In a more serious tone, he went on: “It is the worst time, economically, since the end of the war. But also we have lost weight internationally. We are regarded as unreliable. There is no confidence in us.”
He was referring partly to the damage done by Schröder’s successful re-election tactic of playing on anti-American sympathies. Refusing to countenance German participation in a war against Iraq helped to preserve a governing coalition with the pacifist Greens.
It also infuriated Washington, as did a junior official’s comparison of President George W Bush to Adolf Hitler. Schröder has since been snubbed by the White House.
In the circumstances an increasingly isolated Schröder can be thankful, perhaps, for last night’s visit from Blair. The British prime minister hoped to learn if Germany can be counted on to support any United Nations mandate for action in Iraq. It is not an easy question for Schröder.
Missing out on business contracts in a newly liberated Iraq could be deemed a misfortune. Not half as much, however, as the desertion of the Greens from Germany’s “red-green” governing coalition. That might happen if Schröder gives German backing to a war on Iraq.
The issue could not have arisen at a worse moment for the chancellor. He has tried to ignore protests at planned tax increases — a song by an impersonator ridiculing his tax policy topped the charts — but cannot so easily get around the credibility problem illuminated by polls showing his party nearly 30% behind the CDU. The backlash will grow if he attempts long-promised labour and welfare reforms that economists say are vital to Germany’s economic recovery.
The government had one partial success last week by narrowly averting a potentially catastrophic public sector strike.Yet the huge financial cost of the settlement will only aggravate the fiscal rot that has made once-proud Germany Inc the second country after Portugal to face the ignominy of being chided by Brussels for surpassing the budget deficit limit enshrined in the EU’s growth and stability pact, raising the prospect of a hefty fine.
The trouble does not stop there. A cross-party parliamentary committee will convene on Wednesday to determine whether ministers lied with an overly rosy presentation of the economic position at the height of Schröder’s re-election campaign, in which the chancellor promised “no new taxes”.
The CDU faction in the committee suspects the government knew as early as last May that the state coffers were bare and that the deficit barrier would be infringed. Yet just a week before the election Hans Eichel, the finance minister, said the government was confident of staying within the limits.
“When Enron collapsed the board was taken to court for fraud and misleading investors,” said Peter Altmaier, the CDU’s representative on the committee, referring to the American financial scandal. “If ministers lied about the state of the German economy and misled the electorate, they should be judged in the same way.”
Whether or not Schröder is called to court, his dreadful few weeks since re-election have put him on the defensive.
Having used an injunction last year to silence media claims that he dyes his hair, Schröder has engaged in a similar legal effort to bury speculation about the state of his fourth marriage, to the former journalist Doris Schröder-Kopf. It could be counterproductive.
On January 21 a judge will hear an appeal from two newspapers against an injunction that prevents them publishing articles suggesting, as one mass circulation magazine put it last week, that the Schröders had engaged in a “noisy dispute” over the time the chancellor spent away from home.
While seeming to give weight to Schröder’s denial that anything was amiss in his marriage, the magazine also quoted Stephan Lermer, a prominent psychologist from Munich, as saying: “He’s a very masculine man in appearance who has a certain effect on women.”
As for the political battle, Schröder hopes divisions between the Christian Democrats and liberal Free Democrats will limit opposition advances in February’s contest in Lower Saxony: the CDU traditionally relies on the smaller party to form governments. But even some of Schröder’s closest political allies are worried.
“It will be a very close race,” said Herbert Schmalstieg, the Social Democrat mayor of Hanover. “After 12 years there might be a change in government here, although I don’t think it will happen.”
He went on: “Schröder’s a prize fighter. If he gets knocked down, he stands up again. He’ll be back on his feet before long.”
The count has begun.
Regards, Ivan
Well, Hans...perhaps you can call youself a "centrist" like the other members of your international, UNophile, one world government Third Way buddies here in the US are calling themselves. Daschle, Hillary, Richardson and Edwards at el are all doing that. 'Course, it isn't working all that well either.
Or maybe you should just bow out and let the adults take charge.
That it is. As fun to watch internationally as it in the US. (I've been getting a kick out of Canadian citizens doing a number on Chretien all last year too)
And we all know what Germans do in a total meltdown.
The "Tax Song" (to the tune of "The Ketchup Song" was wildly popular here in Germany. Now there is a new one by the same fellow who imitated Shroeder, this time making fun of allegations that the Chancellor is having an affair with a 20-something young, nubile female.
Shroeder is 3 times divorced--and the bumper sticker against him last fall was Dump Shroeder--3 wives can't be wrong!" The song is to the tune of "It's raining men! but substitue Frau there...and you have a hillarious parody.
Oh, and this new "bottle tax" that Shroeder instituted to satisfy the Green (read: Reds) is proving to be disasterous. Every bottle has a 0.25Euro tax on it, but you must get a reciept from the same store you purchased it and return it to the exact same vendor to get you "deposit" back. The new taxes are destoying the economy here--40,000 businesses have collapsed in just a few months.
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