Merkel’s fate is tied to the Trump phenomenon

Alan Philps unpacks how Germany is reacting to Donald Trump's victory

German chancellor Angela Merkel is reflected in a window as she speaks during a budget debate as part of a meeting of the German Federal Parliament. Michael Sohn / AP Photo

It is November 2017. A year after Angela Merkel announced she was standing for a fourth term as chancellor of Germany, she is still in the Chancellery in Berlin. She has won the election but two months on she is struggling to put together a stable coalition.

The German political landscape has been transformed by the arrival in parliament of the anti-immigrant AfD (Alternative for Germany) party. Mrs Merkel’s four years in coalition with the Social Democrats, and her welcoming one million migrants in 2015, has opened up space on the right of the political spectrum which the AfD has rushed to fill.

German politics does not produce landslides – the system is designed to exclude the extremists – and Mrs Merkel is expected to form a government that manages to exclude the AfD.

More disturbing is the international situation for her. Less than a year into his presidency Donald Trump has rowed back on some of his eye-catching campaign promises but he has stuck to his plan to embrace Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

The old Washington consensus – that Mr Putin should be contained within his borders and not, as he hopes, be allowed to create a sphere of influence based on the borders of the old Soviet Union – has been ditched in favour of a joint approach to eradicate the ISIL terrorists in Syria.

For Mrs Merkel, who grew up next to a Soviet army base in what was then East Germany, this is alarming. She sees Europe from the standpoint of a woman from the east, and views that a US rapprochement with Mr Putin will come at the expense of the dreams of central and eastern Europeans.

Moscow is backing right-wing parties as a way to weaken the European Union, already fractured by Britain’s decision to leave. Russian companies are buying up media in Bulgaria and Romania to get a new message across: the Kremlin can offer these countries protection against the shock waves of the collapsing Middle East at a time when Brussels cannot defend the borders of the European Union.

On a personal level, Mrs Merkel has got off to a bad start with Mr Trump, greeting his election with a clarion call for the defence of liberal values. The price of Germany’s cooperation with Washington, she has said, would be respect for democracy, freedom and “the dignity of each and every person regardless of their origin, skin colour, creed, gender, sexual orientation or political views”. These words are seen as a harsh rebuke for the Trump campaign. The New York Times anointed Mr Merkel as the “last defender of the liberal West”.

As a serious-minded former research scientist, Mrs Merkel has no time for journalistic hyperbole and dismisses the idea of herself fighting a lone battle as “grotesque”. But the battle lines between the leaders of Germany and the United States – who had been so close during the Obama years, are now drawn. As she struggles to put together her government she finds herself squeezed by Mr Trump in the West and Mr Putin in the East. In her darker moments she wonders whether she should have retired to become head of a scientific research institute, away from the thankless world of politics.

Such is a likely scenario for the next year in the extraordinary career of Europe’s most powerful politician. While the details may change, there is no doubt that Mrs Merkel’s fate is intimately bound up with the Trump phenomenon.

Until his election, it had seemed that her career might come to an end. Her opinion poll ratings took a battering over the migration issue and commentators said her political capital was used up and she was losing her sure touch. And due to no fault of her own, Germany did not seem such a happy place – the viability of Deutsche Bank was threatened with a $14 billion fine from the US.

In a world obsessed with change, it seemed unnatural to run for a fourth term. Margaret Thatcher had announced she was running for a fourth term, but her party dismissed her before election day, believing she had become out of touch with the public after 11 years in power.Foreign analysts were looking for the elevation of another female politician, defence minister Ursula von der Leyen, a qualified medical doctor and mother of seven children, to spruce up the brand of the Christian Democratic Union party. But Mrs Von der Leyen may have too much charisma – yes, this is possible in Germany – to reach the top slot.

The froth of speculation collapsed when Mr Trump was elected. Suddenly the world was a scarier place. Germany was no longer Washington’s favourite partner but a rich country with zero stomach for military action and with America’s protective shield getting thinner by the day. There was a need for a reliable, stabilising figure – a rush back to Mutti (mother) as Mrs Merkel is fondly known.

The chances of any other German politician beating her in the election expected in September are slim. There is no visible alternative outside her party. But that does not mean that Mrs Merkel can defy the iron rule of democratic countries that the people want change.

For the moment, Europe looks certain to have someone prepared to act as a bulwark against the rising tide of far-right, anti-immigrant nationalism on the continent. Has she made the politician’s mistake of believing she is indispensable? Certainly, no politician is irreplaceable, not even Mrs Merkel. But she is a rare example of a serving politician who masters all the issues, listens to experts and then takes a considered decision. She does not come up with policies just to dominate the next news cycle. These are old-fashioned values in the post-truth world. No one knows if she can continue to make them a winning combination.

Alan Philps is a commentator of global affairs

On Twitter: @aphilps