Germany: Will Merkel's legacy be a COVID mess?

As Chancellor Merkel’s party continues to slide in the polls and remains beset by internal quarreling, Germans are increasingly weary of what they see as the mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic. It is hard to say if the unravelling of her long-governing Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party, the CSU, will come to define her legacy. What is, however, clear is that many Germans have lost confidence in the administrative aptitude of Merkel’s government.

This week, Conflict Zone host Sarah Kelly spoke to the CDU/CSU parliamentary spokesperson for foreign policy, Jürgen Hardt. He defended the chancellor’s record and gave an assessment of the CDU’s prospects in the post-Merkel era, saying that most of Germany had come to trust the party's longtime record of leadership.

The pandemic stress test

The urgency and severity of the pandemic confronted Merkel and her various ministers with a stress test which, in the eyes of many Germans, the government did not pass. Early in 2020, Germany’s initial management of the crisis was seen as successful: the mitigation measures kept rates of infection and the death toll reasonably low relative to the country’s neighbors. But as time went on, hesitation and reversal on the adoption of preventive measures, misadministration in the rollout of the vaccination programs, and a mask procurement corruption scandal involving several prominent CDU politicians had a detrimental effect on the party’s political health.

For many Germans, the sluggish pace of vaccinations became an expression of governmental incompetence. Hardt admitted that the government had "a problem concerning the vaccine" but also pointed out that this had to do both with European coordination and with the lack of production facilities in the EU capable of operating at the scale needed to face the pandemic.

The parliamentarian explained the need to coordinate the vaccination plan at the EU level, saying there would be no gain if Merkel's government "vaccinated all Germans, but people... in countries around Germany were not vaccinated."

Poll numbers tanking

The last year of Merkel’s final term also saw her party beset by an unusually long list of scandals. None seemed to have caused more serious political damage than the allegation that members of the CDU and CSU took large kickbacks from companies who were awarded government orders of protective masks.

In March, the CDU got what could have been the first bitter taste of things to come when it produced in the regional elections of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, traditional CDU strongholds, its worst results on record.

The trend seemed confirmed in mid-April when the Greens, until now a minority party with hardly more than 15% support nationwide, began to poll ahead of the CDU in voter intention. 

The last days of Germany’s big-tent parties?

If recent polls prove accurate, the collapse of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) in the last electoral round may now be followed by a similar collapse on the center-right. Ahead of September’s general election, pollsters have marked a loss of almost 10% support among the electorate for the center-right, composed of Merkel’s CDU and the CSU. 

One may read this as the final stage in the disintegration of the political mechanics which, dominated by bipartidism, came to define much of the second half of the 20th century. In some sense, Germany is late to a shift in political alignments that has already taken hold with varying effects in France, Spain and Italy. Yet, the change in political fortunes is rather surprising for the party of the chancellor, whose government enjoyed such broad approval from the German public as recently as November.

Asked whether the CDU and CSU had picked the right candidate for the chancellery in the wake of a closely contested race, Hardt said that North Rhine-Westphalia’s State Premier Armin Laschet, who was finally selected last week over Bavarian State Premier Markus Söder, has come from behind before and has the experience necessary to bring the country together. "I see a huge chance for Armin Laschet to become much more popular on the campaign trail...at the end of the day, he will win the elections."

Balancing Russia and China

As for international pressure on key issues in Germany, the Bundestag parliamentarian hit back at critics of the controversial gas pipeline Nord Stream 2, which connects Germany and Russia. The change of administration in Washington has not brought a change to the US position concerning the pipeline, with the US and Eastern European countries remaining strongly opposed to the completion of the now 10-year-old project. The American government fears that the direct gas line from Russia would give Moscow increased leverage in the EU while increasing the bloc’s dependence on Russian energy.  Explaining the government’s position, Hardt dismissed the idea that "economic relations to Russia are a risk for [German] security."  

But he did acknowledge that German foreign policy is in need of recalibration. He noted that both Russia and an increasingly aggressive China have a dismal record on many of the values that are fundamental to Germany and the EU, and the bloc’s foreign policy must be recalculated to balance political concerns with economic interests.