14 September 2017
Germany Approaches General Elections
On confident and fashionable feet.
By Neil Tidmarsh
The German foot scored yet another World Championship winning goal this week. But not at football – Teutonic mastery of that field has long been acknowledged by the rest of us as predictable and inevitable. No, the field which we must now cede is the last one any of us – most of all the French – might have expected to relinquish to Germany. For we must now admit that all along it has been far ahead of us in the field of High Fashion.
Die Welt was ecstatic. “At last, the French have copied a fashion from us!” it declared. And what fashion might that be? Sandals worn with socks. Yes, indeed. “In luxurious in-crowd clubs like St Tropez’ Club 55 and every last beach bar, flip-flops with sports socks are the hottest trend of the season and are now worn everywhere.” The trend, endorsed by stars such as David Beckham and Rihanna, is supposed to have originated with rap performers and fans, but Die Welt knows better; its real source is the much-maligned German tourist, who for decades has been walking the world thus shod. Those of us benighted enough to ridicule him for it now stand revealed as style-philistines and hopelessly-backward fashion illiterates (though I would suggest with some pride that the English tourist has in the past been equally guilty of this aesthetic aberration – sorry, I mean, equally avant-garde with this trend – and so should perhaps share some of the glory with his Germanic cousin).
The Die Welt report must have brought some sparkle to a country which is enduring exceptionally dull campaigning ahead of the general elections in two week’s time. Last week Der Spiegel published the headline “Wake up!” in an attempt to invigorate the proceedings, but there was little conflict when Chancellor Merkel faced the SDP leader Martin Schultz in a live TV debate a few days later; they agreed on most things, including keeping Turkey out of the EU.
The election news from Germany this week, as reported in the English press, hasn’t been any more stirring. The country’s two million Russian-Germans, a conservative block which traditionally votes for Chancellor Merkel’s CDU, may be moving much further to the right, beckoned on by AfD. Jens Spahn, the CDU deputy finance minister considered by many to be Mrs Merkel’s heir, suggested that Muslims who called non-Muslims “infidels” should be prosecuted for hate-speech. Christian Lindner, leader of the liberal FDP (polling third place and thus a potential coalition partner for Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrats) said that refugees not granted asylum must be returned to where they came from if their countries of origin are safe.
In truth, such dullness is admirable, even enviable. It suggests a country with no great crises or controversies facing it, a country happy with the way things are and willing to continue with them. The elections will almost certainly result in Mrs Merkel continuing as Chancellor, heading (as before) a CDU-led coalition government but perhaps with new partners. The Chancellor appears to have recovered from the dip which her popularity suffered at the beginning of the year. The populists and extremists who made some headway in last year’s local elections seem to have run out of steam; the Alternative For Germany is in disarray. Germany has survived the immigration crisis; one gets the impression that politicians are addressing the issue simply because votes (rather than anything more drastic) are at risk. The economy is doing well (with stimulus from the European Central Bank combating deflation) and leading the Eurozone’s return to growth. The current configuration of the EU serves Germany admirably and almost uniquely (it dominates the single market, but a closer union and a federal Europe would mean paying some hefty bills on behalf of its partners, in the way that England had to pay off Scotland’s debts following the Union of 1707, and the richer American states had to bail out other states which had been bankrupted by the Revolution following independence from Great Britain; that’s why President Macron’s reforms are so crucial to his plans for a closer partnership with Germany – he must prove that France would not be a burden).
But a successful and confident country is not necessarily a popular country. In fact, success and confidence at home strangely yet almost inevitably seem to lead to unpopularity elsewhere. It is something which must have puzzled the USA for the last century, and Great Britain for the century before that. The southern EU nations resent Germany’s economic dominance, its reluctance to spend and its perceived eagerness to hoard, with extreme voices in Greece painting it as a blood-sucking Nazi vampire (ironic, considering the sums Germany must have contributed to various bail-outs). The USA resents the fact that under-performing Eurozone countries keep the value of the Euro low which boosts German exports, unfairly some say, though Trump has yet to actually accuse Germany of currency-manipulation (ironic, again, considering that Germany’s support of the Euro was the price France demanded of it for French support of German unification).
And last week the Polish government said it’s planning to demand up to $1 trillion in reparation from Germany for damage suffered during World War II, in spite of an agreement in 1953 which was intended to resolve the issue. Is it a coincidence that this follows hot on the heels of Angela Markel’s criticism of the Polish government’s attempts put judges under the control of politicians, criticism to which Poland’s leaders have reacted with anger and indignation? Equally angry – and predictable – was Turkey’s reaction to the agreement of Mrs Merkel and Martin Schultz during that debate that Turkey should not be allowed into the EU. They were accused of treating the EU like “the United States of Germany”.
None of this should worry Germany, as the country approaches, steady as she goes, an election which is unlikely to surprise anyone or change anything. Any more than its tourists have ever worried about the criticism their habit of wearing socks and sandals has aroused around the world over the years.
Nevertheless, there are some tourist habits which one hopes will not catch on. Last week, a German tourist in Crete refused to pay her taxi fare, saying that the billions of Euros her country has paid out to keep Greece afloat was payment enough. As with socks and sandals, English tourists have also favoured this trend – remember Jeremy Clarkson, on a grand TV tour of Europe, refusing to pay a toll on a Spanish motorway constructed with EU money, because he had already paid as a tax-payer in a country which is a net-contributor to the EU? Some habits are even uglier than socks with sandals and even less-deserving of high-fashion status.
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