Schröder out the door?

As some ComingAnarchy readers might know, important elections were held in Germany a few days ago in the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen. It is Germany’s most populous state, most industrialized state and also the state with the highest unemployment rate with over a million people unemployed. The Social Democrats or SPD, haven’t lost an election in NRW in about 40 years and thus this comes as a serious yet expected blow.

Once the result of the elections were decisive, current chancellor of Germany, Gerhard Schröder, issued the following statement:

Deswegen halte er es für seine Pflicht und Verantwortung, “darauf hinzuwirken dass der Herr Bundespräsident von den Möglichkeiten des Grundgesetzes Gebrauch machen kann, um so rasch wie möglich – also realistischerweise für den Herbst dieses Jahres – Neuwahlen zum Deutschen Bundestag herbeizuführen”.

Your translation courtesy of Chirol:

Therefore he holds it as his duty and responsibility “to work towards the possibilities of the constitution for the Federal President to call new elections for the Bundestag as fast as possible, realistically in Autumn of this year”

Here are short party descriptions and their position in Germany (i.e. the right/left here is very different from in the US):

CDU – Christian Democratic Union, opposition party (right)
SPD – Party of Chancellor Schröder, ruling with the Greens (center-left)
Grüne (Greens) – Currently in a ruling coalition with the SPD (left)
FDP – Free Democratic Party (right)

The controversy is a bit unusual for non-Germans. It came as no surprise that the SPD lost NRW however what got so many Germans up in arms was the fact that Schröder essentially chose the date of the new elections himself. By law, only the President can call elections but he is never forced to. If the president feels the current Chancellor lacks enough support to govern in the Bundestag then he can call for new ones. Yet, Schröder not only called for them himself, he also said when he wantd them to be (Autum) which outraged many people. The reason he did this was to give the opposition as little time as possible to organize, put together a coherent policy to sell to the German people, select candidates and thus provide the only chance of winning again as the SPD’s chances are already slim.

What does this mean for ComingAnarchy readers interested in foreign policy? Angela Merkel, head of the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) has long been pro-American and clashed with Schröder during the lead up to the war in Iraq. She will likely be the next Germany Chancelor. In 2003, she published an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled “Schroeder Doesn’t Speak for All Germans” (pdf version in German here). It begins:

Rarely do we have the experience of witnessing firsthand the end of one epoch and the beginning of another. But this is exactly what people all over the world are now living through. This epochal
change began with the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989, which marked a victory for freedom and the opening of the transatlantic partnership to the East. It continued with the events of Sept. 11, 2001, which shook the United States to its very foundations—with consequences that, to this day, many Europeans have not fully grasped. [emphasis mine]. Because of these decisive events, Europe and the United States now must redefine the nucleus of their domestic, foreign and security policy principles.

Light Bulb! A European politican who gets it! She continues:

But the history of Germany and Europe in the 20th century in particular certainly teaches us this: that while military force cannot be the normal continuation of politics by other means, it must never be ruled out, or even merely questioned—as has been done by the German federal government—as the ultimate means of dealing with dictators. Anyone who rejects military action as a last resort weakens the pressure that needs to be maintained on dictators and consequently makes a war not less but more likely.[emphasis mine]

Sing it sister! Si vis pacem, para bellum!

All in all, things are looking up for German-American relations today. While German public opinion is not only anti-US, but extremely so, a new government would help to begin changing that. While nobody should expect to see German troops in Iraq ever, Germany and the US would be able to work together again on other issues such as Iran, North Korea and the arms embargo on China. The only snag is that the CDU doesn’t support Turkey’s EU membership whereas the US and SPD do. Smooth sailing may be on the horizon. I’ll be keeping everyone updated as things progress here in Germany.

For More:

Are Germany and the US Heading for a Thaw?(Spiegel in English)
Schroeder: Lose the Vote to Win the Election (Spiegel in English)
Germany ‘set for early election’
Schröder sieht Basis für Reformpolitik entzogen, verlangt Neuwahlen
Schröder: “Keine Basis mehr für Reformen”
SPD will Bundestagswahl noch in diesem Herbst