Will Schroeder Survive?

[Annie]

http://medienkritik.typepad.com/blog/2005/05/schroeders_soci.html

Breaking News: Schroeder's Social Democrats Lost Big Time
Not even hard core anti-capitalism and anti-Americanism helped: Schroeder's Social Democrats lost the state elections in North-Rhine/Westfalia, Germany's largest state, fair and sqare. The Greens of Foreign Secretary Joschka Fischer lost as well. Clear winner is the Christian Democratic Party (CDU). The CDU will form a coalition government together with the Free Democrats (FDP).

The result is a debacle for chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Hard to say whether he will politically survive the next weeks.

Forecasts (2000 figures in parentheses)

SPD 37.6 % (42,8 %)

CDU 44,8 % (37,0 %)

FDP 6,1 % ( 9,8 %)

Greens 6,0 % ( 7,1 %)

 

[onedomino]

This is a good result for Germany. Schroeder, Fischer, SPD, and the Greens, have been an economic disaster for Germany. They used anti-Americanism as a ticket to previous poll victories. The CDU is no panacea, but at least the Socialists are out.

 

[Annie]

This is a good result for Germany. Schroeder, Fischer, SPD, and the Greens, have been an economic disaster for Germany. They used anti-Americanism as a ticket to previous poll victories. The CDU is no panacea, but at least the Socialists are out.

Agreed. If the folks at Medienkritik are any indication, he will not survive.

 

[Annie]

http://medienkritik.typepad.com/blog/2005/05/schroeders_soci.html

+++UPDATE+++ The SPD is calling for early national elections: SPD Chairman Muentefering has announced that the SPD will support early national elections in Fall 2005, one year ahead of the initially planned schedule! This move will with certainty produce all kinds of legal ramifications. Only the Bundestag, Germany's federal parliament, can decide on earlier elections. And this decision would most likely still be subject to review by the German supreme court (Bundesverfassungsgericht).

Headlines in major German media:

FAZ: After the North-Rhine/Westphalia Election:

ARD:

SPIEGEL ONLINE

r

 

[onedomino]

How will this affect Germany's potential ratification of the EU Constitutional Treaty? Will the ratification process go forward before or after the elections? It is unfortunate that the German electorate is not permitted to vote in a referendum as the French and Dutch electorates. If the SPD is ousted and a CDU gains power, will that increase or decrease the chance of ratification of the EU Constitutional Treaty?

 

[Annie]

How will this affect Germany's potential ratification of the EU Constitutional Treaty? Will the ratification process go forward before or after the elections? It is unfortunate that the German electorate is not permitted to vote in a referendum as the French and Dutch electorates. If the SPD is ousted and a CDU gains power, will that increase or decrease the chance of ratification of the EU Constitutional Treaty?

To all of those, I haven't a clue. Perhaps PE will read and respond?

 

[nosarcasm]

they already ratified it with 96% in the lower house.

There is no real opposition to the EU treaty within the legislature.

 

[Annie]

they already ratified it with 96% in the lower house.

There is no real opposition to the EU treaty within the legislature.

Thanks for that!

 

[nosarcasm]

How will this affect Germany's potential ratification of the EU Constitutional Treaty? Will the ratification process go forward before or after the elections? It is unfortunate that the German electorate is not permitted to vote in a referendum as the French and Dutch electorates. If the SPD is ousted and a CDU gains power, will that increase or decrease the chance of ratification of the EU Constitutional Treaty?

There is the option of a vote of no confidence. If Schroeder tells
members of his party to vote against him in a vote of confidence
on the government.

In 1982 Kohl did something similar. The Constitutional Court ok'd the results
and gave a once but never again type of ok.

The opposition parties FDP and CDU have said they are looking
forward to an early election. Technically the German constitution does
not give any options for that.

But I would assume they ll work something out. :cof:

 

[nosarcasm]

sorry for rambling on but this bombshell opens some other options
for the German parliamentary system.

The CDU/FPD opposition nearly has 2/3 of the upper house votes and in
the next round of state elections could get the last 4 votes they
need to have an absolute majority in the upper house. March 26, 2006
is that date when this could happen.

Combine that with an early election and you might see some sweeping
changes in Germany. (Or you might not but I hope they ll do something with
the power while they have it)

What the SPD under Schroeder expects to gain from an early election
is a mystery to me.

 

[onedomino]

Tilt in Germany
By Tom Goeller

http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20050525-090949-4349r.htm

BERLIN. — After seven years, Germans seem to have had enough of socialist Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. This past Sunday the German opposition won a landslide election victory in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, an industrial region regarded as the cradle of the German labor movement.

The conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) advanced almost 8 points to around 45 percent, enough to wrest power from Mr. Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD) for only the first time in 39 years in the state. The result might have a significant effect on trans-Atlantic relations. Germany could soon become a reliable partner to the United States again. (That certainly remains to be seen. After years of socialist anti-Americanism in Germany, it may take a long while for Germany to become a "reliable partner.")

This election loss in Germany's biggest state was the worst in a string of defeats the chancellor admits has cast doubt on whether the country trusts his economic reforms and unpopular cuts of the welfare system, designed to eventually lower the unemployment rate of more than 10 percent.

Mr. Schroeder immediately went on the offensive, and announced he would seek general elections in the fall, one year earlier than scheduled.

His sudden move caught the Christian Democratic Union and its junior partner the Libertarians (FDP) by complete surprise. However the vast majority of the German media calls this move a "political suicide."

Now, even if Mr. Schroeder could win the general elections together with his coalition partner the Greens, he could not even pass a bill. Out of the 16 German states only five are controlled by the SPD. The Christian Democrats can block in the Bundesrat -- the equivalent to the U.S. Senate -- any initiative of a Schroeder government. One can now safely say the Schroeder era is drawing to a close.

The same is true for the small but influential coalition partner, the Greens, who suffered significantly from the involvement of party leader Joschka Fischer (Generally very hostile to American foreign policy objectives; the Robin Cook of Germany.) in a recently surfaced visa scandal. The German foreign minister conceded in public testimony in April he did not act to curb visa abuses that allowed thousands of eastern European criminals into Germany and the EU between 2000 and 2002 -- even though his own diplomats kept warning him about the problem.

The Christian Democrats and the Liberals won because they were able to mobilize their voters, whereas a significant number of potential Social Democrats either abstained or voted for a left-wing splinter group.

Mr. Schroeder's reforms of the costly German welfare system are considered too inadequate to counter the country's severe economic crisis. To traditional Socialists, Mr. Schroeder is a "traitor" to capitalism. The truth is, Mr. Schroeder, who took over from conservative chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1998 with the promise to bring down the high unemployment, was unable to address the real economic problems. Instead, he distracted the German public with aggressive anti-U.S. demagoguery and by this was able to win re-election in 2002. He bought himself time but did not solve the nation's problems. (That is true, but Schroeder knew his audience.)

"The reforms require the support of our citizens," Mr. Schroeder said after the election. "The bitter result for my party in North Rhine-Westphalia has called into question the political basis for continuing these reforms."

Here, one can see him already trying to distract from the real reasons for his party's defeat -- again.

German welfare reform certainly is no longer questioned by the majority of Germans, but rather by the majority of his Social-Democrats, who look backward, trapped in old visions of the last century. A new government, run by the Christian Democrats and the Libertarians, will have to go even further with the reforms than Mr. Schroeder did. A deep and far-reaching reform of German labor laws and social benefits is regarded by most economists as essential to stem the steady decline in Europe's largest economy.

But a new government in early fall of 2005 would not only change German domestic politics. More importantly, it would change German foreign policy.

One can expect from a conservative government in Berlin steps toward reconciling relations with Washington. (I wonder. There are elements of the right in Germany that are very anti-American; just as in France.) Perhaps there will still be no German troops sent to Iraq, because for any out of area mission, the government needs a two-third majority in the parliament. But in other areas, for example to get the Iranians to stop their nuclear weapons program, a new German government will be tougher, the Washington-Berlin relationship will warm up again and the one between Paris and Berlin will cool a bit -- all to the advantage of U.S. foreign policy.

If Germany -- the EU's most important country -- swings back in fall and kind of line up with the U.S. on international issues, for President Bush a dream could come true: Europe, except of notorious naysayer France, will be on the side of U.S. foreign politics, especially concerning the Broader Middle East initiative: democracy and freedom for the Muslim world.

Opposition leader Angela Merkel of the Christian Democrats, who could become Germany's first female chancellor, said: "Every day that Germany isn't ruled by this coalition (Schroeder/Fischer) would be a good day for Germany."

Initial opinion polls after the historic state election show, while Mrs. Merkel is not held in high regard by the general public, the majority want a political change. They don't care who the next chancellor is as long as it isn't Gerhard Schroeder.

-

 

[onedomino]

The Berlin-Baghdad Connection
ANDRÉS MARTINEZ
May 25, 2005

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-martinez25may25,0,5958389.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

The world leader most responsible for the war in Iraq had a terrible weekend. I am not referring to George W. Bush or Saddam Hussein, though the Iraqi tyrant did make the front page in his underwear.

Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democratic Party suffered a drubbing at the polls in Germany's most populous state. As a result, the chancellor has called for a national election this fall, a year earlier than expected. His defeat and departure from office would be a healthy development for transatlantic relations.

German voters are focused on their nation's sluggish economic performance. His own party's activists and labor unions see the chancellor as a sellout for trying too hard to ingratiate himself to big business, and yet conservative Christian Democrats still pillory him for not being willing to go far enough.

But Schroeder's recklessness on the global stage will be his real legacy. As the first German leader with no firsthand memory of life in the Third Reich, Schroeder asserted for a reunified Germany a more active role in world affairs. Within months of taking office, the dour but dapper chancellor had dispatched thousands of German peacekeepers to Kosovo as part of NATO's Balkan intervention. This was all as it should be. The Federal Republic, a model democracy for decades, had earned the right to cease thinking of itself as a nation on probation.

Schroeder's recklessness was triggered by the challenges of campaigning as a leftish reformer. Struggling in the polls a month before the last national election, in August 2002, Schroeder was the first world leader to stake out an absolutist position in advance of United Nations deliberations over Hussein's fate. Germany, the chancellor stated on the campaign trail, was in no mood for a "military misadventure" and would oppose any use of force against Iraq, regardless of what the U.N. decided. End of story.

Germany's own diplomats, led by popular Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer of the Green Party, were caught off guard by this campaign bravado and annoyed that Germany had preemptively removed itself from the debate. Bush's Texan swagger goes down poorly in Europe, and Schroeder's move to reply to it with some swagger of his own worked. The chancellor scored a come-from-behind win.

But at a terrible cost. The leader of a post-Cold War Germany has every right to disagree with Washington, but opportunistically doing so for the sake of scoring short-term political points was highly damaging to the cohesion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as well as to Germany's claim to be a nation endowed with a unique moral suasion. By opting out of any U.N.-backed deliberation, the leader of the one nation that arguably owes the most to the principle of collective security, essentially "out-Bushed" Bush in acting unilaterally.

The full effect of Schroeder's perfidy hasn't been sufficiently appreciated, in part because Americans prefer to hold a grudge against France. As Condoleezza Rice reportedly formulated Washington's postwar stance toward the coalition of the unwilling — "Forgive Russia, forget Germany, punish France" — Americans missed out on a lot of the diplomatic nuance in the run-up to the war. Americans couldn't appreciate the extent to which the age-old jockeying for leadership within Europe among France, Britain and Germany had become the tail wagging the Iraqi dog.

If Germany, Washington's erstwhile partner in NATO, hadn't so categorically stated its intention to avoid any confrontation with Hussein, it would have been difficult for Jacques Chirac to choose to be the odd man out opposing Washington. The temptation for Chirac to rush to Schroeder's side was too great. Chirac had long been jealous of the improving ties between Berlin and London. The Iraq debate provided him with the perfect opportunity to marginalize Tony Blair and reassert the Paris-Berlin axis at the heart of the EU. And the joint opposition of France and Germany to any use of force against Iraq made it easier for Vladimir V. Putin, not to mention Latin American nations at the U.N., to also oppose it.

The point here isn't to argue whether it was right or wrong for nations to have opposed the war, but that it was catastrophically wrong for Schroeder to have assured Hussein that some options were off the table. That's because Hussein might just have believed him.

-

 

[onedomino]

Here’s more about why Schroeder and Fischer must go. Check out the ridiculous remarks made by Wolfgang Ischinger, the offensive clod they appointed as German Ambassador to the United States:

"As older societies, we tend to think of ourselves as more experienced in the way societies evolve, (did he really say that?!) and we tend to be skeptical of Americans who seem to think that if you believe hard enough, and you muster enough resources, you can change the world."

"In the last year or so, as we've engaged in discussions about the transformation of the Middle East and democracy, I have told my American friends that the region in this world that has seen the most transformation and change is Central and Eastern Europe--without shedding a drop of blood. So don't preach to us." (What is this guy talking about?!)

No, this guy is not joking. This is the kind of nonsense expressed by Schroeder’s foreign policy. Here’s some criticism of Ischinger from Roy D. of the Medienkritik blog:

“How upsetting it must be for Ambassador Ischinger when his American friends preach to him about changing the world. If only more people would listen to him they would realize that appeasing dictators is far preferable to confronting them. Just look at the bloodless transformation in Eastern Europe. Of course the fall of the Berlin Wall came about almost entirely because of Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik. The American military was a mere provocation standing in the way of European Socialist brotherhood and unity. (he said with hyperbolic sarcasm)

And it really is too bad that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette didn't have the sort of historic vision of the older, wiser European societies. They would have known that believing you can change the world if you just muster enough resources is a futile, utopian idea. After all, we could all be living under wonderful totalitarian monarchies and dictatorships today!

Think about it: The world would be far better off today if America just hadn't interfered so much in German and European affairs with its confounded idealism over the past hundred years. After all, those older, wiser, more experienced societies were evolving quite nicely without America getting in the way. What was so bad about Fascism, Communism, world war and mass genocide? It was all just a part of the nuanced, complicated European thought process...don't you get it you arrogant Yankees? And now you want to interfere again in Iraq? When will you ever learn to respect European wisdom?

So get over yourselves! Why ever try to change the world for the better? Is being jaded and cynical really that difficult? Get with the times...you preachy Americans!”

http://medienkritik.typepad.com/blog/ (scroll down the page a bit to see the article)