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Well it sure can’t rely on the US. And they should take the recent events as a warning.
Yeah… not decades of brain dead conservative government that let the country slowly but constantlly crumble away while even embedding paralysing austerity measures in the constitution are to blame for Germany being the one single country not recovering from covid and the energy crisis (what did all other countries do different? they invested instead of reducing their debt ratio in a crisis - reasoning: more wiggle room in a crisis 🤡). It’s the incompetent traffic light coalition so bad that bridges started to break down in frustation after decades of neglect, elelctronic signals are too confused to pass those fast copper lines quickly and companies prefer -for some mysterious reason- to invest in other countries where they get subsidies… and that government really, really needed to die so we can get a few more decades of the same non-governing morons only managing the status quo and slow decay instead. This time they even come with an extra dose of far-right populism on top to make things interesting and keep us occupied with cursing about all those evil foreigners. I am so glad the next generation will have no financial debt while living in the ruins of once existing infrastructure and economy (because we all know that decades of investment backlog are something completely different than debt… somehow).
Fuck this author and that neoliberal rag.
Uh, in this rare instance The Economist published something that calls for more public spending and less austerity. I think some are realising what years of neoliberal rule has led to. Current oligarchs are scared that they’re going to be replaced with new ones.
Doesn’t matter if they actually argue for more public spending when -at the same time- they beg for return of the debt-brake-fetish party. The one that now is also looking at their new MAGA friends across the pond for pointers on campagning and policies.
they beg for return of the debt-brake-fetish party
As stated above: this article criticises the debt brake as “absurd”.
The point is that The Economist will also cheer for the return of a CDU-led coalition, i.e. the people that begat us the hardened debt brake in 2009, as a part of the constitution. For the time being, Merz is still a champion of the debt brake. I have no doubt he’s not as ideological about it as FDP/Lindner, rather he’s primarily doing that to fuck with SPD/Greens at the expense of the country.
Don’t you think it makes more sense to actually discuss the article linked here instead of having a general discussion about party politics and what media allegedly prefers who?
Especially since the article contains opinions that completely align with the commentator who criticised it so harshly.
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The actual article: “The death of the unloved “traffic-light” coalition is long overdue. Fractious, unable to grapple with Germany’s deep-seated economic woes, and incompetently managed…”. Yeah, no party politics there…
Followed by straight out lying (“Yet the coalition had set its face against any new version of the covid-recovery fund that has injected hundreds of billions of euros into European economies in the past three years.”) as actually the conservative opposition sued them before the constitutional court.
But sure the debt brake “urgently needs reform, which in turn requires a new government”… one let by the moronic conservatives with an austerity fetish who actually put that bullshit into the constitution in the first place.
So let’s not talk about party politics as that’s not what the article is about… 🤡
The political equivalent to “one of the sheep broke through the fence and was killed outside, but luckily we have a plan to get rid of the fence -a questionable concept anyway- and let a pack of wolves guard them now” is a totally reasonable take… if you are stupid or your primary concern is to promote
conservativeswolves.The death of the unloved “traffic-light” coalition is long overdue.
…which is a sentiment almost unanimously spread across Germany. I.e. also including those that align themselves with one of the partaking parties. No party politics (conservative spin?) here. Also, you omitted the part where it stated that such a coalition would in no case be fit to stand up against Trump, which is the point made to justify the opening “long overdue death”. Would you disagree with this assessment?
Your cited passage:
Europe needs more joint money for Ukraine and a large EU budget for defence. Yet the coalition had set its face against any new version of the covid-recovery fund that has injected hundreds of billions of euros into European economies in the past three years.
Of course the Union had a blast sueing the coalition. But it wasn’t who sued them that made it illegal but the constitution. In my world, it shouldn’t matter who sues to determine if something is illegal or not.
But sure the debt brake “urgently needs reform, which in turn requires a new government”…
Well, yes it does! The traffic light coalition wasn’t willing/able to overcome the debt brake and exploded due to this issue. So now a new government is needed. I see no party politics here. Could well be a new government with Olaf and others willing to cancel the debt brake.
one let by the moronic conservatives with an austerity fetish who actually put that bullshit into the constitution in the first place.
This is coming entirely from you and is not part of the article in the slightest. As stated several times already, it even makes clear claims against the debt brake.
So let’s not talk about party politics as that’s not what the article is about…
Exactly. The one being so strongly agitated by this article is you and I really wonder what you read into it that it makes you so angry. This isn’t a conservatives vs social democrats text in the slightest but instead makes some general yet interesting points about the state of affairs in Europe given the arising challenges in our future.
A future, mind you, where it is vital for us to stand together against pressures from the outside instead of being completely self-absorbed and losing ourselves in petty disputes. Which is why I find it so strange that you chose to be offended instead of trying to listen to the author.
I have no idea about internal workings of german politics but isn’t it the time for CDU-SPD coalition? I know it happened before and unity government is something that would be the most reasonable way out. It might be my bias talking though. While I identify as socialist I respect true Christian democrats for their social policies. I don’t believe any major party can reasonably advocate for debt brakes in current conditions. Are CDU that far gone really?
A new Grand Coalition is extremely likely but it wouldn’t be the same as before at all.
A bit of a long overview which will include some personal coloring-in:
CDU and CSU (the latter being Bavaria-only; commonly called the “Union”, or on Feddit “CxU”) are not particularly Christian. They do have a large number of church-goers—but I guess those people separate very clearly between faith and action. They are simply conservatives: Protecting “family values”, protecting established capitalists over either people or new industries, cutting into social systems, insisting on low-debt state finances, protecting fossil interests, not really protecting nature, being Atlanticists for the most part.
Merkel was supposedly one of the most left-wing CDU people, and we did see a few progressive wins in her 16 years as the chancellor, such as allowing a law legalizing gay marriage to pass. Mostly though, we didn’t see all that many regressive things.
We also saw a lot of things just get stuck and handled in unsustainable ways. German consumers were heating their homes with then-cheap Russian gas. German industry got ever more dependent on then-cheap Russian gas and on outsourcing, as well as selling to the Chinese. Ministers successfully protected coal interests [20k employees] against a burgeoning domestic solar/wind industry [100k employees at its height], and concentrated all efforts on producing fossil-powered cars for export. German road infrastructure continued to expand, but existing road and rail infrastructure crumbled, as the “privatized” Deutsche Bahn got less punctual by the year. We accidentally turned into an immigration country in 2015, which would have been completely anathema for CxU in the 90s and 00s. In 2015, the slogan “refugees welcome” was everywhere but when volunteer support eventually faltered, we failed to institutionalize integration efforts properly. At the end of the Merkel era, pretty much all of this exploded in the new coaliton’s faces.
Also, throughout the Merkel era, some pretty far-right people got into important positions. E.g.: Kristina Schröder who counterfactually equated level/quality of left-wing and right-wing extremism. Wolfgang Schäuble who was both very close to Merkel and economically extremely harmful on the EU level. Even Jens Spahn, former minister of health who’s now one of the major connections into Trumpistan.
Since the end of the Merkel era, the CxU have veered right quite significantly. Ursula von der Leyen (now on the EU level) is the last real remainder of the Merkel era, and even she is veering right.
The new CDU leader is Friedrich Merz, and he’s kind of the anti-Merkel: He is nakedly power-hungry, scheming, divisive, tantrum-throwing, unempathetic. And he’s collecting asshats around him, like Linnemann or aforementioned Spahn (now the CDU “expert” on everything under the sun and not even a bit ashamed that he sunk hundreds of millions of Euros into extremely overpriced Covid masks, even as they were no longer needed).
Under Merz, CxU are now looking to capitalize on right-wing populist themes, which ironically were largely coined in response to Merkel policies. They somehow haven’t yet realized that the original right-wing populists hate them and want CxU to go away. [Quite literally, the people now shouting “Hang the Ampel coalition” used to be shouting “Merkel must go!”.]
Thank you.
I read your comment and I read the article.
Somehow I’m under the impression that you either read a different article or didn’t read the article properly.
It even also criticises the debt brake just as you.
tell me a part of the world that does not
Yes, it is. Time to grow up for us.
