Angela Merkel has good claim to be the most prominent politician of the European Union. She is one of its most powerful voices on the world stage. She even has in her hands that asset of which politicians can only dream: a national football team within reach of glory in the World Cup.
Yet the German Chancellor was forced last night into a bruising and humiliating fight for political survival. She won, just. The assembly of MPs and public figures, in picking the conservative Christian Wulff for President, finally backed her candidate. But even though her coalition has a majority in the assembly, it inflicted defeat on her in the first two rounds of voting, before finally granting her a grudging win, in a climatic third round “penalty shoot-out”.
Had she failed, she might soon have been forced to call new elections — and might have lost. The consequences are hard to exaggerate. Germany would have been left reeling; so, very likely, would financial markets across the world. She has been a central figure in many of the international deals — and disputes — of the past year: the bailout of the eurozone, the new sanctions on Iran, and the prickly debate between the US and EU about how fast to cut budget deficits. The puzzle, for those outside Germany, is why such a towering figure is suddenly so precarious at home.
The answer lies in the sky-high expectations when she was elected for a second term last September. Her conservative Christian Democrats formed a coalition with the liberal Free Democrats. That would free her, many hoped, from the paralysis of her first term, stifled by a grand coalition with the left-wing Social Democrats. It would be a new beginning, her supporters thought, in which she would shake up German business.
That did not happen. The coalition took more than two months to form; by the time it was up and running, she was embroiled in global disputes. President Obama made her the prime target of his argument that the EU should spend more to fend off recession. The Greek debt drama was under way, and pressure was building from eurozone countries for Germany to take the lead in putting together a bailout.
Advertisement
The rescue of Greece is the single greatest factor behind Germans’ frustration with their Chancellor. Germany may yet have to pay €125 billion (£102 billion) to prevent Greece, Spain or others defaulting on debt. Germans are furious that they may see their wages or pensions cut to pay for the profligacy of southerners retiring years earlier.
Ms Merkel has not been helped, either, by her party’s distrust of her. To many, she was an outsider: an East German Protestant without roots in the party’s Catholic heartland, a woman, a divorcée. Those factors, such a contrast to her predecessors, have inspired her appeal abroad, but have left her vulnerable at home. She showed some tactical skill, in removing key critics within her party. But in picking Mr Wulff for President, when she could have chosen his charismatic rival, the former East German dissident Joachim Gauck, she revealed that her instincts had faltered.
After last night’s cliffhanger, she is undeniably weakened. Yet, in a vindication of her policy, this month’s employment figures were the best since 1991. Tomorrowshe flies to South Africa to see Germany play Argentina. Her hope must be that if she can deliver enough good news, Germans will give her another chance at a new beginning.