EUROSCOPE. Germany set for continuity

The year 2017 is set to be another seismic one for European politics with a number of national and regional elections set to test the region’s appetite for far right, nationalist politics in the wake of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. Most closely watched is likely to be Germany, where the general election on September 24 could return Angela Merkel for a fourth term.

The future of Merkel is particularly significant. It’s not only because Germany is Europe’s largest economy, or Merkel its most vocal leader. She has also proved to be its greatest bulwark against the advance of the far right — a voice of reason in an otherwise frenetic period for Europe. Her decision to keep the borders open enabled over a million refugees to enter the country in 2015, while her remarks following Trump’s election, where she predicated her cooperation on the values of “democracy, freedom, as well as the respect for the rule of law, and the dignity of each and every person regardless of their origin, skin colour, creed, gender, sexual orientation or political view”, was far more outspoken than any other leader in Europe.

In the wake of the Brexit referendum it was Merkel who attempted to stand against the clamour from other European leaders for a speedy process, insisting that it could not be rushed. Over the course of her chancellorship the relationship between India and Germany has strengthened; trade is up (€16.1 billion in 2013, €17.3 billion in 2015, and €13 billion in the first nine months of 2016). In 2015 alone, German firms invested over $1 billion in India, while there are over 200 Indian firms with operations in Germany.

Like many countries in Europe, Germany now faces a challenge from the far right: Merkel’s refugee policy gave new life to the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which had originally pegged its policies round anti-European sentiment, but transformed into an anti-Muslim, anti-immigration movement. The party did well in regional elections last year. Like other far right parties in Europe, the AfD has sought to pitch itself along the lines of the Brexit and Trump movements: an anti-globalisation force, standing up to the establishment powers that be. “This opportunity is historic,” tweed AfD’s chairwoman, Frauke Petry, following Trump’s victory last November.

Current polling points to public support of around 12 per cent, which would, under German’s proportional representation system, give them a similar percentage in the legislature. Should this happen it would be a huge shift from 2013, when they failed to cross the crucial 5 per cent threshold necessary to enter parliament. Moreover, with polls proving so inconsistent at predicting the actual outcome of elections or referendums over the past year, there are fears that it could translate into something far higher.

This was the question that has worried many liberals in Europe particularly in the wake of the Christmas market attack in Berlin in December, which killed 12 people, and left Merkel vulnerable on two issues that seemed to stalk her presidency: immigration and security. Merkel has overcome many crises — she took over as chancellor in 2005, just two years before the financial crisis and ensuing Euro Zone crisis, facing unpopularity over bailing out other European nations. Her refugee policy faced backlash not just at home but from other European leaders while her tough stance on Ukraine put her at odds with Russia. Could the Berlin attacks prove her undoing?

Fortunately for Merkel that doesn’t seem to be the case thus far: “I’d say it’s had astonishingly little impact on her popularity. The repercussions were relatively mild,” says Henning Hoff of the German Council on Foreign Relations and editor of the Berlin Policy Journal . Attempts by the AfD to blame the attacks on her open-door policy, failed after it emerged that the attacker had not come to the country via the opening that Merkel had given, but had been in Europe for a number of years. “Of course there is anti immigration feeling that they are clever to milk and use to their advantage. They are at an all-time high across the country.”

However, there are a number of things that stand in their way: Germany’s proportional representation system makes a surprise outcome far less likely than under majoritarian systems that have recently delivered shock results, says Carsten Nickel, managing director for Europe at Teneo Intelligence. “And even assuming we underestimate support for them, the one question they need to answer is can they find a coalition partner? It’s the same problem that you are seeing for Gert Wilders in the Netherlands.” The current global situation could even benefit Merkel, says Hoff. “Merkel’s party will try to play the card of stability, and continuity — don’t rock the boat, there is increasing upheaval around us all, with a US president-elect who calls our prime defence organisation obsolete. She will profit from the sea of insecurity around Europe.” Trump’s recent remarks attacking Merkel will do little to change this. His attack on Germany — labeling the EU a mere vehicle for the country — is unlikely to have gone down well.

Nickel points out that Merkel is also far less vulnerable on immigration than many believe, with a decided toughening of her stance. “We’ve seen her adjusting her stance ever since the summer of 2015: her rhetoric has remained pretty consistently centrist but at the same time policy choices have moved dramatically to the right: there has been a drastic tightening of asylum laws, for example.” It is her mainstream opponents in the left centrist SPD who are likely to suffer the most from anti-immigration sentiment, he says.

Of course that’s not to say that there won’t be major challenges. The US election highlighted the role that “fake news” has begun to play in elections and Germany is no exception. Buzzfeed conducted extensive analysis of German social media earlier this year and found that Merkel was facing an “onslaught of negative and misleading stories from rightwing media outlets and conspiracy theories spread by fringe website that publish fake news”. “The fact that Berlin played a central role in debunking Russian aggression in Ukraine makes it a target for propaganda and disinformation campaigns, especially from those who reject sanctions and strive to protect Russia’s ‘sphere of influence’ in Easter Europe,” warned the Tobias Bunde in the Berlin Policy Journal last week. In recognition of the threat posed by fake news, Facebook announced it would be introducing tools in Germany to counter it: by which users could highlight a particular story as questionable, which would result in it being checked and potentially labelled untrustworthy.

Still, the challenge remains. “We will have massive outside interference,” says Hoff. “The only difference in Germany is that now the political class are aware and they’ve been discussing what to do about the issue. Everyone is trying to figure out how we can safeguard our democratic processes and that will be a big part of what will happen in the coming months.”

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