11/6 Reading Assignment

Why is Angela Merkel in a comfortable position compared to Peer Steinbruck?

The hypothesized impact of the eurozone debt crisis and, related, Germany's eurozone role.

Though Merkel represents the country's ideological right, how might her prescription for economic growth contrast with the right among American candidates for federal office?

Who and what experienced the "biggest election victory " since reunification (i.e., of E. and W. Germany into one Germany)?

How does the position of "party chairman" in Germany contrast with, for example, the Republican Party Chairman or Democratic Party Chairman in the United States?

What is Sigmar Gabriel's job and what is his goal?

What is driving the Social Democratic Party into a likely, grand coalition with the Christian Democrats?

What drove the Greens and the CDU apart?

Where do we see federalism (e.g., Bavaria's role) factoring into the CDU/CSU's willingness to accommodate SDP demands? What demands are those? What are Merkel's "red lines"?

The significance (not just defitinition) of gerechtigkeit, particularly in light of the liberalizing labor and welfare reforms enacted a decade ago (ironically [Why "ironically"?] by the SPD-Green government.

The impact of Catholic/Lutheran views on the right-of-center CDU/CSU. Can you speculate, based on this, why the FDP was ejected from parliament?

How is Merkel thinking about economic inequality in terms of electoral strategy?

What is a GINI coefficient? What is the trend in GINI in the east and west of the country?

How does public opinion contradict the measured reality of inequality? So, how might this explain the growing fortunes of the Left and Greens at the expense of the Free Democrats?

How does Germany compare to other OECD nations based on the varying New Social Maret Economy's (INSM) quality of life indicators?

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The Boston Globe (The Boston Globe)

- Clipping Loc. 354-77 | Added on Thursday, December 06, 2012, 05:25 AM

Merkel kicks off her bid for reelection in Germany Wins resounding endorsement from party members By David Rising | 440 words BERLIN — Chancellor ­Angela Merkel launched her bid for reelection Tuesday, telling party faithful her government has successfully steered Germany through the worst of the European financial crisis and is best equipped to guide it through what may still be tough times ahead. Speaking at her Christian Democratic Union’s party congress in Hannover, she noted that unemployment in Germany is down, the economy is still growing while others in Europe are stagnating or shrinking, and that the deficit has been reduced. ‘‘We have guided Germany out of the crisis stronger than Germany entered the crisis,’’ she said to a cheering audience. In a nod to her struggling coalition Free Democratic Party partners, she said ‘‘in these times no coalition could lead our country better.’’ Party members gave Merkel’s record a resounding endorsement after her speech, reelecting her with a landslide majority of 98 percent of the vote. Merkel has led the party since 2000 and has governed Europe’s biggest economy as the country’s first female chancellor since 2005. Nationally, recent polls show that Merkel is far more popular than Peer Steinbrueck, the candidate for chancellor of the main opposition Social Democratic Party. But elections are 10 months away and with support for Merkel’s party far above the others the chancellor is in a comfortable position for the 2013 election, said Gero Neugebauer, a political scientist at Berlin’s Free University. The ­eurozone debt crisis is a potential problem, but perhaps not as much of one as it might seem. ‘‘The worse the crisis gets, and with it the effects on German budget and financial policy, if it becomes clear to voters here that there is less money for national matters, that could damage Mrs. Merkel,’’ Neugebauer said. ‘‘Then her credibility would take a knock.’’ Merkel acknowledged that these are turbulent times and that while it might be tempting to say ‘‘the euro is saved’’ there are signs that German growth could slow next year as other eurozone countries remain mired in recession. ‘‘I will say here explicitly — we must be careful,’’ she said. ‘‘This crisis cannot be solved overnight because it didn’t happen overnight.’’ Germany is the largest contributor to eurozone rescue funds, and Merkel pledged continued support to other countries, saying that ‘‘in the long run, Germany only does well when Europe does well.’’ ‘‘I want to see the euro come out of this crisis stronger than it went into it, and since we’ve already accomplished that in Germany we can also accomplish that in Europe,’’ she said. She said the country needs economic growth to create more jobs, but also said it did not need growth at any price, pledging that her policies would be ‘‘economically, ecologically, and socially responsible.’’

The Boston Globe (The Boston Globe)

- Clipping Loc. 342-67 | Added on Saturday, October 19, 2013, 07:15 AM

Merkel, Social Democratic Party set to start coalition talks Positions pivot on economy in Germany By Patrick Donahue and Arne Delfs | 492 words BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel and Social Democratic Party leaders agreed Thursday to start official coalition talks, opening the path to forming Germany’s next government. Negotiations were scheduled to begin Oct. 23, a day after German lower house lawmakers reconvene and the day before Merkel, strengthened by the biggest election victory since German reunification on Sept. 22, attends a European Union summit. The Social Democratic Party team ‘‘has the impression that negotiations make sense’’ and there’s ‘‘a common foundation’’ to try and reach a coalition deal with Merkel’s Christian Democratic bloc, party chairman Sigmar Gabriel said in Berlin after a third round of preliminary talks between the two sides. Almost four weeks after Merkel won a third term in national elections, Gabriel’s Social Democratic Party has to show it is fighting to secure at least part of its platform if it joins Merkel as junior partner to govern Europe’s biggest economy. National Social Democratic Party delegates meet in Berlin on Oct. 20 to vote on the leadership’s proposal to begin coalition talks, which will probably take weeks. ‘‘It became clear that we recognize the challenges Germany faces over the next four years,’’ Hermann Groehe, the general secretary of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, told reporters separately. ‘‘We have sufficient common ground to govern our country together successfully.’’ The Social Democratic Party will agree to enter into a coalition because alternatives such as new elections would backfire and cost it votes, said Fredrik Erixon, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy in Brussels. ‘‘The SPD is being forced into this coalition even if many people in the party don’t like it,’’ he said by phone. Yet the party fears ‘‘not clinching an alliance with Merkel even more than the acute challenges of forming such a coalition.’’ Merkel, 59, was left with the Social Democratic Party as sole negotiating partner after her bloc and the Greens failed to bridge differences on tax increases to pay for infrastructure, a Green demand that Merkel rejected as ‘‘poison’’ for the economy during her campaign. The Social Democratic Party, which also campaigned on tax increases, is demanding a minimum hourly wage of $11.62 as a condition of entering government. While Gabriel said negotiators didn’t discuss policy details in the preliminary talks, bargaining is already under way. A leader in Merkel’s bloc, Bavarian Prime Minister Horst Seehofer, broke ranks, saying he is ready to take up the Social Democratic Party’s minimum-wage demand, which Merkel rejected during her campaign. Wages and taxes are among the disputes on the table. Merkel regards her no-new-taxes pledge as one of two red lines in talks with the Social Democratic Party, which wants to raise the top income tax rate to 49 percent from as low as 42 percent. The other taboo is joint euro-area bonds, with all other topics, including minimum wages, open to negotiation, according to a person familiar with her strategy. As the Social Democratic Party sticks to its minimum wage demand, Merkel favors an industry-by-industry approach through collective bargaining.

German politics Of scissors and biting

Inequality in Germany has been falling. But it is still firing political passions

Mar 9th 2013 | BERLIN |From the print edition

THE effusions of bureaucracy rarely get Germans riled. Not so with the “fourth poverty and wealth report”, presented this week by Ursula von der Leyen, the social- affairs minister. Overall, it shows that Germany is doing quite well. But Philipp Rösler, the liberal economics minister, insisted on cutting out any words suggesting that inequality might justify more redistribution through taxes. The opposition trumpeted a scandal. On the nightly talk shows, their politicians now talk of a crisis in social justice that necessitates a change of government in September.

Gerechtigkeit, meaning “justice” but often conflated with equality, has become a big election issue. Next to such subjects as the euro crisis or energy reform, where the parties’ positions are muddled, it has the advantage of familiarity, just as “family values” resonate in America. The preferred metaphor for the Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens is of “social scissors” opening ever wider. The ex-communist Left Party calls for “biting upward”.

Social justice links many issues in voters’ minds. The upper-house Bundesrat, now controlled by the left, has begun a push for a federal minimum wage. A referendum in Switzerland to curb corporate pay has sparked enthusiasm for something similar in Germany. The liberalising labour and welfare reforms enacted ten years ago (by an SPD-Green government) are now maligned. And the left wants to raise income and inheritance taxes, and introduce new levies on wealth.

This focus on inequality puts the ruling coalition of Angela Merkel, the chancellor, in a tight spot, as the spat between Mr Rösler and Mrs von der Leyen shows. The coalition consists of Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its Bavarian sister, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Free Democratic Party (FDP). The two Union parties are conservative but rooted in Catholic and Lutheran views on social solidarity. Mrs von der Leyen is among those in the CDU who overlap with the centre-left. Only the liberal FDP defends free markets on principle—and as it flounders in the polls, even it is softening.

Mrs Merkel has herself sidled leftward on some issues, though holding the line on others, such as calls for wealth taxes. The CDU has crawled rhetorically closer to accepting a minimum wage. It is also talking of caps on executive pay. Mrs Merkel hopes to steal enough votes from the left to stop any party forming a government without her. That way, if the FDP is ejected from parliament, she could join with either the SPD or the Greens.

Yet amid these manoeuvres, the politicians do not always look honestly at social justice. DIW, an economic think-tank in Berlin, says that inequality rose significantly after German reunification; but that it has fallen a bit since 2005 (see chart). Awkwardly for the left, that is when Angela Merkel became chancellor, in coalition first with the SPD, then with the FDP.

This is the opposite of what the public believes. According to a study by Allensbach, a polling institute, 69% of Germans think wealth and income are unfairly distributed, and almost two-thirds believe inequality has risen in the past few years. That is good news for the left. On the other hand, the Allensbach study shows that Germans take a more nuanced view of social justice than merely seeing it as a synonym for equality, as the left would like.

For a proper analysis, the Initiative for a New Social Market Economy (INSM), a think-tank largely financed by the metal and electronics industries, commissioned a study comparing Germany with 27 other members of the OECD club of rich countries. Besides income inequality, it considers how countries assure basic security for the weak (eg, through health care), reward talent and effort with higher incomes, guarantee access to the law and balance burdens between generations. It also measures equality of opportunity, which is mainly about access to good education. The good news for Germany is that overall it ranks seventh, behind only perennial supermodels like Scandinavia, as well as New Zealand and such neighbours as Austria and the Netherlands. It comes far ahead of Britain and America. The bad news, says Dominik Enste, the study’s author, is that on equal opportunities, the country ranks a lowly 14th. And this is the aspect Germans care about most.

A campaign for more equal opportunities would be welcome. Germany is good at giving young adults jobs—it has Europe’s lowest youth unemployment rate, at 8%. But it is harder than in many other countries for women to work full-time. Mrs von der Leyen thinks this is because Germany, like Austria, has mainly part-time schools and too few pre-school places. And though it has a strong dual-education system that trains pupils for industrial jobs, Germany has found school reform hard and lags behind other countries in such measures as teacher-pupil ratios. Germany remains a huge social and economic success, something that it often seems unGerman to savour. But it is not doing well on equal opportunities in education.