Germany moves to the Right

With the news that Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats and their allies the Free Democrats (FDP) have gained enough votes to form a new government, it seems that the Thatcherite tax cuts agenda of the FDP will be a central part of the agenda of the new government, now that Merkel is free of the restraining hand of the Social Democrats, who are the real losers in this election. They have secured their lowest share of the vote since the early 60s. The other winners are the Die Linke (the Left Party) which was the only party to come out strongly against the Afghan war, and Die Grunen (the Greens). Both parties have increased their number of seats substantially and Die Linke have gained over 12% of the national vote, whereas the Greens are on 10%. There can be no doubt that Germany's involvement in the Afghan war and cuts in social welfare, together with mounting unemployment have had an impact on this.

Apart from a likely rightwards turn now in economic policy, principally at the behest of the FDP, the other change will be that the move towards ending nuclear power in Germany will come to a shuddering halt. It is also unlikely that the new government will do anything about Germany's involvement in the war. Furthermore, the FDP leader, Westerwelle, will now become Germany's foreign minister. Merkel's Atlanticist foreign policy will continue, while maintaining a close relationship with Russia (the so called Ostpolitik) which will not go down too well with the rest of the EU. Howevere, Obama's decision to remove the US Starwars bases from Poland and the Czech Republic, will considerably improve relations between the EU and Russia, particularly Germany.

The collapse of German Social Democracy is a story which is being played out across Europe and mirrors the results in France and elsewhere in the European elections. Hopefully the SPD will now learn its lesson and build stronger links with the Die Linke and the Greens, and abandon its pro-war policies, which already was beginning to happen during the course of the election campaign. Just as in the UK, there is a real need for the parties of the Left to sit down and work together. Unfortunately I was unable to make it to the Convention of the Left in Brighton on Saturday but I heard that it was very interesting. Caroline Lucas's speech went down extremely well and she said that the Greens are a party of the Left and an anti-capitalist party. The German Greens need to seriously re-examine their position on the war and some other policies. Above all they should clearly eschew any suggestions about entering into coalitions with the Christian Democrats in some of the federal states.

I will be going to the Steering Group meeting of Stop the War Coalition on Saturday, where I am sure the electoral results in Germany will be hotly debated.