Merkel's authority as chancellor may be limited
Chancellor-designate Angela Merkel will have only limited authority in Germany’s planned left-right government, leaders of its two main parties said, as they prepared today for the start of full-blown coalition negotiations.
Merkel appears set to become Germany’s first female leader after her conservatives reached a preliminary power-sharing deal with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democrats yesterday.
However, the Social Democrats have secured control of most of the ministries in return for Merkel replacing Schroeder as chancellor, and insist they will have an equal say in a new government’s direction.
Social Democrat chairman Franz Muentefering said that while Merkel’s authority as chancellor was anchored in the constitution, it was “not realistic” for her to use it.
“Whoever does that in a coalition knows that the coalition is finished,” Muentefering said on ZDF television. “There has to be fair co-operation. Everything important must be agreed. We are equals and that will also be true in this coalition – if it comes about.”
Senior conservatives admitted her room for manoeuvre would be limited, but said there would be cases where she would have to adjudicate.
“That the chancellor sets the course in a coalition with equally strong partners is only possible in very small doses,” said Edmund Stoiber, who will lead the coalition talks for the conservatives alongside Merkel. “Either we can do it together, or it must be laid to rest.”
“In every coalition there are sometimes cases where the pros and cons are roughly equal. Then somebody has to decide, and that’s the chancellor,” said Wolfgang Boehmer, the conservative governor of Saxony-Anhalt state.
Merkel’s ability to reconcile the two parties could be crucial to the stability of a new government, only the second made up of Germany’s two main parties since the Second World War, and to the pace of economic reform.
Social Democrats and conservatives agree on the need to revive the economy and rein back double-digit unemployment bleeding the government’s finances.
But the Social Democrats say they will not back her calls to make it easier for firms to fire workers and to erode the power of unions in setting industrywide wages.
Leaders and politicians of both parties were holding meetings today to draw up their strategy for coalition talks expected to begin on Monday.
Merkel yesterday said that both sides aimed to complete the negotiations by November 12, after which they will need endorsement by party conventions.
“We all know there is no sensible alternative to a reform course for Germany,” she said.
Under the terms of the agreement, the Social Democrats would head the foreign, finance, labour, justice, health, transport, environment and development ministries.
Merkel’s Christian Democrats and Stoiber’s Bavaria-only Christian Social Union would get the economy, defence, interior, agriculture, family and education portfolios.
With Merkel as chancellor and her chief of staff also a cabinet-level post, the two sides would have equal representation at the cabinet table. The parties have the right to propose their ministers.
The two sides were forced into talks on a “grand coalition” of Germany’s biggest political forces after voters ousted Schroeder’s coalition of Social Democrats and Greens on September 18 but failed to give a majority to Merkel’s preferred centre-right coalition.
It remains unclear whether Schroeder, Germany’s leader for the past seven years, will play any role in a new government, though he is expected to take part in the coalition talks.
