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GERMAN CHANCELLOR ANGELA Merkel, bruised by half a year of post-election coalition haggling, has been elected by parliament to her fourth and likely final term at the helm of Europe’s biggest economy.
Lawmakers in Berlin’s glass-domed Reichstag voted 364-315 with nine abstentions for Merkel who was then to be formally appointed by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier before taking the oath of office this morning.
Merkel, wearing a white blazer, said “I accept the vote” and beamed happily as applause filled the Bundestag chamber, where her scientist husband Joachim Sauer and her 89-year-old mother Herlind Kasner were among the well-wishers.
For the veteran leader, the ceremony marked the end of a painful stretch of post-election paralysis, the deepest crisis of her 12-year career.
A right-wing populist rise in September elections weakened all mainstream parties and deprived Merkel of a majority, forcing her into another unhappy alliance with the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD).
The grand coalition, mockingly dubbed a “GroKo” in German, didn’t start as a “love marriage”, her designated vice-chancellor and finance minister, the SPD’s Olaf Scholz, drily observed this week.
All coalition partners have nonetheless sought to allay fears that their marriage of convenience could break up mid-term, insisting they plan to jointly govern until 2021.
This afternoon, Merkel will sit down with her new Cabinet, in which the SPD has wrested both the trophy posts of finance and foreign affairs to the dismay of a growing band of critics within her Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
On Friday Merkel will head to Paris to discuss EU reform plans with French President Emmanuel Macron ahead of a summit on 22-23 March, after a six-month stretch in which Berlin was hamstrung on the European and world stage.
Macron warned in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily that, without Germany on board, “part of my project would be doomed to failure”.
We are completely dependent on each other. I do not believe for one second that a European project without or against Germany could succeed.
‘Black zero’ policy
Merkel’s incoming coalition has broadly welcomed Macron’s bold reform plans, meant to reinvigorate the bloc and counter extremists and populists who have made major gains in Western democracies.
She has argued that the EU must increasingly look after its own interests in the era of US President Donald Trump, who has questioned long-standing transatlantic defence ties and threatened a trade war.
Berlin advocates closer EU cooperation on defence, immigration and plans for a European Monetary Fund. But it is lukewarm on the idea of a joint eurozone finance minister and rejects any pooling of debt.
Scholz, who takes over from CDU fiscal hawk Wolfgang Schaeuble, has made clear he will stick with Berlin’s cherished “black zero” policy of avoiding new public debt.
The rise of populist fringe parties is also the central domestic threat for Merkel’s new coalition, which will face the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as the biggest opposition party.
The AfD scored almost 13 percent in the election, capitalising on public fears over a mass influx of more than one million refugees and migrants since 2015 and angrily demanding that “Merkel must go”.
‘Need new answers’
The shock rise of the AfD has come at the expense of the CDU, its Bavarian CSU allies and especially the SPD, all of which suffered their worst results in decades in September.
While Merkel’s last GroKo had a crushing 80% parliamentary majority, the margin has shrunk to 56%.
To answer the new right-wing threat, designated interior minister Horst Seehofer has pledged a “zero tolerance” law and order drive and faster deportations of failed asylum-seekers.
His new interior super-ministry also covers “Heimat” or homeland affairs, a term much derided for evoking Alpine vistas, beer and bratwurst but intended to recapture claims to patriotism from the AfD.
Scholz has meanwhile promised to tackle another fear exploited by populists, of vanishing jobs in the age of globalisation and rapid technological change.
“When we look at the Trump election, Brexit and the success of right-wing populist parties in many European countries,” Scholz said, “we see there is a clear need to find new answers to the challenges of the 21st century.”
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Can the minister please communicate to nursing home residents when they will get their freedom back, now that they have almost all been vaccinated? The fact that the most restricted group of people in the country are facing this wall of silence is a travesty. These are the very people who we were trying to protect. Why are we neglecting them so badly now?
@Jason Shortt: Does anyone know how many people are considered vulnerable in the country? Serious question. If 20% of our population is expected to be vaccinated by end of March, then why will be still in lockdown? I’m not anti-lockdown or anything, just tired of it and trying to do the maths. Thanks
@HectorPickaxe: the vast majority of people who have died are in the over 70 bracket. At the last census, about 12% of our population was over 65. That would be 600k people. By the end of March, more than that number will have been vaccinated, according to the government.
@HectorPickaxe: Unfortunately, you’ll never get a proper answer to that question, as the default answer always is, ‘I’ll bring you to the ICU ward, and that will show you why we are in lockdown’ …. Problem is all the farcical regulations in place have been subjective from day one …. Your version of ‘essential’ or ‘vulnerable’ is different to mine …. There is pure logic to your question, but as nothing, including the vaccine, is 100% risk-free, the fearful and paranoid sector of the population will keep this going.
@Jason Shortt: while they are severely restricted they are at least on the radar . There are people who literally have not left their houses since last March . No one has been into their houses either and the only person the see is the Tesco delivery guy who leaves their shopping at the door and goes . These people see no one often struggle to get meds and food delivered timely at times and the service where people are supposed to do these things for you is frankly not good and many people have been told they can’t get their stuff collected . So no visitors worried about meds and food delivered and they were group 7 up to the review . And if family carers aren’t included then some of these people still won’t be able to leave their homes because if their carers get sick they literally have no one else to step in. This group have been forgotten and have extreme loneliness and mental health issues .
This is after Mehole accused Mary Lou of playing politics when she put this question to him. It’s like watching a really bad sitcom that for some unknown reason won’t get cancelled…
@Coli: and has a really annoying laugh track
@Coli: is Mary back out of hiding, she has been such a big help after winning the election last year and then hiding after it.
About time!! Home carers are front line staff.
No excuses for this shambles of working out the manner in which people should be prioritised.
Seems people in these situations have to call the radio stations daily to get their pleas heard instead of the health service automatically adding them initially .
Had a meeting with a company in the UK yesterday, Everybody who was on the call has had their parents AND in-laws already vaccinated (2 of 5 people on the call had just got it also). We continue…
WORST Health Minister ever. Just winging it all the time
@Damian Ryan: Agreed
@Damian Ryan: really, seeing every health minister has been accused of that last 20 years, how many health ministers have had to deal with a worldwide pandemic and a worldside vaccination program.
@Damian Ryan: Stephen Donnelly does not decide who is in line for the vaccine maybe u should check it out ,this is done by a Medical team separate from Government so that’s one he can’t be blamed for ,& I’m no fan but why always be knocking people who are working hard , I would say he has one of the hardest jobs in Government
Considering he claims that we’ll have a surplus of vacancies it’s about time he consider home careers.
@Eddie Michael: it’s not his brief as u should know he has no hand act or part in who or in what order the vaccine is given it has to be that way or there would be no end to lobbying all TD ‘S
I though this was well set before we are over 11 months and Ireland do not know who is vulnerable in this pandemic/endemic situation
They should be considered as a specific group and moved up the list, especially if the vaccines are not reccommended for their children.
@Marie Broomfield: But even if vulnerable adults get vaccinated they still can’t leave their homes until their carers get vaccinated anyway . For a lot of these people if their carers get sick they have no one to step in and many carers may not have recognized underlying conditions many have mental health issues arthritis and lots of other things that have gone untreated and undiagnosed because carers can’t put themselves first . So many are vulnerable themselves even if they aren’t officially recognized as such .
Only now? I despair at the incompetence
Is he going to ask nicely ?
Maybe he should consider closing the boarders to international travel to stop foreign variations of the virus from coming in. The south african, brazilian British and Nigerian DIDN’T ORIGINATE IN THIS COUNTY!!!! BUT YOU LET THEM IN SHAME ON ALL OF YOU m u p p e t s
@Gary Mullen: there will be,or already have been, spontaneous mutations here too. Ireland doesn’t have a special non-mutating virus in circulation. The variants you’ve mentioned have mutated in surprisingly similar ways. It’s possible when we identify a mutation here that it will be similar too. As we don’t have the genomic sequencing capacity of world leading countries for this technology – like the U.K.- our homegrown variants may be picked up overseas having already escaped our shores.
Asal Jack.
Carers do a heartbreaking, stressful 24/7 job and save the government millions every year. Many carers have not had a full nights sleep for years. If they get sick what happens to the patient. Shouldn’t even be questioned that carers need a vaccine as soon as possible
They are an ADVISORY committee. Meaning they don’t decide these questions, just advise those who do. Namely they advise the minister of health. If he doesn’t like their advice then he is free to not use it. But then it would be his job to explain to the group bumped from receiving the vaccine as to why they were bumped. This “will ask NIAC” makes it seem like it’s all on NIAC’s shoulders and assumes that unlike the minister of health, they don’t care about these carers. What a terrible comment. It tries to take the disappointment from those not next in line for the vaccine and shift it from the ones who are actually responsible to those who are not. The final decision here and it’s praise or blame, is in the hands of the minister.
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