Yang, deputy director of the Sino-German Cooperation Center of the China Academy of Social Sciences, believes that the unexpected withdrawal of the Liberal Democratic Party makes the prospect of Merkel's cabinet formation difficult and complicated. How to turn the tide and realize the fourth term of prime minister, Merkel faces a rare challenge.
Four possibilities
The negotiations were difficult from the beginning. Limited by the results of the general election on September 24, there is not much choice for the participants in the cabinet negotiation. Merkel's Coalition party (composed of CDU and its sister party, CSU) won 33.0% of the votes and maintained its position as the largest party in the Bundestag. However, because the Social Democratic Party, the second largest party, announced and repeatedly stressed that it would not participate in the formation of the cabinet, the Coalition party refused to contact the far-right and far-left parties and could only start negotiations with the Liberal Democratic Party and the Green Party.
Because the colors of the flags of the three parties are the same as those of Jamaica, the media called this attempt to form a cabinet "Jamaica Union".
During the negotiation, the parties listed a negotiation list consisting of 12 important topics. The parties have great differences on key issues such as European policy, energy and environmental policy, refugee and immigration policy and fiscal policy. During the negotiation, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Green Party constantly accused each other of refusing to compromise.
Yang believes that the "Jamaica Alliance" is a last resort, and the positions of the three parties are too different, even tit for tat. The only glue before was that all three political parties wanted to be in power. Now that the LDP has given up its political power, there is no basis for further negotiations.
For the withdrawal of the LDP, Yang believes that the main reason is that its basic program has not been met. Christian lindner, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, was worried that he might bring back a list that made his party and voters very unhappy after the talks. When he announced his withdrawal from the negotiations on 19, he said: "It is better not to be in power than to be in power by mistake. Goodbye! "
With the withdrawal of the Liberal Democratic Party, the cabinet formation negotiations came to an abrupt end, and the difficulty of Merkel's cabinet formation suddenly increased. German media believe that Merkel will try to form a minority government or accept re-election in the future.
Yang believes that there are four possibilities in the future: first, the Coalition party and the Green Party form a minority government; Second, the Coalition party abandoned the Green Party and negotiated with the Liberal Democratic Party to form a minority government. Third, the Coalition party strongly persuaded the Social Democratic Party to "turn back" and form a grand ruling Coalition again as it is now; The fourth is re-election.
difficult problem
Merkel obviously spent a lot of effort on this negotiation, and she was already "tired" when she announced that the negotiation had failed. Merkel said in her speech: "As Prime Minister ... I will do my best to get the country out of this difficult time."
Merkel will take re-election as the last choice, while President Steinmeier will try to avoid re-election. Steinmeier, who has been paying attention to the cabinet formation negotiations, called on all parties to fulfill their responsibilities. "This responsibility is not to return the voters' authorization (through re-election)."
Yang thinks the present situation is very difficult. If the tripartite negotiations fail completely, the follow-up "no matter what the possibility, the implementation effect is not good."
Yang said that it is difficult for a few governments to promote policy implementation, which often leads to re-election. It is certainly a good choice to govern jointly with the Social Democratic Party, but the latter insists on being an opposition party. A leader of the party even said that the condition of joint governance was that Merkel no longer served as prime minister.
As for the re-election, according to the latest polls, except for the Green Party and the far-right German Choice Party, the votes of other parties will not change much. This is what mainstream political parties and voters do not want to see. What is more troublesome is that political idling will have a negative impact on the relatively stable German politics and economy.
If the 63-year-old Merkel fails to form a cabinet, as the largest economy in Europe, the political instability in Germany will have an impact on the policies of the euro zone and even the European Union towards Russia and Turkey.
It is also reported that French President Emmanuel Macron telephoned Merkel on the evening of 19 to find out about the failure of cabinet formation negotiations. On the 20th, he said that "it is not in the interest of France that the process of forming a cabinet in Germany is stagnant". Peter Taubel, general secretary of CDU in Germany, called on all parties not to give up and push Germany through the current difficulties through compromise.