Michał Sutowski: CDU wins February elections, Friedrich Merz becomes Chancellor. How certain is the script?
Tomasz F. Krawczyk: beautiful certain unless Merz makes any apparent mistake in his campaign. Until any point in his position, Markus Söder, the leader of the sister Bavarian CSU, was lurking, but he was made rather early in the competition for the candidacy. Hendrik Wüst, for a long time candidate number two, the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia and at the same time the head of the largest organization of chadeks at the level of the national state, announced that Merz should be moving for Chancellor and that he besides agreed with the Prime Ministers of another lands.
How's the charade under Merz to the 1 known from Angela Merkel's time?
The fresh president clearly switched the CDU course, which no longer resembles a organization of everything and for everyone, but has a clearly conservative scratch, at least for German standards.
What do you mean? Where'd those jacks go?
First, in the field of migration. It is needed for economical reasons, due to the fact that Germany lacks hands and heads to work – according to the data at the end of 2023 there were over 1.7 million vacancies in the economy – but it is to be much more controlled.
The point is not to let people from outside the EU through Schengen border?
This is what the full German establishment is talking about, but the boundaries themselves do not solve the problem. In contrast, Merza's various statements mention the question of revitalising the agreement between the European Union and Turkey, which seems peculiarly interesting in the context of the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime. president Erdoğan is most likely hoping that at least 1–2 million Syrian refugees will return home – of course assuming that there will be something to return to and that the fresh government will be civilized. However, this would make the anticipation of migration agreements, which would be much simpler from the point of view of European Union law and German constitutional law - since the force on Turkey from the mediate East would be less, it might be possible to channel any refugees from North Africa there, of course, provided that adequate resources are allocated to this.
But that's the same logic as Angela Merkel's time – let's pay the Turks to take these refugees and not let them go any further.
The CDU besides speaks of a strict discrimination between asylum and migration procedures, but besides about speeding up the expulsion of convicted refugees, those who committed crimes without even having the right to reside. Merz late advocated the deportation of criminals to Afghanistan and Syria, and the party's secretary-general, Lindemann, the failure of the right of residence for all sentenced to imprisonment or after a second crime specified as theft or burglary.
What is the CDU's attitude to Muslims?
The Grundsatz programme contains 2 clear statements concerning this. Firstly, that Muslims are an component of the spiritual diversity of German society and for many Germany has been a homeland for decades. And at the same time, "such Islam, which does not share our values and rejects free society, does not belong to Germany." With respect to spiritual identity, Germany as a country shaped by Christianity and the request to defend the visibility of Christian symbols and traditions, including vacation days, in the public sphere are the first words.
And where – this is simply a key subject from our point of view – is Russia located in the Chadek story?
The point is that Russia is conducting a "criminal invasion war" and questions the safety order and territorial integrity of its neighbours – and cannot so be a partner. It is assumed that in the future another Russia may be a calculated political and economical partner, but until it starts unconditionally accepting the right to have its neighbours, European safety can only be organised against it.
The SPD-Greeni-FDP coalition has mostly crashed over economical issues, in Germany and Germany is usually written badly in this context. Do you agree that the situation is so bad, or is it media panic?
For about 20 years Germany has been making only mistakes in its economical policy – infrastructure, digitisation, innovation. The book Wolfgang Münchau, a longtime commentator of the Financial Times, has late been published with a meaningful title Kaput. The end of the German economical miracle.
The book about Germany in the 21st century trying to compete in the planet with technology from the 20th century, companies founded in the 19th century and besides with 18th-century economical ideology – i.e. promoting export surpluses, while besides utilizing faxes in business and administration. But I happen to be in Germany sometimes, yes, trains are late, it's hard to pay in the store with a card, and the net is unbearably slow, but it's a long way from disaster?
Yes, at first glance you can't see that Germany is in specified a deep crisis, but that's due to the fact that it's so... insanely rich. As at the turn of the millennium, Italy was visiting at the beginning of the euro area, especially in the north, and there was no tragedy, due to the fact that they had accumulated wealth. In my opinion, a major crisis will not be seen in Germany for respective years yet, due to the accumulated resources, but I believe that this is the last minute erstwhile Germany has a chance to seriously improvement itself.
So what do you want them to do?
One of my masters, Udo di Fabio, nearly 20 years ago – these were the beginnings of Merkel's regulation – wrote the book Culture of Freedom. In conservative circles she met with a large consequence – it was said that this is what we request today. It seemed that since the CDU won then, we would return to thinking, which dominated for a minute during the time of economical wonder. Ludwig Erhard defined the function of a citizen and entrepreneur in specified a way that the hazard is inscribed in it, besides the anticipation of failure – but besides that risking, undertaking ambitious ventures is the essence of economical culture. Only that Germany has long lived with a strong aversion to risks.
They cize to perfection what they can already do well, but like not to hotel to technologies that are not proven and mastered?
It is in the economy, but this problem is even deeper in politics. Angela Merkel eliminated atomic energy in Germany, using, among another things, an argument about earthquakes. Her speech shortly after Fukushima's crash afraid the most irrational concerns, but it was due to a deeper tendency: not to hazard it. Merkel had a saying that you should drive Politik auf Sicht. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
So without far-sighted visions, but besides actions that can have erratic consequences.
And according to known mechanisms and rules. This was evident in the crisis of the euro area – saving what is, or the single currency, keeping Greece in the monetary union while enforcing its known rules, even if they were inadequate. Schäuble, frequently accused of economical dogmatism, was of the opinion that Greeks had to be excluded from the euro area for a while, which would be better for everyone. And the euro area would be healthier, and the Greek economy would be in a completely different place.
But for Merkel, that would be a jump into the unknown?
Yes, she preferred to keep Greece inside, regardless of the fact that all economical parameters in the euro area are arranged under a German model, not Erhard's time, but under a stereotypical German buchalter. Macroeconomic criteria from Maastricht, these maximum 3% deficit and 60% public debt – this is taken from the ceiling. Worse still, these rules not only did not fit into the countries of the South, but besides the shrinking adherence to them in Germany itself led to the fetishization of the alleged debt brake.
Budget balance – alleged black zero – is sacred?
Yeah, and that ends with Christian Lindner in the finance department and the dogma that we can't take on bigger debts, whatever happens. I realize the argument that debt should not be increased in order to finance fresh social spending, but since we know that it takes EUR 60 billion to renew and prepare Deutsche Bahn for the future, and that is unsurprising – that is absurd. The same erstwhile we don't want to spend our money on finishing Energiewende, since we've already decided on it.
Lindner flew out of the coalition and led to the fall of the government, but I don't think he changed his mind. Is it possible for the Free Democrats to be part of the future CDU-CSU coalition? If, of course, they enter the Bundestag.
The FDP clearly disappeared from the statements of the Chadetic politicians who were on the agenda for years – Merkel, before the 2009 election, fundamentally made advertising for this organization as a possible coalitionist. Now I feel that the fixation on the constitutional “debt brake” makes them a very uncomfortable partner, due to the fact that all government loses its area for manoeuvre. present the atmosphere is different, there are ideas in the debate so that union countries can take on debts – to relieve the investment burden of the national government.
That would be a tectonic change, wouldn't it?
In my opinion, Merz understands specified a historical necessity and that the “debt brake” was introduced erstwhile it truly was “stage wisdom”. But this is not the 10 commandments, we gotta adapt to the requirements of reality. Let us compare the state of public finances in Germany with that in France. We have 120 percent of debt GDP there, and Germany has 60 percent. Serious economists say that as long as there is no more than 85 percent, it is all right, while any experts and politicians make an argument about the "future of children" – that by taking a debt, you live at the expense of future generations. but these generations and these kids won't have much to ride, drive, and work if we don't invest that money now.
Not to fetishize debt, but to invest public money – it's fundamentally a left-wing postulate. Good for the Social Democrats.
Only that the fresh “great coalition” will not carry out any major reforms, only the full duration of Germany in their being will be extended. due to the fact that it is not only about spending money, but besides creating conditions in which business pays off and looking for fresh solutions, alternatively of hoping that inexpensive fuel from Russia, the large Chinese marketplace and inactive free trade from the US will sustain competitive advantages. Of course, I realize that taking work for the state in this way can origin coalition parties to lose further elections. But Merkel won the next election, she would most likely win in the 5th in turn, if she were moving – but past will justice her wrong.
You have already mentioned a number of trends that put the German economical and political model at issue: the likely end of free trade with China, the failure of inexpensive gas and oil from Russia, turbulence in relations with the US, from customs policy to demanding more investment in arms and taking work for safety in Europe. quite a few it at the same time.
None of this fell from the sky, the captains of the ship were full aware of the storm that awaits them – due to the fact that if they did not, it only shows worse about them. But erstwhile I read Angela Merkel's memoirs, I just can't believe she was counting on common trade to halt Putin from being aggressive. She must have known that there would yet be a war with Ukraine, alternatively since 2014.
So what – she only bought time? It doesn't should be irrational in itself. At the threshold of planet War II, the British sacrificed, indeed, Czechoslovakia and pushed us under a German bus, but from Munich they began to make hunting planes. The Prime Minister proclaimed that he had provided Europe with peace, but the manufacture was preparing for war.
But even these contract aircraft were not produced here. LNG ports were built on a catch-cap, but only after a full-scale invasion. What changed in the German economy after 2014? Did Energiewende velocity up? Nope. Have these north-south energy highways begun to develop? No, due to the fact that they were blocked by Söder in Bavaria – and without large transmission networks, it is impossible to get the energy mix, since windmills are standing in the north, where it blows, and electricity is missing most in the south. Further, could it be predicted that the president would yet come to the White House, who would not be the beloved kid of the fresh York and Washington establishment? After Obama, all sane individual should be able to foretell it. Moreover, economical protectionism in the United States has always been alive.
Republican Reagan was pushing the nipponese to limit car exports to the US, Biden introduced subsidies for the production of electrical cars in the country...
It truly wasn't a surprise, and it was time to get ready. Merkel, especially in her 3rd term, erstwhile she brushed up on the independent majority, could do whatever she wanted. Meanwhile, Germany has accumulated funds in the budget for what, and the Chancellor has been radiating calmly, calmly and confidently.
You mentioned an independent majority that won't happen after this election. The FDP blocks spending, the SPD is expected to be ultra-preservative, as a coalition – desirable – become Greens. But the CDU, and especially Söder, are rather consistent in saying that there will be no coalition with the Greens.
The Greens regulation with chadeks in 3 German states, including 2 very large ones: Rhineland-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg, and in the tiny Schleswig-Holstein, what is more, in the second case the larger coalition are the Greens, with Winfried Kretschmann at the head. These coalitions truly work, and to make it funnier, the Rhine Greens dominate the left wing of this party. Prime Minister Schleswig, Daniel Günther, was opting for the Black and Green Coalition last autumn, due to the fact that he wanted a coalition for modernization. Therefore, I would not regulation out any option after the elections, especially as Söder and Bavarians did not execute specified volts: the head of CSU was a green Prime Minister, an innovative prime minister, a prime minister open to refugees, closed to refugees, behind anti-pandemic restrictions, against restrictions...
Let's go back to what Germany has to do. 1 thing is to make up for digital backwardness – in the Münchau book you mentioned, among another things, we will find an anecdote, as individual wanted to check whether it was better to send photos to print at a distance of 10 km, or giving a flash drive through a horse courier. The horse is said to have won. The condition of the Bundeswehr is equally anecdotal. We request to find a substitute for Russian gas that will not be expensive, emanation and safe source. And any thought of motorization, due to the fact that now Germany is in danger of not only losing the Chinese market, but flooding the German marketplace by Chinese electrical vehicles – Unfortunately, the Chinese learned to make them and no longer fear to enter them, but they are cheap. Do you think the CDU for the Greens has any applicable idea?
The condition of sine qua non is to quit the fetish of budgetary balance at any cost.
So Christian Lindner out – but what next?
And that's where the stairs start, due to the fact that due to a number of delays, you should think about uncovering a large fresh thought for yourself erstwhile it comes to production. For example, imagine that Germany is becoming a large European armory.
Here, 1 can say that industrial traditions can envy them. Fans of past know these brands perfectly.
If we were to presume that it is Germany which is profoundly embedded in the European Union, whose economical success is that we are all safe - then trying to turn the German economy into a model in which the arms sector is much more crucial than today, it could be a good idea. Especially if Germany learns what Israelis and Americans have been doing for a long time, or "double-use", in another words: commercialisation and civilization of military technologies.
However, arms are carried out at a certain cost.
The backing of Volkswagen besides costs, and the Americans will not be able to bear the duties on cars, due to the fact that they will then be unprofitable. erstwhile it comes to the car industry, I don't have a good idea. I can't believe we're all gonna be driving electrical cars in 10 years, and I'm mostly a proponent. collective transport. But of course these are all questions on a European scale and not just on a German scale: much depends on whether the European Commission will let public aid to fresh industries, but besides whether Europe has actually understood that the ceasefire in Ukraine does not mean that Russia is no longer an enemy and that it is again becoming a "part of Europe". However, I presume that economical elites not only in Germany, but besides in another countries, know that – how bad it would sound – war is profitable.
Especially for those with tank factories, not buying them abroad.
Of course, specified a shift of vectors in the European economy would put the problem of north-south relations anew, although this time with the removal of Italy, due to the fact that they have an extended arms industry. If we do not want the South, including the Balkans, to buy weapons in Russia or China, we will request to proceed to fund them.
The German and Dutch voters, as we know, love transfers south.
It's apparent that he doesn't love, but that's how he actually makes his own production. People imagine how they hear about these American loans and money for Ukraine, that there are planes flying there or there are trains from Przemysl with dollars to Kiev – and after all these funds go from 1 US account to another American account, due to the fact that they buy American products for them, mainly weapons in fresh years. For this, the Germans will besides request these reinforcements for their own usage – they have only late realised, for example, that the Russians swim close wind farms in the Baltic.
And what if Germany fails to transform the economy for any reason?
A bad functioning economy means problematic Germany: more likely AfD's engagement in government and radicalisation of the political community. due to the fact that just to be clear, I don't believe that their participation in the government someway would make this formation civilize, and I surely don't want us to gotta practice it. In their message I hear echoes very distant and at the same time very dangerous. These are ideas, ranging from negating the existence of concentration camps and Wehrmacht's actions in genocide, through the ideas of "repatriation" of citizens – I stress: citizens – Germany with a migrant background, even in the second and 3rd generations; to restrictions on the civilian rights of people with disabilities. If I hear something like that, it's not a knife. It's a light sword in my pocket.
Do you think it is the economy and the state of manufacture that will find the success of AfD or their absence?
Yes, because, for example, any unemployment statistic do not include people permanently excluded from the labour market, and this marketplace itself is very diverse – the work of a skilled worker, a union worker, in a large company producing for export, and working in services, on a mini-job, that is heaven and earth.
So the key is the economy? Not immigration?
Otherwise: the economical situation and the imagination of improvement is key to the political communicative Germans about themselves, about how the community tells itself. Neither Merkel nor Scholz could tell it – who we are today, what problems we have and who we can be in the future. This always ended with “today”. There must be a politician who will tell you about tomorrow, but not in a teaching way, as the Greens sometimes do, that we will tell you what you are expected to be like. That is why I am constantly returning to this "culture of freedom", to the communicative of the risks that can be taken but besides worth taking, due to the fact that freedom is simply an opportunity. With specified a modernization, development, reformation narrative, it will be hard to block something for ideological reasons, as so far these unfortunate energy connections have been blocked.
Let's say that Germany would be ready for any crucial control of the watch, that they would start arming Europe, but at least they would finish Energiewende, since there is no longer a chance to return to the atom; that they would start renovating the infrastructure, repairing the railroad and – sorry for their malice – will install Wi-Fi alternatively of faxing in all office. That no Lindner will lay down Rejtan in the name of the sacred budget balance and no Söder will block the construction of these power lines from Lower Saxony over Izara. How does specified a large change come to us?
Promoting specified a change and creating conditions for it is besides an chance for Poland to participate creatively in shaping European policy. This would require a change in the macroeconomic criteria in the euro area, a departure from this bank from Maastricht – but if Poland were to support this, even though excluding investment from the budget deficit accounting, Macron would clap his ears, We'll have the South side on our side, and I don't think the Benelux or North countries will be the perch.
And you are convinced that in favorable conditions the government with Merzem at the head is able to accomplish all these things?
This ship will surely turn slow due to the fact that Germany is the dream state for lawyers – nothing but sit and interpret the teething competence laws. It is not only a substance of bureaucratic tradition, but besides a national structure; the government in Berlin simply does not have the right to prohibit or order various things to the Lands, as is well evidenced by specified a simple matter, it would seem, like teaching Polish in German schools. And what's more, on this ship, to stick to this metaphor, there'll be rebellion, he'll rock.
And you're certain it will?
It will if the captain reasonably tells the crew where and why they're going. And if the AfD pirates get on board, we will have a problem – I will repeat – not so much with the German economy, but with the German political community. due to the fact that that's all Russia is waiting for, and it's no coincidence that Germany has the most operations.
Do I realize correctly, assuming that AfD will be able to halt – that it will not enter any government and will not affect politics at the national level – can we presume that Germany is not returning to the position quo ante with Russia?
I would say that yes, but on 1 more condition – and that is most likely a condition for the success of a major breakthrough in Germany – that Merz will do what no German government has yet done, that is to include east Germans in the German political community.
What do you mean? The union was over 34 years ago.
Only that the communicative of the East in Germany is simply a Western communicative about adopted children, specified mediocre relatives with whom there was nothing to do, so they had to be taken under the roof. If this can be changed, they will besides change their attitude towards us, due to the fact that Poles, Baltics, possibly the least Czechs, we all sit at the same table as this uncle and aunt from the east.
And this change, this inclusion of the erstwhile GDR in the German political community on equal terms, can happen as a affirmative side effect of all the reforms you are proposing?
That can't be done with 1 move. 1 cannot change immediately the fact that a citizen from the east gets a much lower pension than in the west, and an authoritative in Potsdam gets a lower wage in the same position as an authoritative in Bonn. But if they felt that the economy had moved and that their communicative was yet a communicative of possibilities, not just a communicative of lost opportunities...
I just realize that then these windmills, train factories and ammunition factories would have to...
To be placed mostly in the east. Moreover, people from the east would gotta manage them, due to the fact that present – he wrote large about it in his book How the German West invented its East Dirk Oschmann – they represent a margin among principals, deanes, university rectors in Germany, not to mention a trifle specified as the fact that no justice from the east has always ruled in the national Constitutional Court. And this is the same tribunal that indirectly decides on the right for a large part of Europe.
Ossi had their cancler for 16 years, which is more than half the time after the union, until 2021, erstwhile she finished her rule. They besides had a president from the east.
Only from Merkel from the east-west position were 2 problems. First of all, this large inclusion of easterners requires a narrator's policy, individual to tell the community what it might be. Of course, that was Helmut Kohl: he was able to tell about these "flowering landscapes" after the unification and the German brand that will change everything. And the GDRs wanted to perceive due to the fact that they had a deep sense of being ripped out of Europe, much more than the PRL located to the east of them. Only Kohl could not deliver that promise, and he allowed everything that later happened in the east to be stolen from that east and inactive tossing a moralist rod over his head.
When it comes to Merkel, erstwhile she's out of character, she could read bedtime stories to the kids so they can sleep in a minute. Although she likes to emphasize how much her Eastness in the CDU was mentioned as being patronized. However, as Anna Kwiatkowska, head of the German OSW department, late noted, the reading of her memories offends how she perfectly understands these easterners and how completely she did nothing for them.
There was inactive Joachim Gauck. From Rostock, where you come from.
I had advanced hopes for him, just as specified a large narrator. Persistent and independent, as shown present by the fact that it opposes ideas illegalisation of AfD. Unlike the establishment that would like to settle this substance in the simplest, seemingly, way, he understands 2 things. First of all, that it is almost impossible and only compromises this establishment, due to the fact that the last parties that managed to be banned in Germany were already forgotten Sozialistische Reichspartei, the successor of NSDAP, and the Communist organization of Germany – both in 1952. It's just that the criteria are so rough, and the procedure is complicated. And secondly, even if someway this happened, what – the voters will besides be cut out of the system?
So what do we do with them? If you're stressing that they're dangerous?
The political community must, as the large pre-war German lawyer Rudolf Smend said, by itself, constantly renew and integrate itself. So besides the German political community must find the strength and thought in itself to get free of this racquet in the form of AfD, but it must besides get narration from the people who lead this community. I am ready to believe that over 80 percent of the AfD voters are not people who want to hear all these echoes from the distant past. They are simply frustrated by the deficiency of public representation of their problems, lost opportunities, crises. So they choose the people who give them the simplest prescriptions and the simplest stories. There are very fewer people who read in the vulgarly libertarian election program AfD, which would be disastrous to the east.
Merkel from CDU failed, Gauck from SPD failed. Is Merz gonna make it?
I believe it's possible with the Greens in the coalition. I know that the Greens in the East don't sale very well, due to the fact that the problems of the Easters after unification were completely different from the ones they talk about. But this is simply a future-oriented partner, and possibly the least – as they joined the political establishment late – contaminated by a typical, paternalistic German reasoning at the east. The example late set by president Steinmeier and another SPD politicians, the brake to aid Ukraine. These are inactive as if taken alive from Julian Czarka's old book about Bismarck and Prince Alexander Gorczak Two ChancellorsLike 150 years of past just missed them.
The last days and weeks of the German election run have become very turbulent. Do the dispute over the correct consequence to the attacks of knifemen and then the fast changes in global politics – Trump's calls to Putin and talks in Saudi Arabia about Ukraine – bring any fresh quality to Germany's political situation?
Two things have happened that make Germany possibly at a crucial minute for its future and in any ways Europe. Firstly, unfortunately, there have been further terrorist attacks, which are undoubtedly the consequence of the powerlessness of the German state, but let us agree, no 1 with a sound head can regulation out Russia's hybrid actions.
Secondly, president Trump happened to us in the form of the worst predictions. I understand, of course, what he and his establishment are playing for – about the separation of Russia from China and the closeness to the States, for the price of any area in Ukraine. Only at the end of the day Trump will be Putin's puppet, and the US will lose its credibility for years. And Iraq will be nothing. We should want for Germany to have a Chancellor who is not only waiting for the end of this war, but 1 who, together with his partners, will have an thought of safety in Europe and will put his country on its feet.
I would besides like us to devote this time of order of the Germans to the last to the nearest, let us agree that 4 years, review of our relations and arrange for respective key projects and negotiating spaces for others. And then they stuck to the agenda like a drunk fence, due to the fact that as a very smart proofreader utilized to say: whether smart or stupid, it would be consistent. The worst thing about our relation is the deficiency of consequences. We are constantly rediscovering the planet of our relationship. How much can you do?
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Tomasz F. Krawczyk – philosopher of law and politics. Born in Rostock and raised on both sides of Odra in a Polish-German family, he learned Europe from large Europeans and Europeans – specified as Richard von Weizsäcker, Prof. Lech Kaczyński and Ewa Ośniecka-Tamecka, erstwhile advisor to the Prime Minister for European Affairs. presently in business he builds relations with German-speaking countries as the head of the DACH Desk DSBJ Group.
