14 December 2012

FT interview: Angela Merkel - A woman of power

Her favourite expression is “step by step”. “There is no alternative” is another. And for the past three years her catchphrase has been: “If the euro fails, then Europe will fail". Fixing the crisis in the eurozone has become the touchstone of her entire political career. It is a historic challenge, but she tackles it as a fundamental scientific problem to be solved, stubbornly and consistently. “There is no big bazooka”, she insisted, when David Cameron, UK prime minister, unwisely called for one. The debt crisis took years to take shape, and it will take years to resolve, she says. “Step by step”.

Merkel’s critics see her wavering on issues such as women’s policy as a classic indication of her lack of profound political convictions, combined with an acute tactical sense that stops her from spelling out too much policy detail before she knows it can be delivered. Kurt Lauk, chairman of the CDU business council, has long condemned her refusal to spell out her policies (and passions) more clearly, especially on her crisis-management of the eurozone. “On Europe, she is never concrete. It is both her strength and her weakness”, he says. “She doesn’t explain where she wants to go, but she pushes behind the scenes in the right direction. So nobody is convinced.

“She has pushed Europe into a structural reform programme of unprecedented proportions, but at the same time there is no vision of where to go. She will be measured by the vision.”

Yet it is precisely Merkel’s step-by-step approach to stemming the crisis in the eurozone that seems to appeal to German voters and is likely to help her in next September’s general election. “She tops the opinion polls precisely because of her European policy”, says a European ambassador in Berlin. “She manages to be both pro-European, and seen to be defending Germany’s interests. That is what German voters want. From an election point of view, she needs the eurozone crisis to carry on.”

She is acutely conscious that German politics are all about consensus and coalition-building. That is one reason why she avoids committing herself too soon to policies she may not be able to deliver. It is infuriating, but effective. She learnt from Helmut Kohl to “sit out” interminable debates until a consensus emerges.

“Social cohesion is very important to people in Germany. Our federal system means that in Germany competences are distributed between the federal level and the Länder [the 16 federal states]. Although that sometimes makes politics arduous, it’s also one of our country’s strengths, namely the ability to find good solutions to problems, and for Germany, across party lines.”

Angela Merkel is still seen as “the girl from the east” by many of the men who used to dominate her party. She is an outsider who never worked her way up through the party system. She has no grassroots base. “She is respected, not loved”, says Langguth [Merkel biographer and professor of politics at Bonn university]. “The day she loses as chancellor, she will probably be pushed out as party leader very quickly.”

But for now, she is the Machtfrau, but with an acute sense of the limitations of her power. “Power is relative in Germany’s political system”, she says. “Everything is based on the power to convince others. I have to constantly convince citizens, my party and my coalition partners.”

That is another reason why she is so effective at European politics, too. She never gives up, and never regards a setback as a defeat.

Full interview

© Financial Times