Some sort of ideologically incoherent three-way coalition is on the cards for Germany’s next government. It may struggle to agree on anything ambitious BTW21
Mrs Merkel’s achievements are more modest. In her 16 years in the chancellery she has weathered a string of crises, from economic to pandemic. Her abilities as a consensus-forger have served her country and Europe well. But her government has neglected too much, nationally and internationally. Germany has got away with it, for now; the country is prosperous and stable. Yet trouble is brewing.
The list of neglected issues is long . Germany looks like a purring luxury car; pop the bonnet, though, and the signs of neglect are plain to see. The public sector has failed to invest adequately or wisely, falling behind its peers in building infrastructure, especially the digital sort. This hampers not just whizzy new tech firms, but every other company, too. It also makes government less effective, a problem exacerbated by a failure to hire enough staff.
In Europe, where German influence matters most, Mrs Merkel’s reluctance to wield it has been especially disappointing. Thehas not grappled sufficiently with the weakness of its indebted southern members. Only during the pandemic did it create a financial instrument that lets theissue jointly guaranteed debt, and dispense some of the cash as grants, rather than yet more loans. But this was designed as a one-off.
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