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September 28, 2009

Andrey Chubyk, Centre for Global Studies “Strategy XXI”, Silver Contributor (62)

Firstly, it is great pleasure to congratulate Germany with such good traditions of election and behavior of biggest counter part of A.Merkel - F.W.Steinmeier. Now I think, new Government will go a bit faster in the right direction - right for this Government, as between both possible partners are little disagreements. So, hopefully we will see Germany as one of the global economy "engines" in the following several years, taking into account big potential of this county. Nevertheless it would be not a radical change in German's policies, rather we will see more flexibility in decision-making.
I don't think, Germany will provide more military forces to Afghanistan. It could be some more millions Euro of economic support, several additional trainers for Afghanistan's police.
The reelection seems to confirm current course on strengthening the EU role not only in Europe, but in the whole world. Despite of all discussions, only Euro seems to be able for performing the role of the second world reserve currency and it is highly important, that Euro would be provided both with economical and political support. It could be achieved only in powerful and common Europe.

September 28, 2009

Cosmo Macfarlane, Allianz, (10)

Agree with Andrey. The new governement is likely headed in the right direction (in both senses!) The FDP are in a really strong position to force economic change and probably reverse some of those that Merkel made to appease the SPD. Apparently Guido Westerwelle won't even sign a coalition agreement with the CDU without tax reform. I expect Germany will emerge with a slightly more streamlined economy. As for Afghanistan I don't think the German electorate has an appetite for anything more than economic support. A larger military role is definitely not on the table. Sorry Obama.

September 28, 2009

Peter Männer, University of Regensburg, Silver Contributor (47)

There is a great number of implications that result from this election.

The difference of the bigger parties to the smaller ones is shrinking to a point where the existence of 'Volksparteien' (parties appealing to the entire people) can be doubted. As the traditional reservoirs of voters for these two parties are expected to continue drying up, we are entering a new kind of political landscape. Symbolically this trend has been labelled as a "Goodbye to Bonn" and the beginning of the "Berlin Republic".

One of the most interesting developments will be to see how the social-democratic SPD reacts to its meltdown: Will the moderately pro-economy leaders be able to survive this defeat? Will they be forced out by left-wing radicals trying to regain voters of the communist Left Party?
The outcome will be decisive for the shaping of the coming national opposition.

Among the expected governing parties, one similarity is striking: Both the Conservatives and the Free-Democrats are pro nuclear power. Will they dare to confront the public with prolonging the lifetime of our nuclear power plants or even try building new ones?
Also there is a big number of disagreements, most notably in the department of security.
Are the Free-democrats going to succeed at removing recent surveillance enactments of the former government? Or is it the Conservatives who will prevail with their intentions of softening the separation of interior secret services and the police as well as changing the constitution to make use of the army within German borders?

Regarding foreign policy, the free-democrat leader Westerwelle is most likely to become the new foreign minister. Little is known of his stance, as he is unexperienced in this department and appears not to speak English very good.
The first outcome of this could be seen today, when a BBC journalist asking him in English about changes in German Foreign Policy after the election received the unmistakable instruction to ask questions in German when being in Germany.

But even five parties in parliament seem not to be enough in the future. The newly founded Pirate Party, a thoroughly libertarian movement aiming at reducing both state surveillance and intellectual property rights, has gained 2 percent at its first election participation. This may not seem much when 5 percent are needed to enter the German Parliament, but among German males who were allowed to vote for the first time, it scored more than 13 percent, proving its potential.

With its anti-establishment and radical libertarian attitude it is refusing to obey to the predominant rules of political correctness and as such its leaders do not refrain from giving interviews in nationalist papers or accepting a member of parliament cast out by the Social-Democrats due to serious criminal charges.
Its future performance will be highly dependent on the security policy record of the new government.

September 29, 2009

Florian Kuhne, Freie Universität Berlin, Gold Contributor (116)

Very short, because there are many points mentioned by other contributors:

The two partys of CDU and FDP eventually could start a new take-off in economic terms, but I deeply caution against this because of two things: The first is internal and corresponds to the probable damage of the social system as we know it. Workers rights will be cut and other things will happen, it will be a time of social frostiness the next four years. Secondly, Germany is already going the "US-path" (and these winners will carry on) of only seemingly economic boom. By buying other corporations German companies have (paper) profits although there are serious profit losses. It happens that companies such as Porsche have higher profits than business volume. (For the US-economy see http://www.hintergrund.de/20090722437/wirtschaft/finanzwelt/kann-si... its German, but very eyeopening)

What Mr Westerwelle will try to reach in the field of foreign relations is up to see. But I guess Mr Westerwelle has a lot to learn.

As far as EU (but also other problems as Africa, Global Warming and so on) is concerned, Merkel will stick to her policy of asking everybody and talking with everybody and talk again and ask and maybe decide at a faraway point.

The only hope I have for the Sozialdemokratie is their role as opposition. Maybe they are able to recover. And a last word concerning the German voters: Why do they fear the Left (the party Die Linke)? Polls say that 70% of the German people do not want retirement with 67, they fear a loss of employment rights and so on. The only party which is talking about these points is the Left. And b the way it is the only party which has this things written down in the program.

October 1, 2009

Member deleted

It's hard to define what's "right" in the US and what's "right" in Germany or other places. And for that matter, left, center-right, center-left, far-right, far-left, and center as well.

They could mean different things in different places in substance, and as engineers love to say, as long as it works.

Do not expect German policies to change much, but as she takes on more and more leading roles on world matters, she will probably be expected to change a little bit.

It was reported that Japanese new prime minister has pledged to stay on the orbit of US foreign policies.

Following that, the German foreign policy is to be revealed and watched.

October 4, 2009

Ralph H Stas, Global Logistics Solutions Inc., (6)

I agree with the other remarks and comments, and think that this new government will be more business friendly and relax some of the taxes and labor laws, which have served only to prevent more economic growth. Germany has been a global economy with 40% of its economy accounting for exports and trading with more countries than any other economy. Germany is also well positioned in all of the major economies and will realized greater proportional growth in those markets as well.

A substantial portion of its exports are focused on machinery and equipment that produce consumer and inductrial products. As emerging economies recover from the financial crisis, and their population invreases their incomes, there will be substantial demand for Germany;s products.

I find it interesting that Chancellor Merkel and French President Sarkosy were instrumental in forcing stronger financial policies for all of the Group of 20 industrial countries, with noticable absence of President Obama comments and suggestions