Merkel’s legacy: on the big questions she did too little

I’ve always thought there’s something reassuring, perhaps comforting, about Mutti Merkel. Someone whose favourite soup is potato and who bakes her own plum pudding can’t be all bad, and might be the sort of stalwart personality you’d need in a crisis.

Post-war Germany thinks so. She has served 16 years as Chancellor, only lagging behind Helmut Kohl (1982-98) and could yet overtake him if still in office in December. That could happen if a coalition government is slow to form after next week’s election. So we could write the “Bestriding German politics like a colossus” headlines as she steps down. Indeed, she has, but how much has she achieved? She’s a pragmatist, she’s clever, she’s reassuring, but what was her vision?

Germans are understandably a tad suspicious of visionaries. After a wholly tragic experience of personality politics prior to 1945, the country has embraced several solid heavyweights such as Adenauer, Schmidt, Kohl, Schroder, and Merkel. Adenauer steered the country back into the international fold, Kohl oversaw unification of the two Germanys. They answered big questions with vision. Merkel has faced different questions, of a similar magnitude, and has managed but not answered them. At this moment, we can’t accurately predict how history will see her, but it’s difficult to believe she will be viewed as a visionary even if as the leader of Europe’s economic juggernaut, she was in a position to be one.

An increasingly belligerent Russia has been mostly met with a reluctance to take a tough line. Indeed, trade deals appear to have been the priority of the export-led economy of Merkel’s eastward foreign policy. Given German history that is understandable, but does nothing to restrain a resurgent Kremlin. The Baltic States and other NATO and EU allies have taken note. There has been a similar reluctance to push back against China, although of course in this she is not alone. The decline of self-confidence in NATO has been met with a refusal to bring the German armed forces up to standard. The response to David Cameron seeking compromise to keep the UK in the EU was met with a shrug. On climate change, at first she embraced measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but then compromised them by accelerating the decommissioning of nuclear power stations in the wake of the meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima plant in 2011. As the effects of the financial crash of 2008 began to bite, she pushed the German target for “net zero” emissions later to 2045 and began to lobby Brussels to weaken policies designed to force the car industry to do more to combat climate change. When Trump came to office in 2017 many people looked to Merkel as an alternative “leader of the Free World” but she couldn’t even be the leader of a Free Europe.

Merkel was praised for her role in supporting the German economy during the crash. More praise, at least from fiscal conservatives, came as she subsequently engineered the massive bail out to save Greece even if the real motive was to save the Euro. In 2010, she said: “If the Euro fails, Europe fails” and although she is not an instinctive European federalist, she does believe in the EU – especially as its economic structure benefits Germany. Berlin imposed controversial biting austerity measures on Athens which, after a decade of suffering, have helped the Greek economy to stabilise. Both financial crises consolidated her reputation as a safe pair of hands, as a manager. But the experience left her with no appetite for the economic reforms many analysts believe are necessary for the German economy. Instead, she has improved pensions for women, extended parental leave benefit and expanded day-care, all of which has improved the position of women in the workforce.

That can be put down on the plus side of the ledger even if it leaves someone else to enact measures to deal with some of the country’s underlying economic weaknesses including its pension system which may prove unsustainable. Another memorable decision was to end military conscription.

In Europe she will probably be best remembered for her role in the 2015 migrant crisis. “We can do this” was her mantra, and it was aimed at Europe. Merkel told European countries they could take X number of migrants and refugees but forgot to ask them if they would repeat her “Willkommen” offer to the multitudes then stuck in Hungary. When states most responded “Nein” it was a huge blow to European unity. It also fuelled the rise of the radical right in Germany in the shape of Alternative for Germany which now has a significant representation in the Bundestag.

In the following years, realising the political backlash against her decision, she reversed course. Restrictive measures were brought in, a de facto cap on refugee and migrant numbers was imposed, and Merkel was one of the architects of the deal to bribe President Erdogan of Turkey to prevent people from crossing the Aegean Sea.

Merkel said “Politics is that which is possible”. There are worse political maxims but if you have vision, you can create possibilities. The economy held up, unemployment was held at bay, but on the big questions she did too little.