Gerhard Schröder firmly believes that Germany will only begin to modernise when its people have no choices left. The German Chancellor is now struggling for his survival. After Bush proclaimed his ultimatum to Saddam Hussein in the early hours of Tuesday, Schröder addressed his nation at 10am in a unique TV appearance. In an almost populist fashion, citing the coming deaths of thousands of innocent children, women and soldiers in Iraq, he explained why his government opposes the war against Iraq.
Schröder, conviction orphan
The ultimate pragmatist has come to enjoy a moment in his career when his political convictions are firmly based on moral considerations. When was the last time that a protestant, social-democratic German chancellor found himself side by side with the pope? While Chirac may dream of a European counterweight to United States hegemony, none of this is on Schröders mind: he simply thinks that war is evil.
On his desk sits the picture of his soldier father, whose Romanian grave was discovered only after his son had become head of the German government half a century later. Under his Stahlhelm, the Wehrmacht private bears a stunning resemblance to his son. No DNA analysis necessary here, says Schröder. Born out of wedlock, he had never seen his father before this photograph (presented to him by his newly discovered East German cousins).
Perhaps the father/son relationship lies at the bottom of GermanAmerican discord. George W. Bush is trying to finish the job his father left undone in Iraq in 1991, while Schröders thoughts on war are defined by his poor, fatherless childhood, and in general by the German and European experience since 1938.
Pruning the Sozialstaat
One of Konrad Adenauers anecdotal quips referred to his hobby his rose-garden. This afternoon, the first German post-war chancellor would say, Im doing my roses; this evening Ill do de Gaulle. His vocabulary was limited, his political troubles likewise.
Schröders schedule is a bit more complicated. Last Friday, he tried to repair the German Sozialstaat: a country caught in a quagmire of unaffordable welfare costs, a society entrenched in opposing interest groups with vast powers in parliaments, trade unions and business corporations. In the weeks to come, hell have to start repairing GermanAmerican relations without treading on the overly sensitive feet of his embattled political friend in Paris.
For Adenauer, the world was simple: The Asian taiga, he once remarked, starts behind the Iron Curtain. Schröders Europe includes Russia; yet it is a labyrinthine garden without roses, its design muddled by competing amateurs.
On 14 March, the German leader whose public approval ratings have slipped to an all-time low since he took office more than four years ago gave a speech to the Bundestag which turned out to be the model of ill-advised political marketing.
For weeks, public expectations for a blood, sweat and tears speech (BST, as the Berlin pundits came to call it) had risen to almost religious levels, pumped up by leaks emanating from the chancellery and the ruling parties. In one magic moment, the public seemed to think, Schröder was going to summarise the economic, structural, psychological ills of the nation then provide the mysterious therapy that would elevate more than four million unemployed Germans into jobs, heal the broken national health system, decapitate the stubborn trade unions Thatcher-style, create jobs for more than 100,000 kids about to leave school without any chance of employment, lower taxes (of course), renovate the educational system, and lead this nation out of the misery it loves to wallow in.
When he finally spoke for 45 minutes, the country was in for yet another reality shock. In a democracy, even the most serious problems can only be solved by political consensus, in the governing party at least (let alone in the second chamber, the Bundesrat, which is dominated by the CDU/CSU conservative opposition). Yet today in Germany, that consensus is lacking everywhere. He spoke only modestly, and still everyone moaned.
Welfare dystopia?
In his speech, Schröder declined to go into the vision thing. No grand strategy, only down-to-earth suggestions as to how to break the grip of the trade unions on a country which enjoys more holidays than the rest of Europe (six weeks at least), shorter working hours (35 per week), special deals such as paid educational time-outs (two weeks) and an average retirement age of 59 instead of the official 65. From the employers, Schröder expects a guaranteed vocational training for the next cohort of school graduates.
German labour laws are the result of many years of negotiations and a consensual history that made Germany the workhorse of Europes economy, with fewer strikes than anywhere else. No more: the German growth rate lags behind the rest of the continent, especially since the costs of reunification undermined the ability of the government to boost the economy through counter-cyclical intervention.
It pays to be unemployed in Germany: for up to 32 months you may receive up to 70 per cent of your leaving wage. Schröder wants to cut back governmental expenses in these unemployment insurances, tax social security income, and reduce the costs of the health system (it also pays to be a doctor average income after expenses is over 125,000).
The loudest howl, however, came once he touched on the hire-and-fire issue. To be made redundant in Germany almost always involves judicial arbitration and serious payouts by the employer. This has created a serious reluctance to hire new labour, especially among smaller companies.
Meanwhile, more than 70 billion are transferred annually to East Germany. About 70 per cent of this goes into unproductive consumption: payments to East German pensioners and the unemployed, who officially make up 16% of the East German population (unofficial figures top 20%). None of these new welfare recipients had paid into any kind of insurance schemes, the socialist view of the future being defined by one employer only the realsozialistische Staat.
This constant transfer of billions can be described as a most unusual example of national solidarity. But West Germans are getting tired of older East Germans pining for the job security of yore, when every state-owned factory had its own kindergarten and at least one barbershop, and for the numerous Olympic golds won by the GDRs slightly bearded lady swimmers, who sounded like a mens choir on steroids.
The reception of Schröders speech by his own party was lukewarm. He trimmed some of the sacred cows of German social democracy, including a health system that gives everyone everything for free, from dental work to the right to switch doctors any time one feels misunderstood (but which seems unable to cut costs thanks to firmly entrenched interest groups: doctors, more than 300 health insurance companies and, of course, the pharmaceutical industry).
Walking through Berlin, one gets the impression that Germany is a dying nation: there are, as a rule, one or two pharmacies per block. This is the nation that gave the world aspirin, yet its headaches seem impervious to ever-higher doses.
Ah, old Europe
In the end, Schröders reform plans will be whittled down to an almost unrecognisable vestige of its original idea: to remove the country from its unaffordable habit of spending the funds of the next generation which, at the current birth rate, will be unable to support retired parents and grandparents. Demographics predict that by 2100, there will be 20 million original Germans left (from todays unproductive 82 million).
Schröder can rely on some opposition support a kiss of death for any democratic politician. Even that support is embellished with numerous caveats designed to bring down the Schröder/Fischer government in the next two or three years.
So, as the war on the Arabian peninsula moves towards an as yet unpredictable outcome, the task ahead for the German government could not be further from cultivating ones roses or the French.
Turning around a stumbling economy in a time of worldwide recession would be enough to rob anyone of sleep. Repairing a Europe in total diplomatic disarray would require a host of skilled statesmen such as were last seen at the Vienna Congress of 1815, which unfortunately closed up shop on 25 December with the declaration of the Holy Alliance, directed against no one in particular except, in hindsight, against each signatory member (of course, Great Britain not among them), which collapsed over Greeces fight for independence in 182230, and then...ah, old Europe...
