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§ The policy positions of Merkel and Schulz on key issues are
virtually identical: Both candidates are committed to strengthening the
European Union, maintaining open-door immigration policies, pursuing
multiculturalism and quashing dissent from the so-called far right.
§ Merkel and Schulz both agree that there should be no upper limit
on the number of migrants entering Germany.
§ Merkel's grand coalition backed a law that would penalize social
media giants, including Facebook, Google and Twitter, with fines of €50 million
($60 million) if they fail to remove offending content from their platforms
within 24 hours. Observers say the law is aimed at silencing critics of
Merkel's open-door migration policy.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of the Christian Democratic
Union (CDU), is on track win a fourth term in office after polls confirmed she
won the first and only televised debate with her main election opponent, Martin
Schulz, leader of the Social Democratic Union Party (SDP).
A survey for the public broadcaster ARD showed that 55% of
viewers thought Merkel was the "more convincing" candidate during the
debate, which took place on September 3; only 35% said Schulz came out ahead.
Many observers agreed that Schulz failed to leverage the debate to
revive his flagging campaign, while others noted that Schulz's positions on
many issues are virtually indistinguishable from those held by Merkel.
Rainald Becker, an ARD commentator, described the
debate as, "More a duet than a duel."
"Merkel came out as sure, Schulz was hardly able to land a
punch," wrote Heribert
Prantl, a commentator at Süddeutsche Zeitung. "The candidate
is an honorable man. But being honorable alone will not make him
chancellor."
Christian Lindner, leader of the classical liberal Free
Democrats, compared the debate
to "scenes from a long marriage, where there is the occasional quarrel,
but both sides know that they have to stick together in the future, too."
Television presenter Günther Jauch, writing in Bild, said he had hoped
to "at least understand what differentiates Merkel and Schulz in political
terms. Instead, it was just a conversation between two political professionals
who you suspect could both work pretty seamlessly in the same government."
Radio and television host Thomas Gottschalk said that the two
candidates agreed with each other too often: "They were both always
nodding their heads when the other was speaking."
Germany's general election is scheduled for September 24. If
voters went to the polls now, Merkel's CDU, together with its Bavarian sister
party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), would win 39%, according to a
September 4 Politbarometer survey conducted for the public broadcaster ZDF.
Coming in second, Schulz's SDP would win 22%; the classical
liberal Free Democrats (FDP) 10%; the far-left Linke 9%; the Greens 8% and the
anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) 8%.
The poll also found that 57% of respondents said they preferred
that Merkel serve another term; only 28% favored Schulz to become the next
chancellor. Nevertheless, half of Germany's 60 million voters are said to be
undecided, and some pollsters believe that the
country's huge non-voting population may determine the outcome.
As Merkel's CDU/CSU is unlikely to emerge from the election with
an absolute majority, the 2017 vote effectively revolves around the issue of
coalition-building. If current polling holds, Merkel, who has vowed to serve a
full four years if re-elected, will have two main options.
Merkel could form another so-called grand coalition, an alliance
of Germany's two biggest parties, namely the CDU/CSU and the SPD. Merkel currently
governs with a grand coalition and has done so during two of her three terms in
office.
Both the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats have said they
hope to end the grand coalition and lead the government with smaller partners
after the September election. After the debate, however, many observers believe
a grand coalition between Merkel and Schulz is more probable than not.
Merkel's second option would be to form a three-way coalition with
the Greens and the FDP, which served as junior coalition partner to the CDU/CSU
for almost half of Germany's post-war history. Merkel has already ruled out
forming a coalition with either the Linke or the AfD.
In any event, the policy positions of Merkel and Schulz on key
issues are virtually identical: Both candidates are committed to strengthening
the European Union, maintaining open-door immigration policies, pursuing
multiculturalism and quashing dissent from the so-called far right.
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German Chancellor
Angela Merkel (right) and her main election opponent, Martin Schulz (left),
whose policy positions on key issues are virtually identical. (Image source:
European Parliament/Flickr)
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Merkel and Schulz are ardent Europhiles and both are committed to
more European federalism. During an August 12 campaign speech in Dortmund, for
example, Merkel described the
European Union as the "greatest peace project" in history and vowed
that she would never turn her back on this "wonderful project."
Previously, Merkel said:
"We need more Europe, we need not only a monetary union, but
we also need a so-called fiscal union, in other words more joint budget policy.
And we need most of all a political union — that means we need to gradually
give competencies to Europe and give Europe control."
Merkel has also endorsed the idea
of a European Monetary Fund to deal with sovereign defaults by eurozone
countries:
"It could make us even more stable and allow us to show the
world that we have all the mechanisms in our own portfolio of the euro zone to
be able to react well to unexpected situations."
Schulz has argued that the EU
must be preserved at any cost:
"We are at a historical juncture: A growing number of people
are declaring what has been achieved over the past decades in Europe to be
wrong. They want to return to the nation-state. Sometimes there is even a blood
and soil rhetoric that for me is starkly reminiscent of the interwar years of
the past century, whose demons we are still all too familiar with. We brought
these demons under control through European structures, but if we destroy those
structures, the demons will return. We cannot allow this to happen."
Schulz has opposed the idea of
holding national referendums on leaving the EU:
"Referendums have always posed a threat when it comes to EU
policy, because EU policy is complicated. They are an opportunity for those
from all political camps who like to oversimplify things."
Schulz has also voiced optimism that
the British decision to leave the European Union would facilitate the creation
of a European Army:
"In the fields of security and defense policy, although the
EU loses a key member state, paradoxically such a separation could give the
necessary impulse for a closer integration of the remaining member
states."
During the September 3 debate, Schulz declared that he
would end Turkey's accession talks to join the European Union because of
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's authoritarianism. Merkel initially
said she opposed such a move but then suddenly changed her mind. Unexpectedly, Merkel
said: "The fact is clear that Turkey should not become an EU member."
On the issue of migration, Schulz and Merkel differ on procedure,
not principle. During the debate, for example, Schulz accused Merkel of failing
to involve the European Union in her 2015 decision to open German borders to
more than a million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Merkel said
that although some mistakes had been made, she would take the same decision
again.
In fact, Merkel and Schulz both agree that there should be no
upper limit on the number of migrants entering Germany: "On the issue of
an upper limit, my position is clear," Merkel told ARD
television. "I won't accept one."
Schulz has said:
"A numerical cap is not a response to the refugee issue, even
if it is agreed upon in a European context. What do we do with the first
refugee who comes to the European frontier and has no quota available? Do we
send him back to perhaps a sure death? As long as this question is not
resolved, such a discussion makes no sense."
Schulz believes the
European Union should have a greater role in migration policymaking:
"What we need is a European right of immigration and asylum.
The refugee crisis shows us clearly that we cannot give a national response to
a global phenomenon such as the refugee movements. This is only possible in a
European context."
Merkel has criticized Hungary
for failing to show "solidarity" in aiding refugees. She has also
vowed to punish Poland for
its refusal to take in more migrants from the Muslim world:
"As much as I wish for good relations with Poland — they are
our neighbor and I will always strive for this given the importance of our ties
— we can't simply keep our mouth shut in order to keep the peace. This goes to
the very foundations of our cooperation within the European Union."
Schulz vowed that, if
elected chancellor, he would push for the EU to cut subsidies to countries that
do not take in refugees: "With me as chancellor, we won't accept that
solidarity as a principle is questioned."
Meanwhile, Merkel's grand coalition backed a law that
would penalize social media giants, including Facebook, Google and Twitter,
with fines of €50 million ($60 million) if they fail to remove offending
content from their platforms within 24 hours. Observers say the law is aimed at
silencing critics of Merkel's open-door migration policy.
Like Merkel, Schulz has reserved his worst vitriol for the
anti-immigration AfD, whose leaders he has described as
"rat catchers" (Rattenfänger) who are "trying to profit
from the plight of refugees." He has also called them "shameful and
repulsive."
In an August 22 interview with Bild, Merkel answered critics of
her desire to continue in power by saying that the
longer she rules, the better she gets: "I've decided to run for another
four years and believe that the mix of experience and curiosity and joy that I
have could make the next four years good ones."
Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at
the New York-based Gatestone Institute.