In the end he made it home: Germany’s new Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrived by a squeak in the top job by a margin of nine votes, having failed in the first round of voting to clear the 50 per cent hurdle in the Bundestag (Parliament) for his confirmation. This is the “Chancellor vote” which has waved through every government since the Federal Republic’s establishment in 1949.
The Christian Democrat leader’s flailing arrival came after hours of arm-twisting and favour-banking were needed to turn a six vote deficit in the morning to a narrow endorsement in the afternoon, which had one of his allies sending me a picture of a sweating emoticon and a handkerchief. But a day of high drama in Berlin has reminded us that the days of envy for Germany’s staidly stable politics have passed – it’s rock and roll in Berlin now, as it is across much of Europe.
The end of those settled norms will have consequences as the UK tries to rebuild ties to Berlin when the political weather is as choppy, and a new government is having similar woes establishing authority over a challenger party on the Right and its effects on authority at the centre.
In theory, Merz should be a better Chancellor for the UK than his wan predecessor Olaf Scholz, who did not seek a large footprint on the international stage, but at least liked Starmer and prepared the route to a reconciliation. Things had really fallen apart pre-Brexit: Angela Merkel had an intellectual default scepticism bordering on superiority complex towards the Anglosphere – and was more at home finessing negotiations on the continent or dealings with Russia than trying to understand or help fractious Britons.
Merz is more cosmopolitan than both – he speaks excellent English, and as a former Goldman’s lawyer, knows the City of London well. He is also more pragmatic about mutual interest than the more hectoring end of German officialdom whose appetite for carping about Brexit is wearing – and not always self-aware, given the greater threat posed by extreme-right thinking in Germany.
The exam question now is how far a leader whose first steps have been faltering will turn quickly inwards – notwithstanding a grand plan for an EU “reset” summit in which Germany will play a leading role. That is the job of another German – Ursula von der Leyens, as head of the EU Commission – to negotiate, after Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have expended much diplomatic energy to back a plan.
But there is little time to fix outstanding details of the deal on food standards, fisheries and youth mobility, and with domestic worries dominating, even a much-heralded visit to Kyiv has not had its dates confirmed. Von der Leyen can do the technical wrangling, but a durable arrangement needs London and Berlin to signal a more hearty reconnection.
Domestic politics is intruding for both. Merz needs to make his mark, rebooting Germany’s sagging reputation as an industrial giant, built on a suspicious and clearly fragile coalition with the defeated Social Democrats.
It has not helped that a report by the domestic intelligence agency declaring the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland “extreme” and “racist” was published days before the Chancellor’s first test. The AfD is now the second largest party in parliament and can use its vote bank to add to the discomfiture of the ruling coalitions, while being decreed as beyond the democratic pale means that mainstream parties can’t be seen to horse-trade with it – and will reap ire from opponents in the centre and among Social Democrats when they come close to doing so.
Similarities with the Reform surge in the UK are irresistible, in terms of focus on public responses to migration and a Eurosceptic core. The AfD, however, is a far more ferocious entity, despite its slick TV-friendly PR. Many of the rallies I have attended have an edge of intimidation towards political foes and the media it deems an enemy. Nigel Farage has clearly distanced himself from it, even if America’s new Right, embodied by JD Vance, sounds supportive or at least permissive to its shock treatment.
Yet in their effects, both parties to the right of the mainstream are wielding influence. Pledging tougher asylum and immigration and seeking to align more closely on defence via an agreement launched last year requires a greater degree of intimacy and regular contact. The Reform surge also makes the optics harder when Downing Street’s urgent focus is on addressing its own challenge on the right. Reconnecting with Europe is not exactly an ace on that front.
square KITTY DONALDSON
This is Keir Starmer's 'Thatcher, milk snatcher' moment
Read MoreThis is awkward, since the cherished centrepiece of German (and Polish) demands is for a 45,000 strong “Youth Mobility Scheme” to re-foster opportunities for young people. In reality that is hard to define beyond ending up as a visa scheme for people under 35 to live and work in the UK for up to two years, with reciprocal rights.
The danger facing Starmer, at a time when visa overstays and creative use and abuse of student visas have become a talking point, is that what sounds like an olive branch to assist young and mainly prosperous people to live and work abroad looks to the Reform-minded more like a loophole to tightening immigration. In principle, it is a short stay arrangement, but that also means that relatively few voters benefit, and largely not the ones Starmer is trying to win back from Farage.
In Berlin, however, it ranks as a totemic demand, which the UK needs to accept to show seriousness or purpose. The knife-edge vote in a parliament in Berlin whose shaky arithmetic is the result of a rise on right, and the whirlwind of Reform UK’s electoral success, are a reminder that even when there’s a mutual will for a UK-German kiss and make-up, the way to it is harder to chart.
Starmer is banking on an emerging personal relationship with a new German leader. The question is whether his harried counterpart has the bandwidth to deal with what Victorians called the “awkward cousins” of the British-German relationship given the sweaty brows and just-in-time delivery of his chancellorship, and even clammier days ahead.
Anne McElvoy is co-host of POLITICO’s Politics at Sam and Anne’s podcast
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