The German chancellor stood by her defence minister – and the door to his return is open, writes DEREK SCALLY
THE FROWNING folds around Angela Merkel’s mouth were more pronounced than usual yesterday afternoon.
With “sadness and a heavy heart”, she accepted the surprise resignation of Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. And to make clear her expression of regret was no empty cliché, she repeated it.
“I respect his decision which, as with many people in the country, saddens me,” Merkel said, attempting to salvage something from a situation that had gone beyond her control.
Like a large section of the German population – not to mention her own Christian Democrats (CDU) – Merkel had high hopes for the smart young Bavarian baron.
Three years ago she spotted his potential when he was general secretary of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU). In record time she promoted him to her cabinet, first as a late replacement economics minister, then to defence.
It was a sign of his political importance to her that when the clouds began to gather, Merkel took the uncharacteristic step of going out on a limb to defend him.
Although herself an academic by training, she dismissed concerns over his thesis, saying she had hired him as “defence minister and not as academic research assistant”.
Her intervention blew up in her face when more than 10,000 German academics signed a petition, handed into her office on Monday, complaining she and her government were trivialising plagiarism and academic fraud.
After 10 days of negative newspaper headlines and poisonous editorials, this revolt by mild-mannered academics, apparently provoked by Merkel, caused the minister to lose his nerve.
Zu Guttenberg almost survived: with polls showing his public popularity undimmed by the thesis scandal, Merkel was counting on the young minister to help keep afloat her less-than-stellar second administration.
Now her prize pony has bolted, the shocked Christian Democratic Union leader is left holding the stable door as her party faces a series of crucial state elections.
“Merkel understands the logic of power and held to him for that reason,” said Prof Volker Kronenberg, political scientist at the University of Bonn. “But in a few weeks time, if the regional elections go badly, the critics in the party will begin to spread doubt about her political instincts.”
Political observers say the resignation will have little effect on Merkel’s position in the upcoming euro zone reform negotiations.
“It doesn’t make the situation easier for her, but he was a figure of sympathy in the area of Afghanistan and army reform,” said Dr Ulrike Guérot, Berlin head of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
“He wasn’t really a player in the European discussion.”
Nevertheless, with zu Guttenberg’s departure, Merkel has lost out on a modern political phenomenon she helped create.
“Today was not our last personal conversation,” Merkel said yesterday, giving television cameras a steely gaze. “I’m convinced that we will have an opportunity for co-operation in the future.” It was the defiant sound of a door being left open.