Greens could yet get into bed with Merkel as old certainties fade in a changed Germany

GERMANY’S OPPOSITION Green Party would be “stupid” not to enter coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel if the opportunity presented itself, according to party leader Cem Özdemir.

His assertion, to foreign correspondents in Berlin, reflects a cold reality of German politics in 2012: no old certainties apply.

The opposition have failed to capitalise on the two-year crisis, while Dr Merkel’s Christian Democrat (CDU)-led government has extracted no political profit from Germany’s boom.

Perplexed political leaders, running the poll numbers ahead of next year’s general election, increasingly acknowledge that the once staid world of German politics is now a swinger party, where nearly everyone is open to new couplings.

The Green Party, for instance, sees its support solid at about the 15 per cent mark.

Its traditional allies, the Social Democrats (SPD), however, are 12 points off their 1998 winning tally, and stuck at 29 per cent or less.

After a Red-Green near-miss in last year’s Berlin state elections, the Greens are taking nothing for granted in the months ahead.

“If it doesn’t work for Red-Green we’d be stupid to rule out the CDU in 2013. We should tackle the issue pragmatically, rather than ideologically,” said Mr Özdemir.

Firmly rooted in the Greens’ pragmatist camp, the 46-year-old son of a Turkish migrant is a tantalising political ally for the eminently pragmatic Dr Merkel.

With her Free Democrat (FDP) coalition partner down from nearly 15 per cent in 2009 to just 2 per cent, Dr Merkel has to make contingency plans.

A second CDU-SPD grand coalition is said to be her favoured option, but a Green alliance holds its attractions, too.

After three decades at opposite ends of the political spectrum, the gap between the two parties has largely closed. The CDU jettisoned nuclear energy last year, clearing away a major point of contention, while today’s Green Party leaders are more mainstream and power-conscious than ever before.

The chancellor’s more pressing problem, though, is why the German economy is flying yet her CDU party, steady in the polls, is getting none of the credit.

“The old certainty that a boom helps a government and a downturn hurts no longer applies,” said Peter Matuschek, analyst with Germany’s Forsa polling agency. “Germans voters see that, in a complex world economy, there isn’t a direct connection. Governments have limited economic influence.”

Beyond that, the CDU is focusing its energies on the eurozone debate, with officials “firmly convinced” they can link future bailouts to tighter budget rules and austerity. That will help sell the deal to doubting deputies and their voters and, CDU leaders hope, neutralise the eurosceptic edge to Germany’s bailout debate.

“We have a European consensus in Germany now that hasn’t been as strong for 20 years,” said Peter Altmaier, CDU Bundestag floor leader. Looking ahead to 2012, he says the financial transaction tax “will be the question that dominates the political debate” in Germany.

The junior coalition partner, the FDP, shares Irish concerns that introducing the tax just in the eurozone will create unfair competition. It is determined to seize the tax debate to expose confusion, divisions and mixed views within the CDU.

“You can’t hold out one hand to the markets and use the other hand to slap them with a tax,” said a senior FDP official. “And worse: you can’t be concerned about capital flows and risk a capital flow bottleneck. We can’t do anything to make refinancing for troubled countries any more difficult.”

Despite internal party difficulties, the FDP hope its pro-business, low-tax policies will appeal in this year’s forecast economic slowdown – assuming voters still react that way.

Curiously, neither the centre-left SPD nor the critics of capitalism in the Left Party have been able to capitalise on a historic economic crisis.

The SPD can land no blows on Dr Merkel, particularly as 63 per cent of Germans are happy with her work.

With lacklustre leaders, the Left Party is stuck at 7 per cent in polls. Alarmed, ex-leader Oskar Lafontaine, after retiring for cancer treatment, is plotting his return – which means 2012 is going to be lively.