The Irish Times view on Germany’s election

The drawn-out farewell to Angela Merkel is set to go on and on after a general election that has deposed her Christian Democrat party (CDU) as the largest in the Bundestag in favour of the Social Democrats (SPD). Months of coalition talks are now in prospect and, in the interim, Merkel’s 16-year chancellorship will continue, with the woman who has been spoken of as the real leader of Europe continuing to head a caretaker government.

Although she was bowing out, the election – the most unpredictable in memory – was in essence all about her widely admired legacy. It was the first time since the second World War that an incumbent chancellor did not run for re-election and up to two in five voters professed themselves undecided right up to election day. Even her likely successor, SPD leader Olaf Scholz, finance minister in the outgoing coalition, pitched himself to voters as the closest thing to another Merkel, the epitome of continuity.

With the result in the bag, however, he characterised his party’s remarkable resurrection from near oblivion, up 53 seats with 25.7 per cent of the vote, in different terms: “People want a change in government and that the next chancellor of this country is Olaf Scholz”. Social democratic parties throughout Europe, battered over the last few years by populist tides, will see the result as a harbinger of renewal.

The CDU, under Armin Laschet, suffered the worst result in its history, managing just 24.1 per cent of the vote (down almost nine points from 2017), a loss also of around 900,000 voters to the Green party and 340,000 to the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP).

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The potential coalition permutations are bewildering and negotiations are likely to be lengthy. But the SPD will launch into discussions with the FDP and the more willing Greens to agree a common platform – their so-called “traffic light” coalition would have 416 seats, a comfortable majority. But the CDU is also able to muster a less likely majority if it can sell them a more palatable platform.

European capitals will watch the process with interest and some concern. FDP leader Christian Lindner has set his sights on securing the finance ministry, a post that would allow him to control the purse strings in any new high-spending government. Is that a price other coalition partners would be willing to pay? Unlike the SPD, Greens and CDU, he has also vigorously opposed closer European fiscal integration, specifically permanent EU capacity to borrow and issue bonds, and any loosening of member states’ fiscal rules.

In a different context former Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski said a decade ago that “I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear its inactivity”. Foot-dragging by Berlin on fiscal union will not be welcome by European allies.