In Germany, everything has become some sort of Wende, or turning point, these days. So much so that the concept risks getting lost in the modern buzzword jungle while alienating many Germans, bewildered at the sharp policy turns.
The original German Wende, the “peaceful revolution” in East Germany, was magnificent. Overseen by then-chancellor Helmut Kohl, a divided Germany transformed into a unified country that would go on to become the world’s fourth-largest economy.
Thirty years later, however, the term took on new meaning.
“We are experiencing a Zeitenwende,” said Kohl’s successor, Olaf Scholz, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This change of status quo rang a momentous shift in German politics as the Greens began pushing for arms exports and fast-tracking gas import terminals.
Nowadays, Berlin is awash with all kinds of Wenden. From the energy sector to business, everything is in a state of Wende.
Industry bosses have pitched a Zukunftswende to make the country fitter for business, while Finance Minister Christian Lindner speaks of a mindset Wende (as in, work longer hours, sheeple).
The inflation of different Wende concepts reflects two things: That people love their buzzwords and political communicators even more so. But also that we have the misfortune to live in interesting times of great change.
After all, one Wende is a sharp turn away from the status quo. Many become a political centrifuge of sorts, where only the toughest remain at the centre. But increasingly, voters don’t enjoy feeling like they’re in a centrifuge.
Nothing illustrated this as much as the political meltdown that accompanied the government’s plan to ban new fossil heaters from 2024 – they called it heating-Wende.
Voters, opposition, and Lindner’s business-friendly FDP lashed out at the plan, acting surprised – although it had been agreed long ago. Appetite for change is at an all-time low.
“Society is pushing outwards, [people are] polarising,” Wolfgang Merkel, a renowned political scientist residing in Germany, noted during a talk show on public broadcaster ARD on Sunday (18 June).
Almost like a centrifuge. Wending, and wending, faster and faster, pushing more and more people to the extremes.
And with the many, many such policies being peddled in Germany (at least 15 are in progress) and the many sharp turns in policy, voters feel increasingly disenfranchised and left behind.
How else could one explain the surge in support for the anti-establishment far-right?
The Alternative for Germany, a party that clings to the status quo like a shipwrecked man clings to a raft, is sitting comfortably at 20% in various recent polls. In Eastern Germany, the party has become the top dog at upwards of 30% voter support.
Make no mistake, as one of the world’s leading nations, Germany must face the manifold crises bearing down on our species – great power conflict looms, and an even more serious climate crisis is imminent.
But democracies are fragile, and already, German politics has become a picture of trench warfare unthinkable during the times when Angela Merkel governed.
The government in Berlin is walking a very fine line between turning sharp enough to face the crises it faces, and turning mildly enough to keep on board the people it must govern.
Otherwise, failing to find the right balance, it’ll Wende into a political iceberg.
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The Roundup
President Joe Biden said on Monday (19 June) the threat of Russian President Vladimir Putin using tactical nuclear weapons is “real”, days after denouncing Russia’s deployment of such weapons in Belarus.
The biggest group in the European Parliament, the centre-right European People’s Party, has recently adopted a more aggressive approach towards key legislative proposals, upsetting some of its lawmakers and putting the balance of the EU’s legislative machine at risk.
The European Commission is pushing for certain kinds of gene-edited plants to be treated as conventionally produced plants, according to a leaked draft of the EU executive’s upcoming proposal, garnering mixed reactions from stakeholders.
Ukraine said on Monday (19 June) that Hungary has been ignoring requests for contact with prisoners of war that Kyiv said had been secretly transferred from Russia and called the move an act of self interest on Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s side.
The EU’s 27 energy ministers could not agree on extending state aid to investments in existing nuclear assets when they met on Monday (19 June), with Germany, Austria and Luxembourg warning this will heavily benefit France and distort the EU’s internal market.
It is a mistake to frame the green transition through the lens of right vs. left, according to Spain’s Agriculture Minister Luis Planas, who stressed the need to engage farmers in the process in an interview ahead of Spain’s turn at the helm of the rotating EU Council Presidency.
Look out for…
- Vice President Frans Timmermans participates in “A Transatlantic Conversation: Climate and Security” with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday.
- Commissioner Ylva Johansson participates in ministerial meeting between EU and US on justice and home affairs in Stockholm on Tuesday and Wednesday.
- Commissioner Vladis Dombrovskis participates in Ukraine Recovery Conference in London on Wednesday.
- Informal meeting of General Affairs Council on Wednesday-Thursday.
Views are the author’s
[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic/ Alice Taylor]
Source: euractiv.com
