School of Politics, International Relations and the Environment (SPIRE), Keele University, UK

Transcription

1 European Journal of Political Research 41: , Germany THOMAS POGUNTKE School of Politics, International Relations and the Environment (SPIRE), Keele University, UK Issues in national politics The government did not exactly get a smooth start into the new year as two ministers had to resign over their handling of the BSE crisis. As a result, the co-party leader of the Greens, Renate Künast, took over the revamped agricultural ministry which now includes consumer protection, while the Social Democrats assumed the leadership in one of their core competencies (i.e., health policy). Soon afterwards, Green Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer found himself implicated in a major public controversy over his past as a violent street fighter active in the Frankfurt squatter movement. While this had always been public knowledge, the publication of photographs depicting Fischer attacking a policeman once again underlined the power of visualization. In the end, however, public debate subsided without any consequences. Politically more damaging were violent conflicts in March over the first transport of nuclear waste under the red-green government, which found Green politicians at loggerheads with local anti-nuclear protesters. Early 2001 proved more benign to the scandal-battered Christian Democrats. The DM41 million fine imposed by the President of the Bundestag for submitting an incorrect financial report (see the entry for Germany in Political Data Yearbook 2000) was quashed by a German court who ruled that the party could not be penalized for submitting false figures as long as it submitted a formally correct report (sic). In addition, a criminal investigation into former Chancellor Helmut Kohl s involvement in the finance scandal was discontinued in exchange for his paying a fine. Electoral politics were particularly volatile in the 2001 Land elections. Other than the continuous decline of the Greens, election results were very diverse and clearly influenced by Land politics. In March, the incumbent CDU/FDP government of Baden-Württemberg and the SPD/FDP government of Rhineland-Palatinate were returned to office. The Hamburg election of late September led to a political earthquake when a newly founded right- Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

2 960 thomas poguntke Table 1. Cabinet composition For the composition of Schröder I on 1 January 2001, see Political Data Yearbook 2000: Changes during 2001: The Minister of Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry/Bundesminister für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Forsten became, from 22 January 2001, the Minister of Consumer Protection, Nutrition and Agriculture/Bundesministerin für Verbraucherschutz, Ernährung und Landwirtschaft: Karl-Heinz Funke (1946 male, SPD) resigned 9 January 2001 and was replaced by Renate Künast (1955 female, Greens) on 12 January The Minister of Health/Bundesministerin für Gesundheit: Andrea Fischer (1960 female, Greens) resigned 9 January 2001 and was replaced by Ulla Schmidt (1949 female, SPD) on 18 January wing populist party led by Ronald Schill gained 19.4 per cent of the vote through campaigning on a law and order platform. The party joined a threeparty coalition government in early 2002 with the CDU and the Liberals, which removed the Social Democrats from power after 44 years in office. In October, the Berlin CDU lost 17 per cent of the vote after the collapse of the grand coalition over a major financial scandal. Earlier in the year, it had become apparent that a publicly owned bank had run up losses that were seriously endangering the financial viability of the entire Land of Berlin. Despite Chancellor Schröder s outspoken preference for a coalition including Liberals and Greens, the Social Democrats eventually agreed with the post-communist PDS to form a coalition government. In May the federal government succeeded in getting a major pension reform approved by the Bundesrat. In reaction to the demographic problems of an aging population, the reform supplements the state pension system with a private pension scheme for which tax relief is available. Another major government project was the reform of immigration legislation, which continued to be intensely debated throughout much of the year without reaching a conclusion in In August, the government had to concede that it would not reach the target it had announced when taking office of reducing unemployment to 3.5 million. Unsurprisingly, in the year of the attack on the Twin Towers in New York City, much of the second half of 2001 was dominated by foreign and military policy. Already in June, the government got an early warning when a Bundestag motion to send troops to Macedonia to collect weapons from Albanian rebels was only approved because a substantial part of the opposition voted with the government. While this was considered a major defeat for the

3 germany 961 Table 2. Changes in the composition of the Bundesrat (upper house) A. Composition of Land governments on 1 January 2001: Number Composition of Land of votes government 1 New governments in Baden-Württemberg 6 CDU/FDP 13 June 2001: CDU/FDP Bavaria 6 CSU Berlin 4 CDU/SPD 16 June 2001: SPD/G 3 Brandenburg 4 SPD/CDU Bremen 3 SPD/CDU Hamburg 3 SPD/G 31 October 2001: CDU/FDP/PRO 4 Hesse 5 CDU/FDP Lower Saxony 6 SPD Mecklenburg-West 3 SPD/PDS Pommerania North Rhine-Westphalia 6 SPD/G Rhineland-Palatinate 4 SPD/FDP 18 May 2001: SPD/FDP Saarland 3 CDU Saxony 4 CDU Saxony-Anhalt 4 SPD 5 Schleswig-Holstein 4 SPD/G Thuringia 4 CDU/SPD B. Voting strength in the Bundesrat on 1 January 2001 and 31 December 2001: Date of change Number of votes 1 January October 2001 Government Mixed Opposition Party abbreviations are as follows: SPD: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands Social Democrats; CDU: Christlich Demokratische Union Christian Democratic Union; CSU: Christlich Soziale Union Christian Social Union; FDP: Freie Demokratische Partei Free Democrats; G: Bündnis 90/Die Grünen Alliance 90/Greens (short name: Greens); PDS: Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus Party of Democratic Socialism; PRO: Partei Rechtsstaatlicher Offensive Party of Rule of Law Offensive. 2 This column lists the dates of investiture of all new governments in order to provide a complete overview of the governmental effects of Land elections. In cases where a change of government occurred without a previous election, this will be annotated. The first party is always the party of the Prime Minister. 3 Interim government after collapse of the CDU/SPD coalition; needed the support of the PDS to get into office. 4 PRO is a new party founded by Ronald Schill, a rightwing populist judge, which has campaigned on law and order issues and gained 19.4 per cent of the vote. The party is highly unlikely to support red-green policies, which means that the Hamburg government is assigned to the opposition camp when voting strength in the Bundesrat is calculated. 5 The government needs the parliamentary support of the PDS.

4 962 thomas poguntke Christian Democratic parliamentary leadership, who had failed to devise a coherent opposition strategy, it clearly indicated that the government could not fully rely upon its own ranks in foreign and military policy. This became fully apparent in the aftermath of 11 September. While Chancellor Schröder assured the United States of his government s unreserved solidarity, not all coalition Members of Parliament were prepared to follow suit. A highly dramatic phase in German politics was initiated by the United States request for German military support for the war in Afghanistan, which needed to be approved by the Bundestag. Initially, the government seemed not overly concerned about the threat of some dissenting votes from its own ranks. However, when it became clear that a growing number of Green and SPD Members of Parliament would refuse to back the government, the pressure on the dissidents grew. The government was under growing pressure itself because it had become increasingly unlikely that it would be able to rely on votes from the opposition parties (which had rescued the government from defeat over the Macedonia mission earlier in the year). Arguably, it did nothing to strengthen the government s position that it had initially asked for a rather generous mandate that did little to define clearly the time and geographical space of the military involvement (the mandate was defined more narrowly during the ensuing negotiations with Parliament). As dissent in both coalition parties grew, Green Foreign Minister Fischer threatened to resign and Chancellor Schröder tied the Bundestag decision to a vote of confidence for the government, which the government won with a majority of three votes on 16 November. In the event, the SPD had closed ranks but lost one Member of Parliament who resigned from the parliamentary party. The Greens, however, reached a questionable compromise with their dissidents and agreed that some of them would vote for the government in order to prevent the end of the coalition, while at the same time making it public that they voted against their convictions. Arguably, the government benefited from the military breakthrough in Afghanistan immediately before the decisive vote in the Bundestag, which made German involvement in combat seem less likely. The events of 11 September led to substantial tightening of domestic security legislation, not least because it quickly became known that a substantial portion of the terrorists had lived in Germany previously. From November onwards, the debate between CDU and CSU over the Chancellor candidature gained momentum, particularly after CDU leader Angela Merkel had made her claim explicit. Other major events include the election of Claudia Roth as Green Party co-leader in March and of Guido Westerwelle as FDP chairman in May. In January, the federal government applied to the Constitutional Court for a ban on the extreme right-wing National Democratic Party (NPD); on 15

5 germany 963 December the Bundestag passed legislation on phasing out nuclear energy production in Germany (see the Germany entry in Political Data Yearbook 2000). Sources Publications: Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, Mannheim issues reports on all Land, Bundestag and European elections. Data on cabinet reshuffles and the composition of the Bundestag can be obtained from Deutscher Bundestag, Parlamentsarchiv and Bundespresseamt. Data on Land governments can be obtained from the press offices of the respective Land governments. On the Internet: Land governments, Bundesrat, federal agencies: Federal Parliament, parliamentary parties, political parties: Federal government: Official election statistics: Federal state governments: Bundesrat: