Internationally, she is renowned as the leader of Europe who seemingly single-handedly rehabilitated Germany’s international reputation by welcoming refugees with the catchphrase “we can do it”. With electoral pressure building, however, she publicly distanced herself from this stance as the CDU/CSU party faithful sent back the message that they were not so sure.
Now, by accepting their demand for a Bundestag vote, she has outflanked Martin Schulz’s Social Democrats by securing the passage of marriage equality as one of her government’s achievements, despite openly voting against it herself. The issue has been effectively neutralised.
Before marriage equality had arisen as an issue, Merkel had also done the same with immigration and the hot-button issue of asylum seekers. As one report put it, Merkel’s “summer of welcome” that saw asylum seekers march across Europe to reach the safe-haven of Germany has been followed by a long winter of conservative base-pleasing changes to the country’s political asylum laws. These have made it much tougher to successfully claim refugee status and much easier for unsuccessful asylum seekers to be deported to countries such as Afghanistan. [...]
When called on by the press to explain her vote, Merkel again avoided emotive discussion or the appearance of deeply felt conviction. She said simply that the measure did not, to her mind, conform to Article Six of Germany’s constitutional protection of marriage. [...]
With recent polls placing the CDU vote at 40%, and the SPD languishing on 23% (with the AfD slumping to 7%), Merkel is looking comfortable. Barring the unforeseen, Merkel seems likely to win her fourth election victory looking like a centrist, in coalition with social democrats, but governing as a conservative.
No comments:
Post a Comment