Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Issue No. 30 - Evidence - Meeting of September 28, 2017
OTTAWA, Thursday, September 28, 2017
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met this day at 10:35 a.m. to study on foreign relations and international trade generally.
Senator A. Raynell Andreychuk (Chair) in the chair.
The Chair: The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade is studying today under its reference of foreign relations and international trade generally.
We are particularly interested in an update on the 2017 German federal election that was just held. Germany is a close partner with Canada. We have linkages in NATO. We have recently signed the CETA. We have a large diaspora and much trade, so Germany is pivotal in the European context and in our bilateral relationship.
We thought it would be timely to receive an update from those who follow Germany intensely.
We are very pleased, on very short notice, that we have two witnesses who will give us some of their perspectives in a broad way and then we can turn to questions.
We don’t read out your biographies as they would take too long, but they have been circulated. We’re acquainted with your background and expertise, and we’re pleased that you have come to be before us.
We have with us Daniel Stockemer, Associate Professor, School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa, and Achim Hurrelmann, Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Carleton University.
There seems to be a good balance of associate professors from the two universities here. I’m sure we’ll see some similarities and perhaps some differences in your perspectives on the election and what it might mean for Germany and, in a larger, broader context, for Canada.
Welcome to the committee. I will turn to the first witness, Mr. Stockemer, to make some opening remarks. I will then turn to our second witness and then proceed to questions.
Welcome to the committee.
Daniel Stockemer, Associate Professor, School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa, as an individual: Thank you very much. We decided I would talk mostly about the election result and Professor Hurrelmann will talk mostly about the consequences for Europe and for transatlantic relations.
I want to start on an optimistic note. This is the first time that turnout actually increased by close to 5 per cent. It was an election that triggered a lot of interest and a lot of participation compared to the previous election. I will come back to that later. When we look at where the non-voters went it might be less positive, but keep this in mind.
First, I have some general remarks. The elections were fore and utmost characterized such that the two big parties, the CDU and the SPD, the Social Democratic Party, both lost. For the SPD it was the worst performance in its history. For the CDU they lost nearly 9 per cent. The two main parties, which before had over 65 per cent of the vote now have only 52 per cent. All small parties won in votes, especially two parties, the Liberal, the centre party, and the radical right-wing party, the AfD. It is the first time in post-World War II history that a radical right-wing party made it into parliament.
I will talk quickly about the options for a coalition. For coalitions, there are only two reasonable options. One would be to continue the current coalition, but it’s very unlikely despite the fact that Angela Merkel said she would like to continue or at least talk to the SPD. The SPD has decided to become the official opposition.
The other option would be a so-called Jamaica coalition. A Jamaica coalition is a coalition between the conservatives, the CDU/CSU, the green party and the liberals. I think it’s relatively likely that this coalition will happen but it’s three parties or four parties, if we take the social part into account.
Senator Eaton: The liberals are what initials?
Mr. Stockemer: The FDP, and the green party is called Grüne, and then we have the CDU as the conservative party. This is probably the likely coalition, but it will be tough coalition talks because on some issues there might be some clashes but it looks like it could materialize.
What’s also very important when we look at this election is that it’s the first time a radical right-wing party made it to parliament. It was quite a tremendous amount of votes. They gained nearly 13 per cent of the vote and over 20 per cent in the east. They got 21.5 per cent of the votes in the east. If we look at the electoral map, the further east we go, the more votes they get. In three districts in the far east they even won the majority of votes.
This is preoccupying. Also, when we look at vote switching, who are the voters of this new radical right-wing party? Again, of some note about this party, the party was formed in 2012 an anti-European party against the bailouts. Now the party transformed into a radical right-wing party. The main tenets are populism, stirring up fears of others, anti-immigration and anti-Islam.
The campaign was geared toward security and the idea that people don’t feel secure in Germany anymore. They used strong images and words. For example, “Instead of burkas we want by bikinis”, or they held up a picture where they showed an immigrant boat travelling the Mediterranean and then said, “Refugees? Another group of criminals rather.” They really captured this vote with this populism anti-campaign.
What did they do? They mobilized a lot of non-voters. Part of the turnout increase of 4.5 per cent is due to the fact that this new party could gain 1.6 million people that haven’t voted before. The other big chunk of voters came from the Christian Democrats, from Angela Merkel’s party, and probably from people dissatisfied with the more middle ground politics Angela Merkel stands for and the fact that Angela Merkel is the chancellor that allowed all the refugees to come in.
Also topic-wise in the campaign, the refugees were an important topic. It also shows why this party could gain so much because any time the signature topic of the radical right is an important topic in the election normally the radical right does well.
The other big party that won a lot was the liberals. Most of their votes came from the Christian Democratic Party, which lost close to 9 per cent. A little more than a third went to the AfD and the other third went to the liberals.
As a last word, this time the German Bundestag will be bigger than ever before because we have a lot of what’s called Überhangmandate. That means to say they basically won every district but proportionately in the second tier they won comparatively little. That means the Bundestag will be very, very large.
I will now turn it over to Professor Hurrelmann.
Achim Hurrelmann, Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Carleton University, as an individual It’s a great honour for me to be here. I will try to pick up where my colleague left off, which is with the likely coalition. I prepared this figure for you with the strength of the various parties. What we can see is that there would be two options for government formation. Germany clearly has a tradition of coalition government, where minority governments are not considered a realistic option. We will now see the process of coalition formation and very likely this will lead to this so-called Jamaica coalition.
This will not be easy because, as I tried to portray on the second slide that I had distributed, the parties that will now negotiate with each other differ on a couple of important issues, mainly domestic issues. For instance, the two smaller parties, the Free Democratic Party, which is a liberal party, and the green party may have different opinions on issues such as environmental regulations, should there be deregulation, free markets as the FDP proposes, or should there be more regulation to bring about ecological modernization.
In these coalition talks there will also clearly be debate about refugee policy as an important dimension, where particularly the CSU, the Bavarian wing of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party, will be pushing for closing of borders and for fewer refugees to be admitted to Germany, while the other two parties, being more libertarian in its outlook, will insist on Germany fulfilling its international obligations to take refugees and will be sceptical of putting a cap on refugee admissions.
Nevertheless, in spite of these difficulties, I would assume and I would predict that such a coalition will be formed. Therefore in the remainder of my remarks I will focus on a few predictions of what this coalition and this new government might mean for the issues that I assume your committee will be interested in, such as foreign policy and international trade issues.
Before I begin, I want to mention briefly that foreign policy was a very subordinate issue in the election campaign. The only exception being the relationship with Turkey, where you might have followed that the German-Turkish relations are in really bad shape at the moment. All of the parties in the election campaign proposed to end the European Union accession process for Turkey. I will have a few more words to say about that, but that was the only foreign policy issue that really entered into the debate.
I have a couple of brief comments on issues of relevance to Canada. The first is trade. It’s important here to note that the manifesto of the green party states that the party opposes the ratification of CETA in its current form, as they say. This is a party that will likely enter the government. The question is whether this position will stand at the end of the coalition negotiations.
I do not expect this position to be acceptable to the other parties in the coalition talks, the CDU/CSU and FDP. I would expect the green party to compromise on this issue but it’s certainly something from a Canadian perspective that must be watched.
Also, as a side note, with a green party in government I would consider it very unlikely, even if I think CETA will probably go through, that the so-called TTIP agreement between the European Union and the United States will gain the support of a government with the green party in it.
On the issue of Russia, it was noted that the leader of the Free Democratic Party, the liberal party, Christian Lindner, gave an interview before the election in which he called for accepting the Crimea occupation as “a permanent provisional arrangement,” whatever that might be. His idea was that this issue should be bracketed to allow progress in the negotiations or in normalizing the relationship with Russia. This is a business friendly party and as you likely know there are lots of German business interests in Russia. What we will see from this party is an attempt to maybe ease the sanctions regimes. However, I want to note that these decisions will be made at the European Union level. I do not expect Germany, in any way, to break away from the European consensus which they have been working hard to organize.
With respect to Turkey, Turkey is upset with Germany primarily because Germany has been giving refugee status at least temporarily to a number of people who Turkey suspects to be involved in the coup from 2016. Turkey also sees Germany as being soft on the PKK, the Kurdish separatist party.
Turkey has responded by what Germany sees as arbitrarily arresting German citizens in Turkey. This has really soured the relationship. The end of the election season might be an opening for cooler heads to prevail, but I do not really see the underlying conflicts to be solvable in the short term. I think the relationships will remain poor and that’s important, obviously, in the context of NATO.
On the European Union, the entry of the Free Democratic Party, the liberal party, into government will likely be bad news for Emmanuel Macron, the French president’s proposal to create a finance minister for the Eurozone and a budget for the Eurozone because this liberal party has been very sceptical of financial transfers to the European Union, particularly to those countries in the EU that require bailouts.
There was some hope that after the election Germany would be more willing to accede to Emmanuel Macron’s proposals, but this will be more difficult with this Free Democratic Party in government.
At the same time, I want to note that the general German position in support of European integration is very unlikely to shift. Even the far right party did not campaign primarily against the European Union but, as my colleague mentioned, they focused on migration and refugee issues.
The last point I want to touch upon is refugee policy. In this respect I already briefly mentioned that the CSU in particular, the more conservative Bavarian wing of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party, will likely respond to the success of the far right by moving to more restrictive positions on refugee admission itself. This party has already in the past tried to demonstrate closeness to Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian Prime Minister who within the European Union is the standard bearer of “let’s close borders to refugees” kind of policy.
That means Germany will continue in the EU to advocate for deals with countries like Turkey and Libya to keep refugees out or to externalize refugee border controls, if you will.
It also means that Germany is unlikely in the EU to support tougher measures against illiberal tendencies in countries like Hungary or Poland.
Last word, other issues that you might be wondering about like Brexit, support for the Paris climate change accord, the Iranian nuclear deal and North Korea, on all of these issues I do not see any significant impact of the German election on Germany’s position. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you. You both have been very efficient in getting to the points.
I have one issue that either of you could clarify. You noted that the liberal party had put a position out on Crimea. One of the issues that has been tracked, not only in Germany but in elections in Europe, is the involvement of either the Russian government or forces within Russia providing perhaps financial support or other support in return for perhaps lifting sanctions and that approach.
Was there any data or information during the election or after that there was any involvement from the eastern flank?
Mr. Hurrelmann: Do you mean in terms of trying to influence the election?
The Chair: Yes, or pay for the parties. There were allegations all over the place. Have you followed any of that?
Mr. Stockemer: I don’t have any proof. I know for sure that Putin paid a lot for the campaign of Marine Le Pen in France. In Germany, there are rumours that they paid something for the AfD. That is not really confirmed, so I cannot say one way or the other. These rumours persist, but I don’t have any data to back this up.
Mr. Hurrelmann: I don’t have the impression, even if they tried, that it had a lot of impact on the election results. There were some reports on the election weekend of the election of lots of activities on twitter bots that were suspected to be linked to Russia, but only 2 per cent of the German population use twitter, so it sort of went into nowhere to some extent.
The Chair: What do we read into the fact that the far right party won the closer you got to the eastern flank?
Mr. Stockemer: There are two things. The closer you go to the eastern flank, those are the regions that are most weakened or have the most problems. These are the regions of highest unemployment, where a lot of young people leave to study in other parts of Germany in the west. These are also the regions without a lot of infrastructure. These are the regions where you can see the most left behind. It has to do with geography but also we can clearly see the worse-off regions within the states in the east where the support was the biggest.
There is a fringe or some part of the population who feel left behind, who feel relatively deprived of their social, political or economic situation. I have some statistics about the voters of the radical right, these dissatisfied people. They kind of fit the idea that men are more likely to vote. People who feel that their economic situation is not as good as it should be had a 23 per cent likelihood to vote. Of course, these people are much more present in some regions in the east than they are in the west, if we compare unemployment and other social factors. This fits the idea of typical radical right-wing voters, their being lower educated people who have a higher likelihood to vote for the radical right. This fits the idea of losers of modernization. Not everybody profits from this economic boom, from Germany being the well championed in exporting, but there are some people who feel left behind. A lot of that was present before, but the AfD mobilized among the constituency of non-voters. It’s also in part why there is a big increase in turnout.
The AfD managed to pick up these 10, 15, 20 per cent of the people. That’s pretty normal if you have dissatisfied people, but the AfD succeeded in attracting these people and making them vote for them. This can be good or bad for democracy. At least they are participating in the democratic process again, but probably bad because they voted for a party whose democratic credentials are at least questionable.
Senator Marwah: I don’t know who did this handout but it was very clear and very helpful. Thank you very much.
In referring to your comments, Mr. Hurrelmann. You alluded to basically the weakening of Merkel’s party and that it will be difficult with the coalition. What impact does it have on the financial risk to the EU? As you know, Germany has been the backbone behind bailouts to Greece and the other weaker EU countries. France just proposed greater fiscal integration within the EU. Do you think that dramatically eliminates that chance or increases the risk? Where does that go?
Mr. Hurrelmann: With this new government it will be unlikely that Germany will agree to a far-reaching Eurozone budget that a Eurozone finance minister could use to actively boost the economy, which is something that Emmanuel Macron has in mind.
I think that Angela Merkel realizes she needs to work with the French, with Macron. She will not flatly turn down that proposal. There will likely be a Eurozone finance minister, but the person’s powers and budget will likely be relatively limited because there will now be parties in the government, which compared to the previous partner, the Social Democrats, will be much less willing to devote German resources for joint European projects.
This will not affect the European stability mechanism that has been used to bail out countries such as Greece because that money has been committed. That money is there. Should the Eurozone crisis worsen again, which is not predicted, they would have the funds to help. The debate right now is more forward looking. Can there be resources for more active EU or Eurozone-wide economic policy? There, I think, Germany will remain with the foot on the brake.
Senator Eaton: Just to follow up on my colleague’s questions, Angela Merkel won’t turn down Emmanuel Macron. Will she still remain, not in good political terms, but the queen of the EU? Will she still be the most powerful person in Europe with these two parties perhaps making her do more compromises than she would have otherwise done?
Mr. Hurrelmann: Yes, she is likely more constrained, but at the same time I do think that Germany’s sheer economic power, the fact that it’s the largest member state, and the fact that she has been around for 12 years and knows it all, clearly means that Angela Merkel’s word will remain extremely influential in the European Union.
Senator Eaton: Her word will probably be the most influential in terms of the Brexit negotiations, what the EU will and what the EU won’t accept?
Mr. Hurrelmann: I mentioned briefly that I don’t think the election will have much of an impact on Brexit. The current stalemate on Brexit is primarily over procedural issues at the moment. The European Union 27 as they are called, or everyone except the U.K., wants to first settle what they call the divorce issues in terms of payments and so on, and then move to negotiating a transitional period and the future relationship.
This is an institutional interest of the European Union that has nothing to do with party politics. I think everyone who has the interests of the European Union in mind would agree that a sensible position from their perspective is to say, “Before we negotiate the future, let’s close the books and make sure we get the payments that the EU thinks they are still entitled to receive.”
There’s not much difference in opinion between Merkel and other European leaders on these issues, which is why the hopes of David Davis, the United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, are likely futile. He said before the election, “After the German election, the EU will become much more flexible.” I don’t see that at all because Brexit was not a topic in the election and the German position is in line with all the other member states. It is driven by institutional self-interest of the EU, not by any German domestic party politics.
Senator Eaton: One of the questions that was brought up with Brexit, which I think concerns Europe completely and Germany especially, is the open borders. It’s the free flow of people, which the English really object to. As you know, Turkey has a huge number of refugees, and isn’t Italy being swamped with refugees from northern Africa?
Mr. Hurrelmann: These are technically two different issues. One is for the free movement of EU citizens within the European Union. That’s a big issue within Brexit because the British want to end that, and the EU has said that can only happen if they leave the European single market.
The second issue is the refugee issue and you’re absolutely right that that issue has not been solved.
Senator Eaton: So they don’t have free movement. In other words, if I’m a refugee in Italy, I can’t walk into France or England.
Mr. Hurrelmann: The rules of the so-called Dublin Convention in the EU require a refugee to be processed in the first EU state that they set foot in, which is why Italy is so overwhelmed because often it is Italy. That convention is not applied correctly in all cases and has been set aside, but it’s still the general logic that this is how refugees should be treated. They do not profit from free movement of people because that is something restricted to EU citizens.
Senator Housakos: I have a couple of questions. How big an impact was the Brexit debate on this election? It didn’t seem to play the role that pundits thought it would during the campaign, and why would that be?
The other question is in regard to the clear economic dichotomy between northern EU states and southern EU states. How much of a role did that play in this German election? Is there any growing frustration with the German public in terms of their partners in the EU or the southern states who maybe they feel are not pulling their load in the EU project?
Mr. Stockemer: I would say neither issue played a role in the campaign.
Mr. Hurrelmann: I agree. Those were not big issues. There’s also not a lot of divergence between the parties, particularly on Brexit.
Senator Housakos: I’ve always found fascinating the patience of the German public with some of the southern European states. It’s a very interesting economic model that they’ve created in the EU and the Germans have benefited, initially I think, in it. They have created a model where they’ve benefited from the growing market in the EU. Simultaneously, in time, though we’ve seen some of the southern states, like Greece, Italy and others that have created a false buying market, the Germans lend or give money on one side and they sell products on the other side.
At some point the fundamentals of that economic model cannot sustain itself, in my humble opinion. In this German election I would have thought there would be a very significant debate on that issue, and for some reason it didn’t materialize. I find that perplexing from a North American point of view.
Mr. Hurrelmann: The reason is that the crisis has weakened in all of the Euro countries. The EU countries are back to growing economically. You know how short cycles of political interest are. We’ve moved on to different issues. I would agree that some of the underlying weaknesses of the whole Euro construction have not been addressed. Some have been in the reforms after the eurozone crisis. Macron’s proposal would be one sensible way of addressing the remaining issues and the danger of a crisis reoccurring.
The German Free Democrats and much of the CDU, however, have a different model in mind which essentially sees southern European countries becoming more German in how they run the economies, with a greater focus on austerity, competitiveness and so on. These two models, they still sit side by side, and it will be a big challenge for Merkel and Macron after the election to see where the eurozone is going and if there can be a compromise on how this might be sorted out.
Mr. Stockemer: Do you see the AfD, which was founded in 2012, as basically a Europe-critical party and that the main issue with Euro at the time was the bailout of the southern European states. They have switched their focus to anti-Islam and anti-immigration completely. Europe was a very minor issue. They used it to blame the EU for something that went wrong in German. Aside from that, even with the AfD, a party that’s only reason for being was European critical, switched in the campaign to a more general populist radical right-wing party.
During the campaign in Germany these European issues didn’t really bear out. Also, for the new government, we have to think about the two sides that pooled together as the green party. It is pro-European and very much in favour of having more redistribution. On the other side there are the Free Democrats that are kind of against or more for austerity and the German model.
We will have to see how this plays out in the coalition, but I’m not sure Germany’s position would be as stringent as Professor Hurrelmann said. You will have two poles in the coalition, kind of pulling in two different directions.
Senator Gold: Thank you very much for coming this morning. It has been fascinating. If I could widen the lens a little bit in some sense even beyond this election or the coalition that may emerge, can you speak to the impact of the voting patterns in Germany and the social trends on the cohesion and coherence of Europe in this very rapidly changing geopolitical context?
We have Russia as a major player, China, the United States, and who knows? What does this signal for Europe? I’m not talking so much about the European Union but Europe as a force in liberal democratic world view.
Mr. Stockemer: I would say it’s very unlikely that we see further integration, especially in the east. You didn’t mention it, but it’s unlikely that Poland or Hungary would go toward any further immigration. You might also see these countries might undermine some of the European roots in terms of justice. For Western Europe, despite the fact that the AfD was so strong I would rather see the populists slowly declining. We saw this in Austria with the presidential election. They also have an upcoming election.
I don’t see the radical right getting more than 35 or 40 per cent, hopefully. We saw in France where everybody was screaming there was a danger of Marine Le Pen becoming president, and she did much more poorly than was expected.
In the meantime, we saw it in the Netherlands where Geert Wilders did more poorly than everybody expected, so I don’t think we have an imminent populist threat. It has to do with the developments that you describe. People in Europe follow closely what happens in the U.S. and followed this chaos very closely. They followed what happened in Britain. The Brexit campaign was also very populist, partly founded on half-truths or lies. I see, especially in Western European countries, that the populist threat is not imminent.
That is also the case in Germany. Support for the European Union remains very high. We have an insignificant fringe of people who are dissatisfied. They are also possibly dissatisfied with the European Union, but I think the votes for these parties were not predominantly for European reasons, especially in Germany.
The danger comes more from Eastern Europe where these parties called the national conservative parties are in power. They try to undermine some of the European human rights regulations, for example. In Western Europe, especially after Brexit, the consensus has become stronger. There has been a kind of reunification at least for this specific issue. I don’t see an imminent danger for the European Union, but I also don’t see any further integration tendencies, at least not for all 27 or 28 countries.
Senator Gold: I take it, then, that one could not necessarily hope Europe will play a stronger role as a champion than the role it already does as a counterweight for liberal democratic values in a world which is increasingly being dominated by forces, whether in China or Russia, that I think one could safely say are anti-democratic.
Mr. Hurrelmann: To me, the big issue that the European Union is facing now is whether they agree or not to what is called differentiated integration in EU terminology, which means some member states go ahead where others don’t want to on issues such as strengthening the EU in the security and defence fields. In Germany, all of the parties in the likely new government have actually advocated for more differentiated integration. Germany would be one of the countries that would be willing to take the lead.
As mention, there are a number of Eastern European countries, such as Hungary and Poland, who do not want to go along with closer integration but also fear being left behind if they allow others to go forward. They are reluctant to agree to this idea of differentiated integration. The big issue will be whether there can somehow be a compromise at the European Union level that will allow those countries that want to do more together to do so. If that happens, then that would strengthen Europe on a variety of angles. If that’s not happening and there is significant opposition, I think your scenario is appropriate.
Senator Oh: Thank you, witnesses. My question for you is about the right-wing AfD having entered parliament in Germany for the first time, winning 12.6 per cent of the votes and more than 90 seats. Support for the AfD is particularly strong in Eastern Germany, which is home to Ms. Merkel’s constituency. It is also where almost 20 per cent of voters chose the AfD. The AfD drew an estimated one million voters away from Angela Merkel’s CDU.
Why did so many voters from the eastern side of her constituency choose the AfD? Was there a shift from economic issues to immigration toward the end of the election?
Mr. Stockemer: I would say yes and no. What we have to keep in mind is that politics works with fears and perceptions. These are also the regions where the fewest immigrants are, but they are the regions where the fear of immigration, the fear of losing out even more and the fear of possibly being left behind economically are highest. Traditionally, unemployment rates in Germany are between 5 and 6 per cent and there they are 12, 13, 14 or 15 per cent. These are also the most economically deprived regions. It’s not necessarily the unemployed but it is a fear of higher immigration.
There’s also less contact between natives and immigrants. Population-wise these are the regions that are more or less older and less educated and where infrastructure is not as good. These are the regions that are left behind or feel left behind, and it’s there where the vote share is highest. They blame Merkel and the other parties for not having done enough for these regions and then there comes this latent fear.
You also have to say that traditionally they have been more attuned. Think about 1992 and 1993, when we had an upswing of radical attacks against immigrants and refugees. They were also much stronger in the east. The latent anti-immigration attitudes have been stronger there for decades and they could pick them up.
Mr. Hurrelmann: I would agree with that. You asked whether there was more debate about refugees in the last few weeks of the campaign and yes, there was. It was the topic that Merkel had hoped for was gone. Obviously, the so-called refugee crisis, the big influx of refugees, happened in 2015. The topic is more or less under control in part because the European Union negotiated this deal with Turkey to close refugee movements from Turkey into Greece. The EU worked with countries such as Macedonia to close the so-called Balkan route, along which many of the refugees from Syria came to Hungary, Austria and then Germany.
The refugee topic is not a hot topic in policy terms because it has been addressed to a large extent, but the fears have lingered and the AfD managed to reignite this issue in the last weeks of the campaign, aided to some extent by Merkel’s strategy to try to avoid any substantive policy discussions in the campaign. Her strategy against the SPD was to try to be as vague as possible and avoid much content and campaign on a slogan that translates to saying Germany is a country where we like to live and live well, but it was possible for the far right to remind people of this refugee inflow and stoke the fears that Mr. Stockemer mentioned.
Senator Woo: I have a quick question and then a follow-up. What is the personal popularity of Mutti Angela these days, even after the disappointing election?
Mr. Hurrelmann: She’s one of the most popular politicians in the country.
Senator Woo: And still is?
Mr. Hurrelmann: She still is number four or five or something on the list ranking major politicians by popularity. She still possesses a large personal popularity which clearly reaches beyond supporters of her own party toward people who support the SPD, the Green and the Free Democratic parties. She’s personally very unpopular with the far right, but they are the only ones who intensely dislike her.
Senator Woo: Both parts of your answer give me some optimism. I want to offer a scenario that’s probably naively optimistic, but builds on some of the analysis you put forward. The AfD had to pivot from an anti-Europe position to more of an anti-refugee and anti-immigration position in order to win votes and to be as successful as it was in the recent election. They could do so because the memory of the one million refugees is still quite fresh. However hard Mother Angela tried to take that topic off the table, it’s still fresh in everyone’s minds. You cannot take that away, but that will diminish. Surely that will diminish.
The question, then, is whether the AfD will be then be able to pivot back or pivot to something else in order to gain the 12, 13, 14 or 15 per cent support that they had. It’s not clear to me there is a veil that they can pivot to. Do you share my maybe naive optimism about this scenario?
Mr. Hurrelmann: That’s a big question. I would personally be more pessimistic. I think a taboo has been broken, a taboo against far-right parties in the Bundestag. I would be concerned that they will always find someone to mobilize against or something to stoke fears with. I don’t think they will necessarily stay at 13 per cent. The party is internally super-divided; for instance, the leader has now left the party. They are not very convincing, but neither were they very convincing before the election. Many people just voted for them out of frustration.
I fear that they are likely there to stay, maybe not at this level but maybe a little lower. I think the door has been opened and it will be difficult to close again.
Mr. Stockemer: I agree and disagree. I think we don’t know because, on the one hand, in electoral research we say that after you’re voted three times for a party in subsequent elections you become what’s called a habitual voter. After that time it’s very difficult for another party to change your opinion. Since the party has not been around long, having been founded in 2012, and since there were only two elections, the regional election and the state election, we don’t know what will happen with these voters.
Also, these parties are anti-parties. They’re anti-immigration, anti-Islam, anti-Europe and anti-elite. Name them; they’re anti-parties. People that are dissatisfied might find these anti-methods, whatever it is, attractive. To come back to the refugees, I think you’re right that it is fresh in their minds. The fears have been stirred perpetually because, if we think about it, every half-year there’s kind of a terrorist attack and some of them were committed by refugees or former refugees. Then we have had instances of rape, mass rape and murders committed. I would say single instances, but instances strongly reported by the media. People are reminded from time to time. It also depends a little bit on what happens on the ground. If these attacks continue for the next five years, the topic will also continue.
It’s not the actual numbers that matter; it’s the fear. It’s very hard to predict what will happen with these fears. These fears can only be slowed down if there’s nothing more happening on the ground. Even if no immigrants come in now and we have a continuation of crimes, attacks, they might be single instances but they might keep the topic alive.
Senator Cordy: Senator Woo asked a question that I was going to ask. Is it a trend or was it a protest vote? We’ve seen the populist movement in the United States and now in Germany, which to me is a bit unsettling. You’re right that here can always be an anti-party. People say that parties are voted out.
Mr. Stockemer: Even the multi-party system, I would say, can be healthy because it kind of makes the mainstream democratic parties always be alert and always renovate. I think 13 per cent is definitely too high, but if you’re a fringe party is 5 to 7 per cent, it can be helpful. We not only we need consensus. We also need to give a voice, even if it’s a voice we don’t want to hear, to those who are dissatisfied.
Senator Cordy: True.
My next question is: I’m struck with the comment that Turkey is very upset with Germany because they are allowing Germany to be a safe haven for those who are escaping from the coup in Turkey. I happened to be in Turkey last fall, shortly after the coup. At each of our meetings, we had a high level minister talking to us about the coup and what a wonderful job President Erdogan had done in stopping the coup. He got the people out on the streets. High numbers of people were arrested within a short period of time.
They were the public meetings, but in the side meetings and discussions with many political people from other countries in Europe they felt that the coup actually was initiated with Erdogan because the numbers of people were arrested so quickly. They were high level military people who were against Erdogan. They were high level judges who made rulings against Erdogan. They were sort of side discussions the people had.
What is the feeling in Europe? This is a little bit off from Germany, but clearly Germany is supportive of those who are escaping from Turkey. What is the sense in Europe about the coup and who actually orchestrated the coup?
Mr. Hurrelmann: I don’t want to speculate about that. I know that there are these speculations. I have no insight on it. What is the debate about this in Europe? I think these debates are being conducted in Europe and, of course, the debate about what to do about Turkey. Turkey is still formally a country that is negotiating accession with the European Union, but these negotiations are not really going anywhere, in part because of the problematic human rights situation, in part because of conflict with Greece and Cyprus, and all of that. When Germany, clearly stoked by the election campaign, requested in August that the EU formally declare an end to the accession process, the majority of member states objected to that because they feel that it’s still beneficial to keep these talks going in order to keep a line of communication to the Turkish government open.
I don’t know many people who think that Turkey will, in the medium term, become a member of the European Union. These talks are a little bit of a facade to keep lines of communication and to not be the one to blame for breaking them off. I think that would be my assessment of the situation there.
Mr. Stockemer: Within the German population, there’s a very negative attitude right now toward Turkey, much more negative than in the political sphere.
Senator Bovey: Thank you for very interesting presentations. Much of my question has been asked, so I just want to ask you to dig a little deeper, if you can, on what you think the results of the election will be in terms of relationships with the United States and even Canada, as we work on NAFTA.
Mr. Hurrelmann: I don’t think there will be any major change to the relationship, both with the United States and with Canada. With respect to Canada, all I hear from the German diplomats and politicians I have to chance to talk to os that they think the relationship is excellent. They emphasize common values. They seem to be even more keen to emphasize that now that Donald Trump is President of the United States, which is also, by the way, one of the reasons why I would not be overly concerned that CETA will be in danger because of this new government.
With respect to the United States, there’s lots of skepticism in the German population. Trump is very unpopular. Professor Stockemer mentioned that that might actually even have helped to prevent the far right from being even stronger. But, at the same time, there’s, of course, lots of economic interest and also political interest in making this relationship work the best that we can with this new administration. I don’t see any change from the current government to any future government in that general line. Remain friendly with Trump, keep talking, and hopefully convince him to change his mind on issues such as the Paris climate change accord. Certainly, the NAFTA negotiations are being observed because it gives a signal on the general willingness of the U.S. administration to engage in trade deals at all, but I do not see any prospects for the TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, because in Europe there’s lots of opposition now and Trump, obviously, isn’t very enthusiastic.
Mr. Stockemer: Just to add, I also see that the population is very critical. The politicians do not reflect what the population thinks.
It’s not only in Germany but in general. Trump is seen as an idiot, and I think this is shared by a large majority. I’m not sure if at some point there is enough pressure or if it is possible to be tougher on him. It’s similar to Turkey. Officially, we try to remain on good relations. However, within the population the picture of the U.S. is completely changed from Obama to Trump. It’s like a 360.
The Chair: I want to go back to the eastern part and the voting. When the east and west combined, there were promises made to the east, and certainly there was a catch-up. A lot of money was put in and then there was a pushback from the west saying, “Our money is floating that way.”
How much resentment is there in the east that they’re being left behind? Some factories like in Dresden are shut down; they’re empty. It’s unusual. Let’s put it that way.
When you say there’s discontent, is it tied at all to that reunification, or is it now symptomatic of “I don’t have a job.” Are they not saying they didn’t get a fair deal?
Mr. Stockemer: What you say is not exclusive. They are both, yes. There were promises made by Chancellor Kohl at the time that it would not take a long time. He called it in German:
[Editor’s note: German spoken].
They are flowering areas. Unfortunately, living standards are not the same yet. Economic conditions are not the same yet. It is one generation or even a little more, and it is not equal.
Of course, this helps trigger feelings of dissatisfaction. They have been promised something that they haven’t been kept for nearly 25-30 years. This is part of the dissatisfaction, especially for those who stayed. We have seen a lot of young people move to the west and, of course, those who stayed are the dissatisfied ones.
There are a couple of factors coming together. If you already dissatisfied, then the prospect of a new religion coming in. There is the prospect of radical Islam, refugees, people you don’t know who might threaten you and your cultural hegemony and economic situation. If you’re more vulnerable, it’s easier to stir up some fear. That is the situation we see in parts of Eastern Germany.
Senator Downe: Projecting forward with this right-wing faction in the German parliament now how will it impact, if at all, on the financial problems in Europe, every time I speak to a European, they tell me we can refinance the debt of Greece. They’re concerned about Italy, but I never hear any permanent solution. Germany, of course, is cutting the cheques to pay for these other countries. At what point will the Germans, particularly this group, say as part of their platform, “Enough is enough.” The U.K. may be very well leaving. There is every indication they are leaving the European Union. That leaves Germany, France and a couple of other countries with very strong economies. The Germans have the strongest, the most productive, the most efficient. Then you look at some of their neighbours where they’re really subsidizing them with no end in sight.
Would that dynamic change because of this faction that’s elected, or will it carry on?
Mr. Hurrelmann: I would not predict a major change, but certainly it’s their position to say that German taxpayer money should not be spent on Greece or any other EU country. That will be their position, but I don’t think it will have a lot of influence on the government because this group will be marginalized in the parliament, and there will not be any attempt to cooperate with it.
The more relevant actor to watch is the liberal party, the Free Democratic Party, because they have some of the same views but with a less xenophobic nationalist rationale behind them. It’s a market liberal rationale behind them to say, “It’s not efficient to be subsidizing countries that maybe should not be in the Eurozone.” There have been some questions raised from that party as to whether Greece should maybe leave the Eurozone.
They will now likely be in government, so in that sense this position might become stronger, but it does not differ very much from a position that, for instance, the current finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has taken in the past. Also, it’s to some extent counterbalanced by the greens that are more pro-redistribution within the EU. The government’s position will likely remain fairly stable compared to where it is at the moment.
The Chair: I think we’ve covered all of the issues from the election and beyond. It has been extremely helpful. You can tell from the questions that we are interested. Your expertise on the continuing basis of watching Germany has certainly been helpful to us.
Thank you for coming this morning, again on such short notice. If I had not said that, they would have thought you’d been preparing for at least six months for this. You’ve done your job well. Thank you.
Senators, we are adjourned.
(The committee adjourned.)