Of Europe’s Top 3 Powers, UK now has strongest government – How did THAT happen?
Germany’s new coalition government would not even be voted in now, 6 weeks after election
France’s No.10 now has a revolving front door, with a 5th PM in 18 months looking likely
Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2025
Yet Mr Charisma-Bypass, Rachel from Accounts, and Lammy from the Bronx are safe, even if we will all be sorry
Yesterday in Berlin a coalition deal was finally agreed between those who would govern Germany for the next five years. The EU’s No.1 economy, in recession for the last two years, will be run by what in the UK might be called a Con-Con-Lab coalition government. And in that new government the party of the deeply unpopular Chancellor Scholz, roundly rejected by the Germans at the ballot box, ends up with the most Ministers of any of the three coalition parties.
It gets stranger, if that’s possible. Far from enjoying a post-victory honeymoon period, in the six weeks it has taken him to form a coalition government, new Chancellor-designate Friedrich Merz’s popularity ratings have tumbled. Whilst he can never be said to have enjoyed Hollywood-style acclaim from the average German, even by minimal standards it is not good when an incoming Chancellor’s popularity rating falls by 10% to only 25%, before he has even taken office.
Assuming the (socialist) SPD members vote in favour of the coalition agreement, Merz will not become Chancellor until early May. That’s six months of a rudderless Germany during one of the most turbulent times in world politics, with a war still raging nearby.
Ungovernable France?
Meanwhile to the west lie the Elysee Palace of President Macron and the Matignon, the French version of No.10 Downing Street. The Matignon has recently been seeing Prime Ministers come and go at such a speed it may be more appropriate for it to have a revolving door at its entrance. The current incumbent, M. Bayrou, is President Macron’s fifth Prime Minister in the last 18 months. We can easily imagine that in French classrooms they have given up asking the pupils the name of the PM as a stock question, as even the teachers are increasingly finding it hard to remember the correct answer.
On top of a paralysed government without a majority and with no real possibility of enacting measures to save France’s deeply troubled economy, there now loom significant schisms in French society following the conviction of the most popular presidential candidate to replace Macron at the next elections. Marine Le Pen has just been convicted of fraud over her and her party’s use of EU parliamentary party funding. She was found guilty of using these monies to pay for the running of her national party, rather than for the staff who work in Brussels.
Putting aside the rights and wrongs and subject to a legal appeal, France has been denied the chance to vote for her at the next election. More bizarrely, the most recognisable woman in France will be required to wear an ankle bracelet so that the gendarmes may track her whereabouts at all times. At this point we will only briefly mention that if we were to run a report on the flagrant criminality rife in the Brussels and Strasbourg EU Parliaments it would be a long report even if we summarised it as much as possible.
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Unsatisfactory, maybe, but solid – the United Kingdom
The UK may now be outside the EU (except for Northern Ireland, which still needs to be restored to its rightful place), but it is one of the three main European powers. Whilst it may be hard for British readers to accept, the UK is in fact the most stable of the three.
The country’s leadership may be seen as being uninspiring by many, but perhaps we would all settle for boring over completely dysfunctional.
Which leads us back to Germany (“Germany is back,” says Merz)
We close where we started, with Germany, the EU’s No.1 economy and dominant Eurozone member. At a press conference yesterday Friedrich Merz announced “A key message to Donald Trump is, Germany is back on track,” when asked if he had a message.
For the last five months Germany has been run by a lame-duck, caretaker, coalition government led by the deeply unpopular Olaf Scholz of the socialist SPD. Scholz’s government collapsed on 06 November 2024 when he fired the leader of one of his coalition partners. An election took place on 23 February and despite serious reservations about the results, Scholz’s party was trounced, gaining only 16.4% of the vote and coming third after the right-wing AfD party of Alice Weidel. The reservations about the final result arose from a new electoral law being used for the first time which has resulted in 23 elected MPs not being allowed to take their seats.
It is hard to see that ‘Germany is back on track’ when it has to wait another month to be led by a man whom very few want to lead them. He starts with a lack of trust from the electorate after the extraordinary and thoroughly undemocratic events he engineered in order to squeeze through a fundamental change to the Constitution, which we reported on here.
Observations
We hope this whirlwind tour of Berlin, Paris and London has been interesting. Sometimes it’s worthwhile to take a moment and hover over the general picture.
Taking the temperature of democratic government in Europe is never easy but it is possible to say that both of the key players who have a defining influence on the continent and especially on the EU bloc are poorly, in their own different ways. Without clear, decisive government, all manner of distractions can fill the void. And the really important decisions can find themselves delayed and then rushed.
In the United Kingdom some might say we have our own problems. Increasingly there seems to be the feeling that the quality of our political class is not what it was. Whilst there are always exceptions, on the whole we would tend to agree.
As optimists, however we will end by saying that we look forward to watching or listening to a first-class debate in the Commons, well-argued by informed and fluent speakers on all sides, on an important topic to the people. Even if the vote went against us, we would settle for a debate like that. It’s called democracy.
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Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Thurs 10 Apr 2025
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