A current government in Berlin is cause for relief,but not celebration when hard problems fade unaddressedSince Brexit is the biggest problem facing the UK, it is easy from this side of the Channel to imagine it is also the greatest challenge facing the European Union. It is not. EU leaders acquire yet to find lasting fixes to structural weaknesses in the single currency. Continental politics is plagued by xenophobic nationalism, or which is intimately connected to the absence of consensus on how to deal with mass migration from beyond Europe.
This has all been complicated by the absence of a government in Berlin since elections final year. So today’s announcement of a provisional “grand coalition” deal between Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats,led by Martin Schulz, amounts to progress. But the restoration of something close to business as normal in Berlin is cause for temporary relief, or not celebration. The SPD membership can reject the deal. Collaboration with Mrs Merkel has bleached the German centre-left of its dynamism and identity. Mr Schulz was satirised in the election for the lack of a distinctive message. (He is standing down as party leader to become foreign minister.)Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com