Elections in Germany update:No turn to the right, after all!

Still, I don't see the SPD and the Greens forming a coalition with the "New Left"....

Embarrassed Merkel admits plagiarising Reagan

Angela Merkel's bid to become Germany's first woman leader was dealt an embarrassing blow yesterday after her party was forced to admit that she virtually copied a speech given by the late Ronald Reagan during her recent TV duel with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

A spokesman for Germany's opposition conservatives conceded that Mrs Merkel was " certainly inspired" by Mr Reagan's words, spoken during his 1980 election campaign, when she delivered her closing address to more than 21 million viewers during last Sunday night's televised election debate.

Excerpts from the two speeches were published on Germany's Spiegel-Online website yesterday. They showed that both put almost exactly the same rhetorical questions to voters - albeit 25 years apart.

In 1980 Mr Reagan asked Americans facing a choice between himself and President Jimmy Carter: "Are you doing better than you were four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment than there was four years ago? If you answer yes to all these questions, I think it is obvious who you will vote for."

Last Sunday, Mrs Merkel asked German viewers: "Is our country doing better than it was seven years ago? Is there higher growth? Is unemployment lower? If you answer all the questions with yes, I think it is obvious who you will be voting for."

The two speeches also had virtually identical passages. Ronald Reagan: "If you are of a different opinion and you don't want us to continue the course we followed for the past four years, then I could propose another choice which you have." Angela Merkel: "If you are of a different opinion and you don't want us to continue the course we have followed for the past seven years, then I propose another choice which you have."

Chancellor Schröder's ruling Social Democrats gleefully seized on the issue yesterday: "Merkel's cheap plagiarism suits her content," said an SPD spokesman, "She is just like the die-hard conservative Reagan and is cheating the electorate," he added.

Mrs Merkel did not comment yesterday. Despite some similarities in her policy proposals, she has studiously avoided being compared with the American right, fully aware that Mr Reagan and his Republican successors, with the exception of George Bush Snr, have been extremely unpopular figures in Germany.

might there be a short-lived "left wing" coalition with another election in another year or so ?

Just over a week before Germany heads to the polls, the death of a far-right candidate and the shrinking of the once-solid lead enjoyed by the conservatives have complicated the outcome of the general elections.

The death of a neo-Nazi candidate could delay the final result of Germany's Sept. 18 elections and even the appointment of the country's new chancellor by at least one week, an electoral official said Thursday.



Irene Schneider-Böttcher, head of the electoral commission in the eastern state of Saxony, said it had been forced to delay voting in one district of Dresden after the candidate of the far-right National Democratic Party, Kerstin Lorenz (photo), died following a stroke.

A date for a new by-election to be held after the main poll had not yet been set for the city's district with its roughly 219,000 voters.

Political observers have speculated that the by-election could sway the result of the whole general election if the race between the parties remains as tight as it appears at present.

"The by-election in Dresden could be of decisive importance in case of a close result on Sept. 18," federal electoral officer Johann Hahlen told German public television station MDR.

Merkel could transform EU

Fri Sep 9, 2005 1:25 PM BST


By Paul Taylor, European Affairs Editor

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Angela Merkel could transform the European Union, but it is not clear whether the conservative German opposition leader will seize the opportunity, even assuming she wins a general election in nine days' time.

Merkel has called for economic reforms to rekindle Germany's sluggish economy, vowed to take greater account of smaller European partners and neighbours, and criticised the EU's costly farm subsidy policy that mostly benefits France.

That has prompted speculation about shifting alliances within the 25-nation EU and new momentum to overhaul Europe's creaking economic and social model, possibly in partnership with free-marketeering Britain.

But the reality may be less radical, especially if an inconclusive vote forces her Christian Democrats (CDU) to form a coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) rather than an alliance with the economically liberal Free Democrats.

"She could put herself at the head of a movement for reform in Europe. It all depends on her determination to exercise leadership," said Jean Pisani-Ferry, a former economic adviser to the French government who heads the Bruegel economic think-tank in Brussels.

"She has declared her intention to reform in several areas, particularly labour markets and fiscal policy, with flatter taxes. That's bound to carry others along with it given Germany's size," he said.

But he noted that SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder had kept his Agenda 2010 of labour market and welfare reforms a purely national programme without trying to galvanise even the 12 countries that share the euro single currency.

HARD CORE?

Under Schroeder, Germany and France renewed their close alliance after a period of estrangement, but it was often to resist change rather than promote it.

The Franco-German axis, which was in the vanguard of European integration from the 1950s to the early 1990s, was no longer able to exert strong leadership in an enlarged Union, whether on the Iraq war, the EU budget or economic policy.

They acted jointly to brake economic liberalisation, notably in cross-border services, loosen fiscal discipline and perpetuate the EU's Common Agricultural Policy.

"During the last three years, Schroeder has revived Germany's close relations with France in ways that damaged ties with the United States, the UK and the countries of central and Eastern Europe," Charles Grant, director of the London-based Centre for European Reform, wrote in an essay.

"Germany will not be able to restore its position as one of the EU's natural leaders so long as its economy continues to stagnate," said Grant.

He argued that the next Berlin government should take a lead in reinvigorating the EU's Lisbon process of economic reform, continuing to work with France but involving Britain, Spain, Poland and smaller countries more frequently.

Senior Polish conservative Jaczek Saryusz-Wolski, tipped as a possible foreign minister after parliamentary elections to be held this month, told Reuters he expected Merkel to help lead a more pro-American, pro-business Europe that would take a more united and critical approach towards Russia.

The new German government will take office at a time when European integration has been halted, at least temporarily, by the French and Dutch votes against the EU constitution, casting doubt on the pace of further enlargement of the bloc.

Merkel has made CDU veteran Wolfgang Schaueble her top foreign affairs adviser. He co-authored a report in the mid-1990s calling for a hard core of EU countries around Germany and France to move forward faster with integration.

But he seems unlikely to become foreign minister, a job usually reserved for the junior coalition partner, and Merkel's emphasis on rebuilding damaged ties with Poland and Germany's central European hinterland runs counter to the hard core idea.

Merkel's opposition to Turkish membership puts her at odds with the central Europeans, as well as with Britain and the United States. But she made clear in a television debate with Schroeder that she would not block the planned start of accession negotiations on October 3.

Seehofer excludes unitary tax "in this decade"

Deputy leader of the Christian Social Union Horst Seehofer has excluded the introduction of the unitary tax rate of 25%, favoured by finance expert Paul Kirchhof of the Christian-Democratic Union, until 2010. "I don't see any possibility for that", Seehofer told the «Passauer Neuen Presse». [..]

It is important, that the Union presents a "clear message" in these elections, especially on tax policies, said Seehofer. A party can not stand with two tax concepts. The [official] concept of the Union includes linear-progressive tax rates between 12 and 39 percent.

Poll: Only a third of citizens in favour of Kirchhofs tax model

Only just one third of German citizens considers the tax model of the [..] Christian Democratic Union's Paul Kirchhof fair. This was found in a representative poll of the opinion polling agency TNS Infratest for the «Spiegel».

GERMAN PAPERS

Is Gerhard Schöder a Better Magician than David Copperfield?

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is up to his old magic. From an election disaster, he is conjuring a miracle. Polls only show his Social Democrats six percentage points behind their conservative challengers. His trick this time? The skewering of Paul Kirchhof.