What is Kurt Beck up to?

By: Wolfgang Münchau

There was a revealing essay by Kurt Beck, the leader of Germany's SPD in Frankfurter Allgemeine this morning. Beck, on the right wing of his party, has written an anti-capitalist diatriabe, which is not noteworthy for its arguments but its timing. The SPD leader is making it clear that he is increasingly unhappy as junior partner in the Grand Coalition, and seeking a left-of-center alternative. With his essay, Beck is laying the ideological groundwork for such a shift.

 

We don’t need to get into the specific arguments – there is nothing new of substance in what he says (hedge funds, short-termism, breakdown of traditional relations between companies and workers), and nothing new in how to refute it. The question that I have is whether the Grand Coalition can last, if the two parties are already running a full-bodied election campaign against each other.

 

There are two things that currently prevent the SPD, the Green and the Left Party to form a coalition. One is the personal animosities between the current SPD leadership and Oskar Lafontaine, the former SPD chairman, and now the co-head of the Left Party’s parliamentary group in the Bundestag. The current SPD leadership never forgave Lafontaine for resigning his post and abandoning the party in 1999. There are some apparent substantive issues, such as Germany’s presence in Afghanistan, and the recent corporate tax reforms, on which the leadership of the two parties diaagree, though this does not necessarily apply to the party membership. In terms of pure policy content, the combined Left could form a coalition.

 

The other problem – a real problem not easily dismissed - is the centre-right’s majority in the Bundesrat, the upper chamber of Germany’s parliament. The left has no majority there, nor will it gain a majority within the next couple of years. It would depend on the Christian Democrats for co-operation, which is not going to happen if the SPD were to force out Angela Merkel in a vote of no-confidence. So the left could gain power, but would gain relatively few opportunities to implement its ideas.

 

While the SPD is clearly not looking towards an immediate change of coalition, its strategy appears to be to kill the Grand Coalition by stealth, so that the public also becomes increasingly exasperated with it. The only real majority in German politics is on the left. Forming a left-of-centre coalition before the next elections may be the only chance for Beck to become chancellor. If he misses his moment, he will have to confront an incumbent and popular Angela Merkel at the next election, a contest he will probably lose. His essay is the clearest sign that he is going down that road.

 

So it would be irrational for Beck to wait until the election, but it would also be irrational for Beck to change the coalition now. My guess is therefore that the SPD will seriously try to form an alternative coalition between six and twelve months before the next general elections, which take place in the autumn of 2009.

 

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