Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s Next Woman Chancellor?
In a curious twist of history, Baerbock holds the
promise to execute on what turned out to be Angela Merkel’s highly misleading
self-advertising.
By Stephan Richter,
April 28, 2021
Takeaways
·
It is clear who will be Merkel’s successor as Germany’s top-ranking female
politician.
·
A key part of Germany’s current conundrum is that the Merkel years were
years of coasting.
·
Baerbock’s initiative to push industry toward a green energy future is the
only way for Germany to stay a global technology leader.
·
Germany truly needs top politicians who have a clear sense of the strategic
choices.
·
From Scandinavia to New Zealand, young female politicians are doing a very
competent job in their country’s highest political office.
Two things are already certain about Germany’s upcoming federal elections
this September.
The first is that the Greens, out of power since 2005, are the only
political party in Germany that is guaranteed to be part of the next
government.
Second, it is already clear who will be Merkel’s successor as Germany’s
top-ranking female politician.
It is Annalena Baerbock, the 40-year-old co-leader of the Greens, who has
just been selected as her party’s candidate for chancellor.
Can Baerbock do what Merkel could not?
Assuming that her party will most likely govern as a junior partner in
tandem with the CDU-CSU, Baerbock has the inside track to be at least Germany’s
next vice chancellor.
In a curious twist of history, Baerbock holds the promise to execute on
what turned out to be Angela Merkel’s highly misleading self-advertising.
In laying her claim to the Federal
Chancellery back in 2005, she had advertised herself as a
scientist and a no-nonsense, results-oriented decision
maker focused on doing the heavy lifting to modernize Germany. Alas, Merkel
didn’t.
Lost opportunity
A key part of Germany’s current
conundrum is that the Merkel years, despite the chancellor’s solid international
reputation, were years of coasting.
She never really engaged with the central task of pushing Germany’s
industrial and political modernization.Yes, she was good on sloganeering and
proclaiming ambitions — but very poor on execution.
Worse, whenever it came to politically sensitive economic reform issues,
Merkel merely punted, if she did not blatantly choose to serve the status-quo
powers. Witness the German car industry.
No leniency
Cuddling up to industry thankfully isn’t Baerbock’s thing.
At top industrial policy conferences, she easily takes on the CEOs and
association heads of a broad range of industries on the strategic choices
needed in their respective sectors, whether automotive, chemical or energy.
Given the Greens’ origins, the fact that Baerbock is clearly committed to
keeping basic materials industries competitive and operating in Germany shows
courage and strategic depth.
Green energy is the future
She is also correct in her assessment that pushing industry rigorously toward
a green energy future is the only way for Germany to stay a global technology
leader.
Having a firm strategic grasp of the profound challenges German industry
faces at this juncture is an important political asset for any top leader.
Grim times for Germany
Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, Germany’s erstwhile banking giants, have
become mere shadows of their former selves. ThyssenKrupp is on the ropes and
the car industry is probably facing the biggest competitive challenges of its
entire existence.
In such a scenario, one thing is for sure: Germany truly needs top
politicians who have a clear sense of the strategic choices that must be made
right after the September elections.
All indications are that the woman from Potsdam seems to have the stuff it
takes to be a very competent economic strategist.
Little surprise then that anyone who, like myself, is a “non-green,” finds
themselves at times wishing that Baerbock had appeared 15 years earlier on the
German political stage.
An approachable leader
True, Baerbock has never even been a government minister. Like top
graduates from France’s elite Ecole Nationale d’Administration, she easily
masters a broad range of very complex policy briefs. Unlike many “ENA-rques,”
though, she is down to earth and not at all aloof.
That gives Baerbock a level of political maturity far beyond her actual
age. In addition, her mental alertness and dexterity will prove a real asset in
the election campaign.
More so, as her opponent is the CDU’s rather pedestrian and often self-confused
Armin Laschet, the CDU chairman.
Women in global politics
A look beyond Germany’s borders underscores that, from Scandinavia to New
Zealand, young top female politicians doing a very competent job in their
country’s highest political office.
The contrast they present to the time-worn model — mostly men patiently
climbing up the political ladder and doing a lot of backscratching with one
another — is hardly a suitable qualification indicating true leadership.
So, what government post for Baerbock? Of course, there’s always dreaming.
As before in 1969, when Willy Brandt won, she could rise to become chancellor,
especially if the CDU-CSU keeps fumbling with the gaffe-prone Lasche.
What next?
The post of Germany’s next vice chancellor should be a shoo-in. To give the
Greens a strong role in the new government and make the best use of Baerbock’s
talents, she should be appointed to serve as a kind of “super minister”
coordinating economic, energy, environmental and transport policy.
As it happens, such a position, best located in the Federal Chancellery
itself, is very similar to the posts that Margrethe Vestager and Frans
Timmermans hold at the European Commission in Brussels.
Editor’s note: This oped first appeared on
cnbc.com. For link, click here:
More on this topic
·
Germany
and Japan: A Comeback Story
Tags: Angela
Merkel, Germany, German politics, women in politics, Annalena Baerbock
About Stephan Richter
Director of the Global
Ideas Center, a global network of authors and analysts, and Editor-in-Chief of
The Globalist.
No comments:
Post a Comment