German Election: What Are the Priorities of Germans Now?

CGTN Europe interviewed Dr. Thomas König, Professor of political science at the University of Mannheim

Transcript

00:00things. Let's bring in a guest now to dig a little bit deeper into this. We've got Thomas Koenig

00:05is joining us. Great to see you, Thomas. Now, we saw intense public engagement in this election,

00:1283% voter participation. What would you say the priority is for Germans now?

00:19I think that the Germans, and in particular the young Germans, perceive their situation

00:25as a kind of a sinking ship. And in order to prevent from sinking, they are interested in

00:33policy change. So they want to have a kind of a change in the direction in the economy,

00:40in migration politics, but also they are concerned about security issues.

00:47Now, Mertz made big promises in his campaign on fixing the economy. We didn't get much detail.

00:54And now we've seen this sharp rightward shift. It isn't going to be easy, is it,

00:58for him to form a coalition? On the one hand, yes, it's really difficult,

01:03because as we experienced, the campaign really changed. So we had two periods. The first was

01:09very, let's say, even a little bit boring. There were no activities after the breakdown of the

01:16coalition. But then, once Friedrich Mertz announced a strong leadership, without making

01:24any compromises, the whole campaign changed and emotionalized. And it only almost exclusively

01:33focused on migration politics rather than economic issues, which perhaps are the more fundamental

01:39problems in Germany these days. So indeed, it's true, there is not so much, let's say,

01:45in detail known about his plan. But I guess that, especially with the Social Democrats,

01:52it will be, let's say, possible to find common solutions.

01:59Something else which I think was quite unusual for a European election was this big

02:03focus on foreign policy. Mertz kind of had a reputation as a transatlanticist. But just before

02:10the election, he said Europe should be able to pay for defense without the US. What's your outlook?

02:17I think these are really the fundamental challenges not only Germany is facing these

02:24days, but whole Europe. And that has dramatically also influenced now the current German government.

02:30And it will also influence coalition building, I guess. On the one hand, it will perhaps even

02:36make it easier to fight together again, because the outside pressure is so high. So there's Russia,

02:43on the one hand, and more or less a failing Ukraine situation. And then on the other hand,

02:49we have the Trump administration, which is not very pleased about German politics.

02:54Let's call it that. But both increase the pressure for the two parties to form a coalition

03:01in short time, right? I think that it's on the one hand, it's a big challenge. On the other hand,

03:08it might even help to find a common government. So let's look at the other corner of the triangle.

03:15You've mentioned the US, we're talking about Europe. What about China? What can we now expect

03:18from Germany's relationship with China? It's hard to predict, because what we observe,

03:25at least, or what we can speculate about is that the Trump administration is trying

03:31to please Russia in order to get it out of the collaboration with China and other BRIC states.

03:39So in that sense, more or less, I mean, the old phrase is the enemy of the enemy is your friend,

03:47right? Now the question is, who is our enemy in the future? Is it the United States? Is it China?

03:53Should we have both as enemies? So it's a little bit vague at the moment how Germany will respond.

04:00However, the situation with China is quite different than that with Russia. So China is

04:05an economic player. Germany has close economic relationships with China, while in Russia,

04:12it was more import for gas and oil. So it's a quite different situation. But sometimes people

04:20here try to compare it. So the dependency from China and Russia. Thomas Koenig, a pleasure to

04:26talk to you. Thank you very much. That's Thomas Koenig, a professor of political science at the

04:30University of Mannheim.