15 Aug 2018

Oktoberfest 2018. This year the ballot will be at least as important as the beer in Bavaria

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The legendary Munich Oktoberfest starts this year on Saturday 22 September and will end on Sunday 7 October. Exactly one week after that, the state of Bavaria will vote in its own elections. In ordinary circumstances, as will be outlined shortly, the outcome of that ballot would be predictable and of little interest beyond its own borders. In 2018, however, matters may prove to be different. The result could have immense influence over the future of the federal government in Berlin, the timing of Angela Merkel’s departure as Chancellor, the identity of her successor, the direction of German domestic politics and that country’s approach to the EU, including its stance on Brexit.

Germany has 16 separate regions, all of which elect their own parliament and administrations in one of Europe’s most decentralised political systems. Bavaria is, nevertheless, different and distinct. It is not contested by the main centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) but by a special ‘sister’ party, the Christian Social Union (CSU). This is true for both regional and national contests. The CSU thus sits alongside the CDU in Berlin and has always been in government as a minority force (as it is today) whenever the CDU holds power (normally in coalition with another political party). The two groups constitute ‘the Union’ and there have been two elections in the post-war era when the CSU and not the CDU provided the official centre-right candidate to be Chancellor (in 1980 and 2002, on both occasions the contender was defeated), this despite the CSU being much smaller than the CDU.

This disproportionate influence flows from the fact that the CSU has always been strikingly more conservative than the CDU as a whole, although there is a significant minority of the CDU which is itself conservative and looks to the CSU for leadership beyond the boundaries of Bavaria. In other words, the CSU is capable of exercising a gravitational influence over the CDU depending on the strength of the various factions within the Christian Democrats.

For most of the past decade, the dominance of Mrs Merkel (very much on the centrist wing of the CDU) has been such that the CSU has not really been able to shape the overall direction of the centre-right in Germany. Her relatively weak showing in the German elections held in September last year and the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which entered the national parliament with one vote in eight cast for it, has allowed the strains between the CDU under her leadership and the instincts of the CSU to become explicit.

Earlier this summer, the CSU leader Horst Seehofer, the Interior Minister in Berlin, and a strident critic of the Chancellor’s comparatively liberal approach to immigration and refugees, threatened to storm out of office taking his party with him (implicitly) if not only Germany but the entire EU did not crack down on policing borders more vigorously. An uneasy compromise was struck so he could stay.

The reason why he engaged in such a ‘toys out of pram’ act of political exhibitionism is simple. His party is extremely nervous about the Bavarian elections to be held on 14 October. So it should be. The CSU has historically dominated Bavaria. It has been in office and supplied the Minister-President (state leader) from 1946-1954 and then continuously from 1957 onwards. From 1966 to 2008 it was not only in charge but (despite a form of proportional representation) had an absolute majority in the Bavarian parliament.

In 2008, it suffered the indignity of requiring an alliance with the liberal Free Democrats to maintain power. In 2013, normal service was resumed and the CSU acquired an outright majority once again. The Minister-President was Mr Seehofer until March of this year when he shifted to Berlin after the long negotiations required to create another ‘Grand Coalition’ administration of the CDU/CSU alongside the centre-left Social Democratic Party finally reached a very weary conclusion. The CSU had little passion for sitting alongside the SPD at the national level again and thought that Mrs Merkel had offered far too many policy concessions to the SPD in order to entice them. Thus was born a Government in Berlin that almost no one serving in it had very much enthusiasm for.

What will happen in Bavaria on 14 October?

If the polls are to be believed (and there is not much evidence on which to refute them) then the CSU is destined for its worst performance in a Bavarian ballot in its history. Not only will it fail to retain an absolute majority, it is likely to fall to under 40% of the votes cast. That in turn might well mean that it cannot simply licks its wounds and form an administration with the Free Democrats as it did in 2008 (although that is not a ‘get out of jail free’ card anyway as the FDP is as socially liberal as the CSU is socially conservative). The negotiations are likely to be more complex. Almost everyone (with the possible exception of the Social Democrats) is likely to add support at the expense of the CSU. The main focus will be on how well the Alternative for Germany (AfD) does as it is the most obvious beneficiary from discontent with the CSU on the right of the political spectrum.

At a minimum, the response of the CSU to such a setback will be to become a much more awkward coalition partner at the national level. If it is defeated really badly in Bavaria, Herr Seehofer might be toppled or, to avoid that fate, might lead the CSU out of the federal government altogether. While it would be highly unlikely to force the CDU out, it could all but insist that there is a timetable for the departure of Mrs Merkel as Chancellor if it is to continue to accept being inside the current coalition.

Who might succeed Mrs Merkel if she were to fall within the next 12 months?

The prospect of a change in Chancellor in Berlin in the near term now has to be taken seriously. If it occurs, events in Bavaria will have been the catalyst. The two most likely contenders are the CDU Secretary General Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who is very much a Mrs Merkel protégé, and Jens Spahn, the 38-year-old Health Minister, who is the darling of the CDU’s more conservative faction.

Mr Spahn is another staunch critic of Mrs Merkel on all matters to do with immigration. He has been explicit in his calls for the CDU to move to the right on such matters to shut down the space that has been seized by the AfD. He is a much closer ideological fit for the CSU in this regard than Mrs Merkel, despite other potential areas of friction (he is openly gay, which few in the CSU high command are) but this might also make him acceptable to the free market/socially liberal FDP which could be part of an alternative minority administration in Berlin if the SPD quits or is expelled from office. Any such rupture would probably mean that Germany has to hold another election far ahead of schedule. The CDU/CSU with Mr Spahn at the helm might wager that it could shift to the right, marginalise the AfD, win any snap election called and then form a new administration alongside the Free Democrats.

What would be the wider implications of this?

Huge. The most important political party in the most important nation in Europe would move from a broadly centrist strongly ‘eurofederalist’ orientation to one which was much more conservative and overtly nationalist. Many CDU (and particularly CSU) activists look longingly at Sebastian Kurz, the Chancellor of Austria, who reaches the grand age of 32 on 27 August, as an example of the sort of no holds barred leadership they would love to see in their country. Mr Kurz won his own election almost a year ago by tacking to the right and snatching votes from the hard-right Freedom Party who now act as his coalition partner. As his country presently holds the presidency of the EU, his profile is even higher than it would usually be in Germany.

Mr Spahn, just like Mr Kurz, is not only hostile to uncontrolled migration to and within the EU, but is by local standards a sceptic on the EU. The chances of him mobilising behind the integrationist agenda that Emmanuel Macron of France has urged the eternally cautious Mrs Merkel to adopt for the EU would be minimal. While he would regret Brexit, he would be more inclined to take a pragmatic approach towards it and safeguard the interests of German exporters to the UK rather than risk a hostile future relationship. What happens at the top in Berlin is hence the most important question in European politics over the coming year. Whether this is debated at much length during the actual Oktoberfest itself is rather more doubtful.

Tim Hames
Director General, BVCA


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