A MONTH of intensive talks designed to cobble together a new coalition government in Germany ended late Sunday night when the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) walked out of negotiations, declaring that: ‘The four discussion partners have no common vision for modernisation of the country or common basis of trust.’
FDP leader, Christian Lindner added: ‘It is better not to govern than to govern badly.’ Germany, the acclaimed economic and political ‘powerhouse’ of the EU has been without a government since the federal election at the end of September, elections that saw a collapse in the vote for the once dominant Christian Democratic Union (CDU) led by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Since then an increasingly desperate Merkel has tried to form a new coalition between the CDU, the Christian Social Union (CSU), the FDP and the Green party – a so-called ‘Jamaican’ coalition named after the colours of these parties which are the same as those of the Jamaican flag.
What we are witnessing is the complete break-up of the old traditional form of rule in Germany, a form that for decades meant a succession of coalition governments, some with a ‘left’ majority and others with a ‘right-wing’ dominant partner.
Behind this collapse, which Merkel herself described as ‘near historic’, is the world crisis of capitalism. The German ‘economic miracle’ has turned to ashes, driving German workers to desert their traditional parties.
Based on low wages for German workers and the massive export of its cheap manufacturing goods which German politicians demanded the rest of Europe buy, the German economy is being hit hard.
With other EU states on the brink of financial ruin and simply unable to absorb German exports, industries like the huge steel industry are on the point of collapse. Alongside this, has gone a steady increase in austerity attacks on German workers, with more than one fifth of German workers earning wages below two-thirds of the national average, while benefit payments are steadily reduced and taxes on low earners has reached a massive 45%.
The collapse of the German government with the possibility that Merkel will be forced to call fresh elections next year, and stand down as leader, means that the leading nation in the EU is in a state of complete political collapse. To its left, there is a mass revolutionary movement of German youth that put the recent G20 gathering in Hamburg under seige. To its right, is the growing anti-immigrant party, the AfD. It won over 12% of the vote in the recent national election.
The only way forward for Germany is through the working class taking power. In fact the entire EU is wracked by a huge crisis. In France, which Merkel boasted would be Germany’s partner in forging a powerful EU, the right-wing government of Emmanuel Macron is facing an unprecedented strike wave against his attacks on the rights workers have enjoyed for over 100 years.
In Spain, the government has imprisoned Catalan leaders of the independence movement on charges of treason and is attempting to impose military dictatorship over the region, with the support of the EU leaders.
In the UK, the Brexit referendum result has seen the working class on the march to break with the EU. In Poland, there has been a massive reactionary ‘white Europe’ demonstration. Yesterday EU Council President Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister and now completely disorientated, linked the government of Prime Minister Beata Szydlo to a ‘Kremlin plan’, to destabilise Europe.
She rounded on Tusk saying: ‘Today, by using his position to attack the Polish government, he is attacking Poland.’ These explosive developments represent the beginning of the end for the European Union. The workers of the UK must now take action to see that the UK breaks with the EU at once, and joins hands with the workers of Europe to bring down the EU with socialist revolutions to go forward to the Socialist United States of Europe!