GERMAN PRESIDENT Horst Köhler was poised last night to sign into law Germany’s contribution to the euro-zone stabilisation fund, hours after it passed Berlin’s two-chamber parliament.
After an emotional debate, some 319 government MPs backed the Bill, 200 opposition MPs abstained while 73 were opposed – including 10 from the government.
“This is no trivial matter we are voting on here,” said finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble in the Bundestag, in an appeal for opposition support. “We are doing this in our national interest.”
Under the Bill, Germany will provide at least €123 billion to the €750 billion EU-IMF rescue package. That could rise to about €148 billion in case of unforeseen circumstances. The vote brought to a head a debate in Germany over its role – and that of Chancellor Merkel – in the euro-rescue effort.
Moreover, as the dust from the vote settled, criticism of Chancellor Merkel’s leadership heard around Europe recently is being echoed at home.
Former foreign minister Joschka Fischer said he thought Dr Merkel had held up a European rescue deal and, in doing so, had missed an opportunity for a favourable entry in the history books.
“In the last weeks, Angela Merkel had her rendezvous with history,” Germany’s former foreign minister told Der Spiegel. “But, unlike Helmut Kohl on November 9th, 1989” – when the Berlin Wall fell – “she’s made a mess of it”.
The former Green Party politician said her actions had left Germany isolated in Europe, while footing the lion’s share of the rescue plan. “I cannot remember ever a similarly embarrassing event in the time since 1949,” he said.
Although the parliamentary vote delivered Dr Merkel a solid result, it was a long way from the cross-party parliamentary signal of support she hoped to send to the markets.
The opposition Social Democrats (SPD) and Green Party abstained because they felt ill-informed about the Bill’s contents and consequences.
The Bill has divided opinion among Germany’s leading economists, with many sharply critical. Prof Hans-Werner Sinn, head of the influential Ifo institute, called the rescue plan a “danger for stability in Europe”.
Dr Thomas Straubhaar, director of Hamburg’s World Economic Institute, called it “the end of the stability pact, which had proven to be a paper tiger anyway”.
