GERMANY: The 'Judo Chancellor's' no-nonsense approach is a winner for Germany, wrties Derek Scally in Berlin.
Chancellor Angela Merkel is either a natural in her new job or is enjoying an extended run of beginner’s luck.
Those are the two opinions circulating in Berlin since Dr Merkel made history as the first woman and the first former East German to become chancellor last month in circumstances no one predicted.
She has earned a new nickname too – the "Judo Chancellor" – because of her talent for using her opponents’ strength against them and adapting well to changing circumstances.
Despite a disastrous result in September’s snap election, Dr Merkel emerged victorious two months later to head Germany’s second grand coalition government, a marriage of convenience between her Christian Democrats
(CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD). Gerhard Schröder is now just another political scalp in Dr Merkel’s collection. "Angela Merkel wins everything, even when she loses," said Merkel biographer Evelyn Roll.
Dr Merkel has adapted quickly to the new political reality and has shelved her radical reform agenda – for now, at least.
"This coalition will take many small steps rather than one big step," she said. Her government has gone to work, quietly abolishing dozens of tax breaks and subsidies from the halcyon days of West Germany, to cut the budget deficit and help Germany meet the euro zone rules by 2007 at the latest.
"Her soberness and dispassionate approach do the country good," said Dr Ralf Altenhof, political scientist at Chemnitz University. "Show business effects, regardless of how one judges the politics of Mr Schröder, would be wrong at the moment."
Her no-nonsense approach has revitalised German foreign relations, too.
She has promised better relations with Warsaw and "no more policy-making over Polish heads". In Brussels, she backed up that promise – and helped resolve the budget deadlock into the bargain – by passing Poland’s way ¤300 million in funding intended for eastern Germany.
"Merkel gave a brilliant performance on the budget with a diplomacy that sends very constructive signals, not at all like the bull in the china shop that was Schröder’s first summit," says Dr Ulrike Guérot, analyst at the German Marshall Fund think tank.
Dr Merkel backs ratifying the EU constitution in its entirety and observers suggest her "small steps" policy may also apply to closer European integration, with an eye on Germany’s presidency of the EU this time next year.
"By 2007 the enlargement of the Schengen zone and countries like Estonia pushing to join the euro zone will create a gravity in Europe that will make it necessary to deal seriously with the constitution," says Dr Guérot. "If Germany can position itself back in the middle of Europe with bridges to all countries, then I am optimistic that Dr Merkel can make the little steps necessary to come out of the 2007 presidency in a big way."
Dr Merkel wants a clear-headed approach in the diplomatic efforts to resolve the difficulties with Iran, saying that "discord would be a bad signal" and the temptation must be resisted "to put Iran in a corner".
After impressing Brussels, Dr Merkel’s first foreign visit of 2006 is to Washington. Transatlantic relations damaged by the very public war of words over the Iraq war can only benefit by her wish to return discussions of foreign policy differences to the diplomatic back rooms.
Hopes of a clean slate, however, have been dashed by the discussion of prisoner transportation and torture.
Revelations that German investigators were sent on discreet missions to Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere to question prisoners held in questionable legal circumstances has caused moral outrage in the media, but may inject a new realistic tone to transatlantic relations.
"The [Schröder] government propagandised with moral rhetoric . . . but never addressed the difficult questions that politicians face, the dilemmas and difficult moral decisions," said Julian Knapp, director of programs at the Aspen Institute think-tank in Berlin.
Berlin has promised to investigate secret flights by the CIA and the alleged abduction of a German citizen by US agents in 2003, but says it will continue to evaluate anti- terrorism intelligence even if it was obtained by torture.
In 1998, after a few weeks in the job, Mr Schröder said : "Governing is fun". Last week Dr Merkel, a former physicist, divulged her own mantra. "Politics begins," she said, "by considering the reality."