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Under the leadership of Gerhard Schröder, Germany began to take a more independent approach to foreign policy, steadfastly refusing to become involved in the invasion of Iraq, but supporting the USA, historically its closest ally, in Afghanistan and the war in Kosovo. Its stance on Iraq – which reflected the feelings of the majority of Germans – caused relations with the US administration of George W Bush to be strained.

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COLOURFUL COALITIONS

Germans describe their coalition governments in colourful but sometimes confusing ways. ‘Grand coalition’ is self-explanatory, meaning a coalition of the two largest parties (CDU/CSU and SPD). Colour combinations like ‘red-red-green’ (SPD–The Left–Alliance 90/The Greens), ‘black-yellow’ (CDU/CSU-FDP) and ‘red-yellow’ (SPD-FDP) are understood immediately by almost every German. A ‘traffic-light coalition’ is a coalition of red (SPD), yellow (FDP) and green (Alliance 90/The Greens). There is also something called a ‘black traffic light’ coalition (as per the German neologism ‘Schwampel’, from schwarz ‘black’ and Ampel ‘traffic light’), aka ‘Jamaica traffic light’ (look at the Jamaican flag and you get the idea). In 2001 a Jamaica traffic-light coalition surfaced in Frankfurt am Main for one day before it fell apart. This type of constellation was also known briefly as the ‘Africa’ or ‘Senegal’ coalition. Since the national election of 2005, however, ‘Jamaica coalition’ has become the usual description.

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In some respects, reunification had kept Germany in its own orbit and had distracted the country from changes occurring in the global economy during the 1990s. At home, Germany sought to adapt the social market economy to what it perceived as new needs in a global economy, notably through a series of labour-market reforms. The fourth of these reforms, popularly known as ‘Hartz IV’, was intended to streamline unemployment and other social-benefits systems and help the long-term unemployed find work. In practice, however, the Hartz IV reform measures of the Schröder government (which are still in force) proved unwieldy, bureaucratic and, at times, harsh on recipients, and they contributed to a gradual drift of traditional SPD voters to smaller parties left of centre. During the election of 2009 the Hartz IV laws, as well as legislation that made Germans only eligible for state pensions from the age of 67, caused many voters to turn to parties they perceived as having fairer social policies. One of these is Die Linke (The Left), which grew out of the former East German SED and a successor party later uniting with a left grouping in western Germany. Together as The Left party they are challenging the social and labour market policies of the traditional workers’ and social democratic party, the SPD.

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A key environmental and energy reform of the SPD and Alliance 90/Greens government of 1998–2005 was legislation to close all nuclear-power plants in Germany by 2020. This remains a controversial step and there will be pressure to reverse the decision in an anticipated coalition government of CDU/CSU and FDP. All these parties favour extending the shelf-life of the nuclear-power plants, saying this is necessary to bridge an energy gap until alternative sources become better established.

The rise of the Greens and, more recently, The Left has changed the political landscape of Germany dramatically, making absolute majorities by the ‘big two’ all the more difficult to achieve. In 2005 the CDU/CSU and SPD formed a grand coalition led by Angela Merkel (b 1954), the first woman, former East German, Russian speaker and quantum physicist in the job (see the boxed text). While many Germans hoped this would resolve a political stalemate that had existed between an opposition-led upper house (Bundesrat) and the government, political horse trading shifted away from the political limelight and was mostly carried out behind closed doors.

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