This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
John Milewski:
Welcome to the Need to Know podcast from the Wilson Center, a podcast for policymakers available to everyone. Always informative, nonpartizan and relevant. We go beyond the headlines to understand the trend lines in foreign policy.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of Need to Know. I'm your host, John Milewski. Need to know is brought to you by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for scholars. The center is congressionally chartered, scholarship driven, and fiercely nonpartisan. Well, now that the dust is settling after the closely watched German elections, we thought this would be a good opportunity here from Robin Quenneville, the director of the Wilson Center's Global Europe program, about what transpired and what it could mean for Germany, for Germany, U.S. relations for the EU, among other things.
So, Robin, you were in Germany as the votes were being cast, but what was the mood like? And was there a sense of this being a potentially pivotal election?
Robin Quinville:
There absolutely was a sense that this election was important. It was taking place at a critical time, and that it was going to be critical for Germany's future. It had a very high voter turnout, 82%, which is massive and shows the interest.
JM:
For any democracy worldwide. That number is off the charts.
RQ:
Absolutely. And people also were looking at this not only for what it meant for Germany internally and where its future goes on the whole range of pocketbook issues that affect People's Day to day lives, but also where Germany will be in the world, particularly in a period right after the Munich Security Conference when questions arose about the strength of the U.S. European relationship.
So I think all of that combined to bring voters out, knowing that their both mattered in this election, and it would determine a time. What?
JM:
As most elections are right, there are internal external factors. And there's the famous mantra, I think it was Jim Carville who first said it. Right. It's the economy, stupid. And certainly in Germany, the economy loom large. But also what you mentioned that the transatlantic relationship, the tensions over trade and tariffs and Ukraine and Russia. Is there any sense from exit polling or those types of things about what really drove the vote, what was first and foremost in voters minds?
RQ:
No, I don't think it was possible to actually do a first and foremost. Also, because of the tight timeframe between the Munich Security Conference and the vote itself, it was one week, right. And so that's some of those questions that made the U.S. relationship an issue in the election. It's very hard to pull that apart from the dissatisfaction with economic developments that had been a driver on the election throughout.
So it is the security investments that are needed, but also how to drive the economy forward. That was really the key issue for most Germans.
JM:
One report said the results of the election should be greeted with a mixture of relief and grave concern. Explain that to us.
RQ:
The the thing to remember is that every government in Germany is going to be a coalition government. They don't have the same two party system that we have. They have a plethora of parties. They have to meet a certain threshold to get into their parliament. But the last government was three parties, and it was very difficult to reconcile their various goals.
So it fell apart early this time. But it was okay. What are going to be the parties that are that make it into Parliament, and how strong will they be and what kind of coalition were you about now? Everyone was watching the far right. The far right of it was party AFG, which stands for alternative for Germany. What would be their vote share?
What it rise and by how much? And what would that mean? Because all the other parties have pledged they would not bring this far right party into government. So how would they be able to format coalition? That was the critical question for all voters. And yet if you look at the figures, AFG got 20% of the vote.
JM:
Which is 10 million people roughly. Right.
RQ:
And yeah. And also that is yeah. This is substantial. It's double the got the previous election. But it's under some of the polling that was predicting it might do better.
JM:
So Robin how do how do we interpret that. You know I mean Germany we all live you know, with the, celebrating our past and the burden of our history. And certainly Germans have lived with the burden of their Nazi history in World War two and World War one. So, you know, a lot of people are very uncomfortable at seeing the rise of AFG's popularity.
How should we interpret this? What does it mean about where Germany might be headed.
00:04:58:13 - 00:05:22:19
RQ:
For the party that came out first in the polling, the conservatives, the traditional conservatives? They are looking at this as right wake up call on the issues that voters turned to AFD for. And for them, it is interesting just to go back to what you said from change. Probably it's the economy. There has been stagnant growth in Germany.
Germany is a manufacturing economy. There has been an uneven distribution of wealth within Germany in the years since reunification. You know, we somehow here think, oh, it was all so easy. You know, a lot of the East German states are still very under economically developed and experiencing hard times. But Germany as a whole has not experienced growth since pandemic.
So a lot of people turned to a party that seemed to answer their concerns about this stagnant growth there. It also seemed to answer their concerns about, about migration. So the conservatives, they know what they need to do is take those two issues and address them and show real progress in order to win votes from and in that would not normally have voting there.
Right. That I think, is what they are, what their strategy is. And their goal is to put together a coalition government that will be able to drive those changes.
JM:
So would it would be fair to say that at least a chunk of those 10 million people weren't voting for what some might refer to as the darker elements of what AFD might represent, but were essentially casting a protest vote against the status quo.
RQ:
I wouldn't want to predict how much of that was actually, you know, protest versus attraction to some of that ideology. But certainly their voters were a bit right. And it was very hard to see. I think for, for the conservatives part to, but for in everybody with their, with their mantra of growth because, you know, they had been in the government just three years before under Angela Merkel, the new leader for Jewish to saying it's going to be different under me.
So I think that what what we're going to see from this government is that's going to form a coalition with one other party, probably the SPV, the Socialist Party. They will have to deliver. It's they're going to change that percentile vote for the left.
JM:
So this is a wake up call to the status quo.
RQ:
So instead of a wake up shout.
JM:
Yeah, yeah or wake up shut. So, on this, the economy, you know, we can't separate cleanly the economy from security concerns or defense concerns because a dollar is a dollar or a Deutschmark is a Deutschmark, right?
RQ:
A euro is a euro.
JM:
Euro as a euro. What am I? I'm showing my age, Robin. What can I tell you? But, What what can what Mertz. And what can the German government do to jumpstart the economy? They've shown slow growth slower than many of their European neighbors. What can they do?
RQ:
French markets. The thing to remember about him is he got his first political job in the European Parliament. He was elected to the European Parliament. So he knows the European Union very well. The European Union is strongly focused on regulated issues and regulation. What he wants to do is target, regulation both within the German system but also within the EU, because he feels that if you can remove some of these regulatory barriers to investment, to speed of growth and so forth, but that will in fact spur the German economy and spur the European economy moving ahead.
And he knows Germany has many very strong manufacturing elements that feel held back by some of this regulation. And so I think this is this is something where he, with his particular background that he brings, might be very well placed in order to, to tackle that. But that's where he's put his emphasis that they need a policy change and they need to spur growth.
JM:
On another matter on, on the security questions, in our recent speech said the Trump administration, as in his words, does not care much for Europe, and therefore Europe should take immediate steps to become independent of Washington. How serious are the Germans and the rest of the EU about some sort of separation from the United States?
And what about the United States and its relationship with Germany in particular, but Europe in general? You know, it's not just the administration. There are members of Congress who will have some say in this, you know, paint the picture for us of where this might be headed in terms of the bigger picture.
RQ:
His comments show is a level of uncomfortableness with where the U.S., Europe, transatlantic relationship that's held so strong for so long is growing. And in his eyes, it's okay. We must be realistic that and prepare for the fact that there may be a U.S. that is less engaged in Europe, or is less willing to be a partner for us.
It's an, I think, not a prediction that the U.S. is somehow just going to pick up and go in, you know, in the next three weeks, but rather that Europe needs to understand that it must grow its capabilities and be able to stand absent some of the elements of the transatlantic relationship that they have come to rely on.
Chief among that is defense. Of course, this is something where they know they need to grow their defense spending. They need to grow the actual capabilities that they have on the ground. Those capabilities are really important for deterrence. So throughout this has been one of the lessons of the invasion of Ukraine, that they know that it is a difference fatigue environment.
They need to grow their defense spending and security spending and investment on all kinds of other, counter, intelligence operations and so forth. They need to grow their engagement and their investment. It's a it's tough because it's a tough economic environment, but they know that they need to do that.
JM:
So in, in the in the few minutes we have remaining I know, you know it's a fluid situation and things change quickly. But as we discussed this on this date, where do things stand with the forming of the new government in Germany and putting together the coalition and moving forward?
RQ:
Okay. You're going to have to brace yourself, John, for this. All right. They want to do this coalition agreement in record time eight weeks. And you're going to say to me, Robert, what are these eight weeks it takes that you have to hammer out with your coalition partner a written down agreement about what your goals are and what you're going to do, right?
So you just know that two political leaders aren't and their teams are not going to get together and do that overnight. But when met said eight weeks, everybody sort of said, oh my God, so fast. But I think there really is a commitment to do this in a very short, compressed timeframe. The last time it took more than four months, if I remember rightly so, it can take longer.
But what they are looking at is saying, right, so the period of the last Parliament ends officially on the 25th of March, right? So they would not be able to pass legislation beyond that until they have their coalition agreement done and they have their government formed. And they also know that this is no time to be without them.
JM:
The stakes are high. The issues are urgent.
RQ:
You know, you don't want to have a caretaker. You want to get going with the things that are on those lines. And so honestly I think they will. And. I think they'll really try to meet that deadline. And I would urge them to move faster.
JM:
Wow. Well thank you, Robin, as always, very informative. I want to tell our listeners and viewers, if you're interested in learning more, go to Wilson center.org. You'll see a programs tab at the top of the page. And that's where you can find the Wilson Center's Global Europe program. And all the good work of Robin and her colleagues. Well, we'll be back with another episode of Need to Know soon.
Until then, for all of us at the Wilson Center, I'm John Milewski. Thanks for your time and interest. Thanks, Robin.
