THE WEEK THAT WAS... (September 23, 2013)

‘We can all be happy tonight because we did great. This is a super result’, told Chancellor Angela Merkel her cheering supporters on Sunday night. She will for sure stay in the driver seat, in Germany and in Europe. What are her intentions to do in, or better with Europe? The German chancellor has determined a few weeks ago that she favors a politically less integrated Europe after the crisis. Mrs Merkel announced that now was the time to think about giving some powers back from Brussels to the memberstates. And she added that Europe from now on would not necessarily require more common policies with decisions taken by Brussels-based institutions. Improved governance could be achieved through better coordination among member states.

It is clear; the Chancellor has allied herself with the majority of Germans who think that Europe’s economic side is great but that its political side is increasingly sinister. This stance on Europe brought her for an important the victory, the best election result for her party, CDU/CSU, since 1990. But Mrs Merkel didn’t only ally herself with her voters; she also took the side of David Cameron, the UK Prime Minister, who shares her vision of repatriating government functions and favoring intergovernmental deal making over the classic community method. On the same bench with Merkel and Cameron we can find the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and may be even the French President Francois Hollande. He rang the German Chancellor to congratulate her and invited her in the same call for a visit to Paris ‘as soon as possible’.

Angela Merkel has now to build a new coalition as her junior partner, the liberal FDP, collapsed and she fell a couple of seats shy to win an absolute majority in the Bundestag. Socialists or Greens? That is the choice. It will not be easy for the glorious winner.