N. Peter Kramer’s weekly column
While the EU is involved in a war with Russia and an economic showdown with China, France and Germany , the traditional axis of the EU engine, are in a deep political and economic crisis.
In the former DDR state of Thuringen the AfD, a political party that flirts with Russia, questions support for Ukraine and is, by the national security services, a threat to democracy has become easily the largest. In Sachsen-Anhalt, another former DDR state, the conservative national opposition party CDU was just able to remain larger than the AfD. In both states the extreme-right party won more than 30 percent of the votes. It is clear that the disgraceful way West Germany has treated the East , the former communist DDR, after the historical ‘Vereinigung’ (Uniting) in 1990, underlie these election results.
But Germany has more problems. The government of socialists, greens and liberals, engaged in a continuing fight with each other, has one more year to go and it is easy predictable that the CDU shall be back in power. Probably too late to save the German economy. This week the news was, that national proud Volkswagen no longer rules out it has to close branches in Germany. The war in Ukraine and the Chinese competition are ‘demolishing’ the economy of the ever-invincible looking EU leader.
The French economy weathered the crises better, but that didn’t stop voters from punishing president Emmanuel Macron and his government. The president called early elections in June. A gamble he lost. France is now in a risky political impasse, there is no government, the national debt ratio is almost 111 percent of GDP and the budget deficit is 5.5 percent, interest rates rise, the stock market fell and investors in France are waiting and seeing what is happening. But, let us be honest, the Olympic games in Paris were a huge success, except the water quality of the Seine...
