German Politics Thread

[Raphael]

For the record, the coalition agreement is suppose to be ratified on the CDU side by a "small" party convention, on the SPD side by a vote among all members, and on the CSU side by the Vorstand, a kind of executive committee.

If that succeeds, Merz is apparently set to become Chancellor on May the 7th.

[Raphael]

After the coalition agreement had already been approved by CDU and CSU party institutions, it was now also approved by a vote of the membership of the SPD: 84.6 percent in favor, 15.4 percent against, on a turnout of 56 percent. That means all the parties involved have now approved it, and there's nothing foreseeable stopping the coalition from going ahead. Full disclosure: Once again, I helped my Mom with casting the electronic vote.

[hwhatting]

So I finally got around to catch up with this thread. On the discussion on nuclear power, maybe I can give some background for the situation in Germany that may be important to know for people outside in order to understand our situation:
1. We had three policy changes on this in the last 20 years - first a phasing out under the Schröder government, then a phase-out of the phase-out under the 2nd Merkel government (Christian Democrat - Liberal coalition 2009-13), than the phase-out of the phase-out of the phase-out after Fukushima (BTW, that was a Grand Coalition of CDU and SPD, no Greens involved). Each time, millions were paid to the energy industry in inducements and compensation. Doing a next U-turn now would only make sense if this would really be the last change for a generation. Nobody can guarantee that.
2. In Germany, all big construction projects take decades (google the history of the new airport in Berlin or the endless saga of the reconstruction of the Stuttgart train station). This would be doubly so for something dangerous and unpopular like a nuclear reactor. So they would start producing electricity in 20 or 30 years; It's reasonable to assume that until then the storage and grid balancing problems of renewables will have been solved.
3. We can't agree on where to put the nuclear waste. As an example, the prime minister of Bavaria, Markus Söder (CSU), on one hand clamours for returning to nuclear enery, but OTOH is adamantly opposed to even exploring of whether having the final storage facility in Bavaria is feasible.
4. There were some still runnining reactors that were kept on a bid longer during the gas crisis after the Russians attacked Ukraine. But even the companies operating them stated that they couldn't be kept running much longer without big investments (for which they would have needed to be shut down.)

So, in Germany, the debate is very much only for show, with conservative politicians using the idea of switching nuclear back on as a cudgel to beat the Greens, while they know perfectly well that it would cost oodles of money and wouldn't solve the current problems. And in the long term, it's not necessary.

I personally have changed my opinion on nuclear power - I used to be for switching it off the sooner the better, everywhere. Now I'm okay with keeping it going where it works, at least until renewables are fully able to provide our energy needs. But returning to it in Germany doesn't make sense at all.

[Raphael]

As you might have heard, Friedrich Merz failed with trying to get elected as Chancellor on the first ballot. He got 310 votes (out of 630 members of the Bundestag); he would have needed 316; he should theoretically have gotten 328. Since the ballot is secret, we don't know which coalition members of the Bundestag didn't vote for him.

Since there's no precedent for that under the current constitution, everyone is unsure about what happens next. Constitutionally, the Bundestag now has two weeks to elect a Chancellor with at least 316 votes. If that doesn't happen, the Bundestag has to, after the two weeks are gone, elect a chancellor with a plurality of votes. In the meantime, Scholz stays in office as Acting Chancellor.

[Raphael]

This just in: on the second ballot, Merz got elected with 325 votes.

(Before that, the Left and the Greens had, together with the coalition parties, voted to have the second ballot today. That way, they got the two thirds needed to hold the second ballot today under some procedural rule.)

[Raphael]

And Merz took the oath. OK. Meloni is a fascist. Macron is, by now, what the Americans call a lame duck. And Starmer is a man whose main ambition is being a generic Prime Minister, who handles every situation that arises on his watch in accordance with standard procedures, so that he's completely helpless when dealing with a situation for which there are no standard procedures.

It follows that Merz, with all that's wrong with him, is now the main political leader in Western Europe. God help us all.

[Lērisama]

And Merz took the oath. OK. Meloni is a fascist. Macron is, by now, what the Americans call a lame duck. And Starmer is a man whose main ambition is being a generic Prime Minister, who handles every situation that arises on his watch in accordance with standard procedures, so that he's completely helpless when dealing with a situation for which there are no standard procedures.

It follows that Merz, with all that's wrong with him, is now the main political leader in Western Europe. God help us all.

When you put it like that, it's so much more cheery, thank you.