Highly Unstable Deal Would Install Merkel as Chancellor

I’m actually reasonably pleased with this result:

BERLIN – Conservative leader Angela Merkel said Monday she had reached a “good and fair” deal that will make her Germany’s first female chancellor in a power-sharing agreement that would end Gerhard Schroeder’s seven years in office.

Under the agreement, which ends a three-week political deadlock, Merkel would have to give most of the seats in the new Cabinet to Schroeder’s Social Democrats as the price of governing, including top jobs such as foreign minister. Merkel also said good relations with the United States — another possible sticking point with Schroeder’s party — would be a priority. “I am convinced that good trans-Atlantic relations are an important task and that they are in Germany’s interests,” she said.

Given the state of anti-Americanism in Germany, the best we could hope for was to knock Germany out of Franco-German coalition. This will not only do that, but also keep Germany in a state of such perpetual instability that it will be effectively paralyzed. If that deepens or prolongs its recession, then the effect will be to weaken the entire EU experiment. Given that the EU is like a Seinfeld episode writ across the face of a continent–by which I mean that it’s “about” nothing–it’s for the best that the nations of Central and Eastern Europe should have more time to rise, prosper, and gain influence within Europe before EU bureaucracy is set in stone.

The bad news is that the party that retains the Chancellorship will get the blame if, as is likely, the recession does continue. Schroeder will now be able to fight against reforms from the sidelines while the CDU takes a beating for the many things that will go wrong. This could set the stage for an SDP comeback.