German Chancellor Angela Merkel is attending a press conference following video talks with federal heads of government on the vaccination strategy at the Federal Chancellery on March 23, 2021 in Berlin, Germany.
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LONDON – A third wave of the coronavirus pandemic has raised several political concerns over Chancellor Angela Merkel and her ruling CDU party as the country approaches the federal elections later this year.
Germany was initially widely praised for managing the coronavirus pandemic, skillfully treating the country’s initial outbreak by isolating cases and tracking contacts, while its modern and well-equipped hospitals helped keep the death toll low.
A year later, the situation is very different, the largest economy in Europe is facing a third wave of infections, an increased number of deaths and allegations of mismanagement of the health crisis targeting the government.
On Wednesday, Merkel was furious about reversing a plan to block the country during the Easter break, saying she had made a “mistake”. This came after criticism from health experts and business leaders, who said the proposal could do more harm than good.
The concession comes as experts reflect on Germany’s approach to the pandemic and look at how ruling Christian Democratic-Social Union parties could be affected when Germans cast their ballots in the September federal election.
Merkel’s CDU party has already done poorly in the recent state elections, signaling that it could be punished again later in the year by voters who are wrong with the center-left Social Democrats and, in particular, the green environmentalists. whose support has increased significantly.
“Improper management hurts,” Holen Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank, commented on Thursday.
“In March last year, a clever response to the pandemic sent support to Chancellor Angela Merkel and her CDU / CSU almost into the stratosphere.” He added, however, that although Germany handled the first wave of the pandemic better than most other developed countries, “this is no longer the case.”
“Confused political changes and slow progress in vaccination have now undermined public confidence in the CDU / CSU’s ability, which has led the government for most of postwar history, including the past 15 years, to lead Germany through the crisis,” he said. .
Schmieding noted that a setback scandal involving members of the CDU-CSU parliament resonated with the public, with polls showing a decline in support for the CDU-CSU back to pre-pandemic levels. “Merkel’s return from an ‘Easter break’ could add to misfortune, ” he added.
What happens?
A decline in popularity for the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, comes as questions remain about who will lead the German government in September, when Merkel’s final term ends. CDU-CSU has not yet said which candidate it will run for election.
Merkel’s return to action on Wednesday was unusual, given that it has long been considered a steady hand in times of crisis. The action showed that the German government also feels the pressure to make difficult decisions amid a rapidly moving pandemic situation.
After returning on Wednesday, Merkel rejected the opposition’s demands to ask Parliament for a vote of confidence in her government.
Germany has now reported more than 2.7 million cases and 75,498 deaths so far, according to Johns Hopkins University, much lower than in the UK. This compares with the 4.3 million cases in the UK and over 126,621 deaths.
The country had recently begun easing foreclosure measures, allowing schools to reopen in February and some non-essential stores to re-admit customers earlier this month. Like other European nations, it has worked to launch coronavirus vaccines to allow it to slowly reopen its economy, the largest in Europe.
Germany is not alone in having to adapt its plans; Italy will re-impose a national blockade over Easter for the second year in a row, while Paris and other parts of France are again under a partial blockade.
Public tolerance of renewed blockages could be higher if vaccination plans are planned in the EU. But overall, immunization programs across the country reveal a rate of plaque vaccinations.
EU leaders met on Thursday to discuss blocking EU vaccine exports, as other countries such as the UK continue their programs. On Thursday, Merkel defended the EU’s strategy to procure vaccines as a bloc, rather than individually.
“Now that we see even small differences in the distribution of vaccines causing great discussion, I would not want to imagine if some Member States would have vaccines and others would not. That would shake the internal market to its core,” she told them. German lawmakers at the EU summit, Reuters reported.
She also suggested that vaccination problems in the region have more to do with lower production capacity than with the subordination of photographs.
“British production sites manufacture for the UK and the United States does not export, so we rely on what we can do in Europe,” she said. “We have to assume that the virus, with its mutations, could occupy us for a long time, so the question goes far beyond this year,” she added.