Germany’s grand coalition stressed as vaccine-related tensions mount

In a critical election year and amid growing anger over the European vaccine shortage, the German Social Democrats are playing a risky political game: they are turning against their own government partner.

12 of the 16 years of age, the SPD is a junior member of a “grand coalition†with the Christian Democrats (CDU) of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Still, it has seen few of the benefits. The government’s support for coping with the coronavirus pandemic has boosted the CDU’s approval rating to over 35 percent, from below 30 percent before the virus broke out. The SPD, on the other hand, got stuck at or around 15 percent last year.

But now she wants to capitalize on the frustration of the population over the failed procurement program of the EU and the slow introduction of jabs in Germany, even by European standards. The three politicians most exposed in the vaccination debate belong to the CDU: Ms. Merkel, Health Minister Jens Spahn and Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission and former German Defense Minister.

At the beginning of the month, SPD Finance Minister Olaf Scholz sent a list of specific questions about vaccines to Mr. Spahn. In a letter to Ms. Merkel, Berlin’s SPD mayor Michael Müller called for a vaccination plan, which the German news magazine Der Spiegel described as a “declaration of war”. And the Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Manuela Schwesig, ruffled the CDU feathers in a television interview by saying: “Also the USA under [former President Donald] Trump â€- highly unpopular in Germany -“ obviously did a better job â€.

“The party is desperately looking for a way to build its own profile,” says Uwe Jun, political scientist at Trier University. “But the likelihood that this will backfire for them is higher than the chance of benefiting from it.”

This is a critical moment for the SPD – a “super election year†in which Germany holds federal elections in September and a series of state elections throughout the year. She is facing her first serious competition in six weeks when she is fighting for the Rhineland-Palatinate Prime Minister. Some party leaders argue that loyalty in government has yet to work in their favor.

“I have been with the SPD as part of the grand coalition for seven years, and for seven years we have said that we will not be recognized as critics of our own government,” said the Hessian MP Jens Zimmermann. “But we have been in the red in the polls for seven years.”

The SPD, once one of the most influential parties of the center-left party in Europe, achieved its worst election result of all time in 2017 with just 20.5 percent of the vote. Since then it has been difficult to find a new course. On the right it is stuck in the long shadow of the CDU, while on the left it is struggling with the growing popularity of the Greens.

The problem, according to critics, is that an attack on the vaccination campaign would not solve the party’s identity crisis.

“Voters will ask, ‘What are you going to do with the economy, how are you going to find jobs?’ These are the questions that people will ask, â€said a CDU official. “Nobody will look back at what went wrong now.”

The SPD offensive was also criticized by some leftists, such as Konstantin von Notz, member of the Bundestag for the Greens, who denounced the party’s stance as a combination of “vaccine populism and vaccine nationalismâ€.

Even some within the SPD find the strategy questionable. The Schleswig-Holstein SPD politician Ralf Stegner, known for his conservative opponents, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that there was “nothing to be gained†from such “squabblesâ€.

The SPD has made other attempts to strike on its own. In December, she withdrew her support for the use of armed drones by the German armed forces. She has also campaigned for a bill to anchor the right to work from home against the objections of the CDU.

But no topic has proven to be as controversial as the German vaccine strategy. CDU General Secretary Paul Ziemiak criticized the attacks by the SPD: “Anyone who engages in cheap election campaign maneuvers and mood-making shows primarily that they lack the sense of responsibility and attitude to govern this country well,” he said the Weser-Kurier.

SPD officials said they made the decision to go on the offensive only after a long internal debate and the realization that public frustration over the government’s vaccine strategy is growing.

“It is too easy to accuse the SPD of doing politics,” said Zimmermann. “It was up to Mr. Spahn to find solutions for this vaccine introduction, but it was the SPD who suggested.” [Monday’s vaccine] Summit. Only after Mr. Scholz had asked his questions did Mr. Spahn contact the pharmaceutical company to talk about ramping up production. “

Driving the vaccination campaign is one thing, but whether this gives the Social Democrats a political boost is another, said Jun. “I don’t see any strategy here,” he said. “Being the opposition within the government is not a promising idea.”