The future German government will represent more of the same | Opinion

Above all, Sunday’s results represented an electoral disaster for the CDU, who starred in his worst election since the war. For its part, the SPD has partially restored its flow of votes after reaching its all-time low in the 2017 elections. The Greens made a great choice, the best in their history, and they will almost certainly participate in the next government. The game far right (AFD) went from third to fifth place, but his voice flow only slightly diminished. In addition, AFD won first place in Saxony and Thuringia, two eastern provinces strongly affected by poverty and inequalities.

Since the announcement of the results on Sunday evening, negotiations between the parties for the formation of the government have started at full speed. For the time being, the “semaphore coalition” between the SPD (red), the greens (green) and the FDP (yellow), with Scholz as chancellor, appears to be the most probable. However, the “Jamaican coalition” between the CDU (black), the Greens (green) and the FDP (yellow), with Laschet as chancellor, is not yet completely excluded. Curiously, the negotiations between the Greens and the Liberals, third and fourth respectively, will determine the future Chancellor of Germany.

In this context, what consequences will the results of Sunday’s elections have for the future? In Germany, the national model is not contested. The main political forces do not show substantial differences in terms of economic, political and social orientation of the country, but rather represent nuances within the framework of a country model imposed by the ruling classes. The fact that the candidate for Chancellor of the Social Democrats participates in the Merkel cabinet as Minister of Finance is a sign of the hegemony of the dominant national model.

In this sense, the future government, whatever its composition, will be characterized by continuity of courses neoliberal assumed by the Merkel government (CDU), as well as by the government of his predecessor, Gerhard Schröder (SPD). The nuances will end up appearing socially, at the initiative of the SPD, and ecologically, at the initiative of the Greens. On the social front, the SPD will undertake an increase in the minimum wage, the relaxation of social assistance requirements and the expansion of daycare centers. From an environmental standpoint, the Greens will set stricter targets and deadlines for CO2 emissions, as well as a speed limit of 130 km / h on highways (currently without maximum speed and therefore more polluting).

None of these reforms, of course, will determine substantial changes. in the country model prevailing in Germany. Unfortunately, this model no longer represents, as in the past, a guarantee of well-being for the majority but, on the contrary, since the emergence of neoliberalism in Germany at the end of the 1990s, it has generated an increasingly unequal and less inclusive. In this sense, the future German government will represent, beyond its final composition, more of the same.

Ezequiel Luis Bistoletti is an Argentine professor at Alice Salomon University in Berlin, Germany, and facilitator of the “Demolishing Myths in Politics” program.