German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends a press conference after video talks with heads of federal governments on the vaccination strategy at the Federal Chancellery on March 23, 2021 in Berlin, Germany.
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LONDON – A third wave of coronavirus pandemics has thrown more political problems at Chancellor Angela Merkel and her ruling CDU party as the country approaches the federal elections later this year.
Initially, Germany was widely praised for its treatment of the coronavirus pandemic, deftly treating the initial outbreak in the country by isolating cases and tracking contacts, while its modern, well-equipped hospitals helped maintain fatalities.
A year later, the situation is very different, as Europe’s largest economy faces a third wave of infections, an increase in the number of deaths and accusations of mismanagement of the government-led health crisis.
On Wednesday, Merkel made waves reversing a plan to shut down the country over the Easter holidays saying she had made a “mistake.” This came after criticism from health experts and business leaders, who said the proposal could cause more harm than good.
The concession comes as experts reflect on the German treatment of the pandemic and see how the ruling Christian Democratic Union-Christian Social Union ruling parties could be affected when Germans cast their votes in the September federal election.
Merkel’s CDU party has already been wrong in the last state election, noting that it could be punished again by the end of the year by voters who made mistakes towards center-left Social Democrats and, in particular, Green environmentalists, support of which it has increased remarkably.
“Mismanagement hurts,” Holen Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank, said Thursday.
“Last March, an agile response to the pandemic sent support to Chancellor Angela Merkel and her CDU / CSU almost into the stratosphere.” But he added that while Germany handled the first wave of the pandemic better than most other developed countries, “this is no longer the case.”
“Confusing political changes and slow progress in vaccination have undermined public confidence in the ability of the CDU / CSU, which has led the government for most of post-war history, including the last 15 years, to lead Germany through the crisis, “he noted. .
Schmieding noted that a backlash scandal against members of the CDU-CSU Parliament had resonated among the public, and polls showed a drop in support for the CDU-CSU at pre-pandemic levels. “Merkel’s deviation from a” closing of Easter “may add to the problems, ” added.
What’s wrong?
A drop in popularity for the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, comes as signs of a question remain over who will head the German government in September, when Merkel’s final term ends. The CDU-CSU has not yet said which candidate will run for election.
Merkel’s turn on Wednesday was unusual, as she has long been considered a firm hand in times of crisis. The movement showed that the German government is also feeling the pressure of having to make difficult decisions in the midst of a moving pandemic situation.
Following Wednesday’s rotation, Merkel rejected opposition demands to ask Parliament for a vote of confidence in her government.
Germany currently has more than 2.7 million cases and 75,498 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, much lower than in the United Kingdom. It compares with the 4.3 million cases in the UK and more than 126,621 deaths.
The country had recently begun blocking measures, which allowed schools to reopen in February and some non-essential stores were able to re-admit customers earlier this month. Like other European nations, it was betting on the introduction of coronavirus vaccines to allow it to slowly reopen its economy, the largest in Europe.
Germany is not the only one that has to adjust its plans; Italy has to re-impose a national closure during the Easter period for the second year in a row, while Paris and other parts of France are again under partial closure.
Public tolerance of renewed blockades could be greater if vaccine implementations in the EU were planned. But overall, vaccination programs across the block reveal a plaque vaccination rate.
EU leaders met virtually Thursday to discuss whether to block EU vaccine exports as other countries such as the UK continue their programs. Earlier Thursday, Merkel defended the EU’s strategy for procuring vaccines en bloc, rather than individually.
“Now that we see that even small differences in the distribution of vaccines are causing great controversy, I would not like to imagine if some Member States had vaccines and others did not. That would shake the internal market to its core.” told German lawmakers at the EU summit, Reuters reported.
He also suggested that vaccination problems in the region were more related to lower production capacity than in cases of suborders.
“British production sites manufacture for Britain and the United States does not export, so we are confident in what we can do in Europe,” he said. “We have to assume that the virus, with its mutations, may be occupying us for a long time, so the question goes far beyond this year,” he added.