After a year of the corona crisis, it is becoming clear how much the pandemic is pushing an experienced politician like the Chancellor to the limit. At least politically: The “human factor” suddenly becomes decisive.
An analysis by Corinna Emundts, tagesschau.de
This virus, yes the pandemic, is one “unreasonable imposition”, said the Chancellor in her appearance today to journalists. An unreasonable expectation because it does not adhere to any limits, because it produces even more aggressive mutated successors who throw all their predictions overboard. She wants to say: I understand everyone who runs out of patience. Especially now this winter, “which pulls on the nerves”.
The number of skeptics is growing
She probably says it to herself too. This virus is an imposition for a politician who likes to think, weigh and hesitate over long periods of time before deciding. Not only on the question of whether she still wanted to enter this legislature. She was also accused of this in the 2008 financial crisis. This virus brings you, the experienced long-time Federal Chancellor, to her own limits. To the limits of their power – even if it is just the power of words to convince people of their political actions. She knows for sure: the number of skeptics and impatient people is growing. The number of contradictions in the corona policy of the federal and state governments too. Full subways, open-plan offices and factories, but almost completely closed schools. Who should you explain this to?
She tries, that’s why she faces the federal press conference, the association of capital correspondents, less than 48 hours after the start of the latest federal-state round. There politicians, invited by journalists, are available to answer questions. She has been coming over more often since the Corona crisis – it is her fourth appearance since the pandemic began. And even describes it as a “coincidence”, in the Corona time, which is low in speech and performance, that there is something like the federal press conference.
That is of course a little cheap. Because she could also have answered questions from the Bundestag – even in a special session. The FDP had demanded that. On Wednesday, the Chancellor then appeared at least in a digital meeting of the Union parliamentary group to explain the decisions of the extended lockdown again.
Explanatory, almost pleading
She is currently explaining, defending, almost pleading – Merkel is looking for the public in the Corona crisis. Because she feels the limits of her power. At a moment she clenches her fists to underline her determination: “I can promise you that we will do everything we can to get the vaccines as quickly as possible.” Not a word in the direction of the SPD and Vice Chancellor, who had asked their CDU health minister a few critical questions. Merkel’s method seems to be here: Don’t stop with criticism, rather emphasize the positive and get closer to the goal of a wide range of vaccinations by the summer.
This crisis is beyond any experience of the crisis-tested Chancellor. And pushes them to new heights of responsibility – because this time it’s about a badly controllable virus that can kill many people. Even in her previous corona government declarations in the Bundestag, she visibly addressed the citizens more than she responded to the arguments of her critics. It now needs the approval of millions, well beyond its own electorate.
Because unlike most political decisions – even in the financial crisis of 2008, which were poured into laws and then implemented by the authorities or cured with financial commitments, almost every single member of society now needs them to get out of the crisis quickly. What an imposition it must be for someone who, on the last few meters of her chancellorship, feels like a globally thinking world leader.
Merkel must hope that people will take responsibility for themselves
If the measures she instigated and warned are to take effect, she needs something that cannot be calculated – the voluntariness of the people. Be it with the willingness to vaccinate. Or when implementing the rules that often cannot be made into legal obligations, for example with the much-discussed topic of home office. At uncontrollable meetings in private rooms, she has to hope that people will take responsibility for themselves.
She is asked about her prognoses when the so-called herd immunity will be reached. With a thoroughly disarming honesty, she admits that she does not know that. You operate “no production plant for vaccines” and can therefore not guarantee the production itself. And there it is again, the human factor: “I cannot guarantee how many people will be vaccinated.”
In this “difficult phase of the pandemic”, words that Merkel uses more often, she becomes a science explainer, which is rather easy for her. It is already more difficult to explain why the date of the measures now mentioned, i.e. mid-February, can only be a provisional one: because it depends on the incidence of 50 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants being reached. And why here, too, it cannot be relaxed immediately, but only at the value of 25 cases.
She took another look at the numbers from autumn, she explains: It took exactly ten days for the country to go from 25 to 50. She wants to avoid this effect, it is taken from her. After all, the federal government does not consider that a third lockdown cycle to be added to the second.
Explainer of her own politics
With a renewed openness, Merkel is also a patient explainer of her political decisions. Confronted with the accusation that she was only following the advice of experts who advised the “NoCovid strategy”, Merkel made the difference between her and the scientists who recommend an incidence of less than ten cases clear: “Then comes the policy that has to weigh up “: She is not only responsible for questions from epidemiologists, but also for how long restrictions can be justified.
And then there is the group of scientists who are in favor of more freedom and a “contamination” of society. “This is a political decision that nobody can make for me,” says Merkel. You have decided against it because you would have to accept many deaths among younger people.
It is clear in the last few months of her chancellorship that she has to move existential issues. With all this she may give little insight into her own emotional life. She once admits that it is emotionally stressful to know that many elderly people died lonely in the pandemic, “it breaks my heart.” But when asked whether the pandemic was also pushing her to her personal limits, she remained calm: Her feeling was always “tense attention”, no different than in the first days of her taking office.
