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The Euro crisis, like Ming Flanagan, is an embarrassing debacle that refuses to go away. In the midst of it all, Europe's only heavy hitter, Angela Merkel, has been hit heavily. After nearly half a decade of telling everyone to do crazy things like save their money and stop being lazy, she's caving in. In Berlin, the knives are being sharpened, and she's currently residing comfortably under her desk. Now 170 leading German economists have attacked her in an open letter, and one of her fiercest critics, former chancellor Helmut Schmidt, has with no little gravitas damned the beleaguered 'Madame Non' with faint praise.

Merkel: all smiles and sunshine

2012 Merkel's is her annus horribilis. Her party, the CDU, have been shown the door in every regional election held this year. Her coalition partners, the FDP, are mid implosion, and yet their leader, a man who would rather be in Afghanistan wearing a 'Jihadists for Jesus' T-Shirt than be a politician, managed to bully her into submission over misfired veto of Joachim Gauck's succeeding her handpicked Federal President, the scandal prone Christian Wulff.


Although personally popular up to now, Merkel's tough stance on the sovereign debt issues of the club med countries has cost her dearly. Moreover, it has cost her people too: the level of hostility shown towards ordinary Germans underlines the point that in barely half a decade, Germany's postwar reputation has been put to the sword, as Merkel's characteristic caution has been defined successfully in the discourse as malevolent inaction.

The home front isn't much rosier. Discontent has grown over the absence of a resolution to the crisis. Merkel's lack of substantial consultation with the Bundestag has led to challenges of the EFSF bailout mechanism at the German constitutional court, whose judges have come under increased pressure to react to political events. Enter Helmut Schmidt, former chancellor and grand seigneur of German politics. His interventions have gone largely unreported in Britain and Ireland, despite the fact he has effectively defined the case against Merkel's stance in Europe. At 93, Schmidt's political activity remains far greater than either of his other successors, Helmut Kohl or Gerhard Schroeder, and his influence on political debate accordingly remains undiminished.

Helmut Schmidt: Germany's last great smoker

He is also capable of surprises. He spoke in support of Merkel at an event in Berlin on Tuesday last, acknowledging the great challenges of being chancellor at this time. Daily broadsheet Die Welt reported Schmidt's speech as a backhanded statement of support, applauding her defeats at the G8 and G20 meetings as great tactical victories. Schmidt recently said Merkel is good at political tactics, but to what purpose was anyone's guess. Who said the Germans don't do humour?

Undermining Merkel's approach of narrowly defending Germany's interests, Schmidt has also called for a radical subordination of German concerns to the greater European good. (In December last he even reminded the SPD party conference that those who forget the historic reasons for anchoring Germany in a European Community are in danger of forgetting Germany's historic responsibility to the project.) He has also recently co-authored/co-sponsored a blueprint for a way out of the crisis with Jacques Delors, attempting to offer a pragmatic paradigm for the Eurozone in the future. 

Tomake things worse, Suedeutsche Zeitung reports that 170 leading economists have written an open letter to Merkel on her handling of the crisis. She has responded by questioning their competence. She can afford to do little more for now: her popularity is at its highest for three years. Unfortunately, anyone who knows the fate of our own dear Bertie Ahern will know that popularity won't save your bacon forever.


For all her personal popularity, Merkel is becoming politically isolated, domestically (fatal) as well as internationally (chronic). It's easy to be popular when your firm with the Greeks, whose political class has been the apotheosis of the dilettantism of modern European life, a sordid disgrace in this whole Euro fiasco. Unfortunately for Merkel, she isn't a typical CDU leader, and they'll soon want one of their own.