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CLINTON

‘If Germany could vote, Hillary would win hands down’

Germans think Trump would be a disaster for the USA and the rest of the world, argues Hamburg professor Dr. Harry Friebel in an opinion piece for The Local.

Published: 14 July 2016 17:34 CEST

'If Germany could vote, Hillary would win hands down'

Hillary Clinton. Photo: DPA

As the primaries for the US presidency were in full swing, Germany joined the discussion.

In newspapers and magazines, in online media, in debates on social media and blogs, and even in special surveys, the media provided the German public with a never-ending flood of news and commentary.

According to a representative survey by YouGov Germany, only 15 percent of the German population would like to have “a US-style campaign”. Nearly two-thirds (62%) say “I approve of the way campaigns are run in Germany”.

Nevertheless, the theatrics of the US elections clearly has a pull on the German imagination.

According to YouGov, 32 percent of respondents are following the campaign in the US “rather closely” or “very closely”.

An online survey by the Berlin daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel found that 80-85 percent of respondents who have followed coverage of the US presidential election throughout the primary season have done so “because it is close and exciting and because the decision also affects us, at least in terms of foreign policy”.

Thank God pre-election in the USA is now over.

If Germany could vote, the outcome would be clear: Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton would win hands down against the Republican’s combustible and unpredictable Donald Trump.

Different surveys on the preferences of Germans for the 45th president of the US come to similar conclusions: The magazine Stern reported on the results of its own survey “Germany Chooses” that 80 percent of Germans would vote for Clinton and 20 percent for Trump.

The news broadcaster N-tv writes that “Germans would choose Hillary Clinton for president”. Their result showed that three-quarters of Germans would cast their vote for her, while only one in 20 would vote for Donald Trump.

Clear differences between East and West Germany as well as with regard to German party preferences emerge: Clinton does best in West Germany and among supporters of the Greens, the Left Party and the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Trump receives considerably more support in the East of Germany and among supporters of the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD).

This should come as no surprise as there are clear similarities between the slogans used by Trump and the AfD.

While Trump proclaims: “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border,” the AfD declares: “We need a fence for protection on the border with Austria.”

The AfD is a right-wing populist party that was newly founded in 2013. In 2016, due to the escalation of the refugee crisis, it developed into the third most popular nationwide power.

The party now holds seats in the parliaments of all three German federal states that have held elections in 2016.

The previously mentioned YouGov survey offers a bit more nuance with regard to an assessment of the possible political consequences of the election: “The vast majority of Germans say that a US President Donald Trump would be bad for Germany as well as for the United States.”

According to a large minority (42 percent) of the respondents, a President Clinton would “improve the relationship of the US with Europe”. Only three percent agreed that this was true of Trump.

On combating climate change, another issue close to the hearts of many German voters, 31 percent thought Clinton would take action as opposed to two percent for Trump.

Even on the billionaire businessman’s supposed strong suit – money – Germans have almost no faith in him. Only nine percent think the descendant of German immigrants would improve the US economy, as opposed to 31 percent who say the same about Clinton.

On international security, the results were similar. Would Trump effectively fight against international terrorism? Twelve percent agreed in comparison with 28 percent for Clinton. Thirty-eight percent said the former secretary of state would spread peace in the world. Three percent could say the same about her Republican rival.

The story was the same across Europe.

As part of an additional Europe-wide survey by YouGov, over 8,000 people in the UK, Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway were asked how they would react if either Trump or Clinton won the election.

Victory for Trump would make 46 percent “scared”, 40 percent “disappointed” and 27percent “sad”. Conversely, an election victory by Clinton would lead 40 percent to feel “relief”, another 40 percent “optimism” and 20 percent “happiness”.

This emotional connection of the respondents is astonishing.

Old Europe wants Hillary Clinton to emerge victorious.

Dr. Harry Friebel is a professor of sociology at Hamburg University.

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Schuldenbremse: What is Germany's debt brake and how does it affect residents?

What is the debt brake and why did Germany introduce it?

Known as the Schuldenbremse in German, the debt brake is a cap on government borrowing that’s enshrined in Germany’s constitution. It states that the federal government can only take on a certain amount of new debt in each fiscal year.

This is capped at 0.35 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – the amount of money the country produces each year in goods and services. Though GDP varies from year to year, this generally gives the government enough wiggle room to borrow around €9 billion annually.

When it comes to spending on a regional level – i.e. by state governments in Germany – the rules are even stricter. States aren’t allowed to borrow any money to fund their plans and must therefore create balanced budgets that finance spending exclusively through tax income and money from the central government.

But why exactly has Germany decided to tie itself to such strict rules on spending? Well, there are quite a few answers to that.

Back in 2009, the Grand Coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Social Democrats (SPD), led by Angela Merkel, decided to bring the debt brake into law. At the time, the global economy was struggling to deal with the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis, and Germany was racking up a huge deficit.

The idea was to bring borrowing back under control as soon as possible and prevent leaving billions of euros in debt for future generations to pay off. It also paid homage to the main edicts of neo-liberalism, creating a streamlined state with little room for generous investments or high social welfare payments.

Thanks to the ongoing effects of the financial crisis, the debt break only came into force seven years after it was put in the constitution. This means that since 2016, the federal governments have been tied to 0.35 percent cap on borrowing.

That said, there are a few exceptions to the Schuldenbremse: in periods of national emergency, such as natural disasters or pandemics, the government is allowed to put the debt brake to one side. That’s exactly what happened during the Covid pandemic in the years 2020 to 2022, and now it appears it will be put aside for the fourth year in a row. In other words, it has been sidelined for exactly half of the time it has been in place.

Why has the debt brake been in the news recently?

The debt brake was put in the spotlight in early November when Germany’s Constitutional Court declared tens of billions of earmarked government spending to be ‘unconstitutional’.

The case related to €60 billion of borrowing that was originally intended for tackling the Covid crisis but had later been diverted towards a fund for fighting climate change known as the Climate and Transformation Fund.

In normal cases, moving unspent money around wouldn’t be a problem – but in this case, the specific rules around the debt brake came into play. Utilising the exceptions in the debt brake, the €60 billion was borrowed for the purpose of stabilising the economy during the pandemic – and as such it was only supposed to go towards tackling that emergency.

Wind turbines in Germany

Wind turbines in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Christian Charisius

Beyond this amount, which already represents a huge chunk of the national budget, the court decision also invalidated the Economic Stabilisation Fund (WSF). This fund was also originally set up during the Covid crisis and later repurposed as Olaf Scholz’s ‘Doppelwumms’: a €200 billion pot that paid for the energy price breaks and other relief measures in the wake of the Ukraine war.

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Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) announced that the debt brake would be set aside for one more year to allow the government to meet its financial commitments for 2023. However, the budget for next year – and how the significant gaps in funding will be filled – still remain unclear.

The crisis has sparked a major debate among politicians about whether the debt brake is still fit for purpose.

What do critics of the debt brake say?

As you might expect, the tight controls on spending aren’t popular with everyone – especially those on the left on the political spectrum.

Proponents of the debt brake say we should lower the deficit to avoid lumbering future generations with unmanageable debts, but critics of the mechanism make the opposite argument. They say that straightjacketing spending will actually put a strain on future generations as the government will be unable to invest in modern infrastructure and could therefore be hindering growth.

If borrowing is slashed too much and tax revenues don’t increase, projects like the green transformation, upgrading public transport and pushing ahead with digitalisation will inevitably be put on the backburner. The government will be forced to prioritise its urgent day to day spending in the present rather than trying to invest in the future – and it could also be forced to cut vital public services.

Deutsche Bahn train

Deutsche Bahn staff give the sign for an ICE high speed train to leave the main railway station in Stuttgart, southern Germany, on August 11, 2021. Photo by THOMAS KIENZLE / AFP

Other critics argue that the debt brake was appropriate at the time when it was introduced but that times have changed and governments require more flexibility.

In the early to mid-2000s, Germany was riding high on a booming manufacturing and exports sector fuelled by cheap Russian gas, and had made little attempt to invest in renewable energy. Now, however, with Germany transitioning away from cheap Russian gas while trying to slash the country’s carbon emissions, Germany is faced with numerous expensive challenges at a time when the economy is especially weak – meaning borrowing more or raising more taxes feel like an inevitability.

Could the debt brake be reformed in the future?

That’s certainly an idea that’s come from multiple camps – not least Economics Minister Robert Habeck of the Green Party. Speaking at the recent Green Party Conference, Habeck slammed the current rules on borrowing, stating: “With the debt brake as it is, we have voluntarily tied our hands behind our backs and are going into a boxing match.”

According to Habeck, the debt brake should be reformed according to the “green golden rule” to allow borrowing for investments rather than everyday spending. This is an idea that has also been put forward by economists.

Saskia Esken, the co-leader of the SPD, has also spoken out in favour of a reform of the debt brake to avoid putting a drag on growth in the future.

However, the likelihood of this happening seems low at the moment, even if Greens and SPD politicians – and some members of the CDU – are in favour of it.

That’s because it takes a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag to change any aspect of the Grundgesetz, or constitution – a much higher bar than the simple majority needed to change a law.

The FDP, who are in the coalition alongside the Greens and SPD, are also fiercely opposed to any reform of the debt brake and want to rein in government spending instead.

Christian Lindner

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) speaks in the Bundestag. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Michael Kappeler

Messing with this fiscal rule could also prove unpopular: a recent poll found that 61 percent on Germans were opposed to any reform of the debt brake, as opposed to 35 percent who were in favour of it, and 4 percent who didn’t know.

It means that in the medium term at least, the government may have to take a scalpel to its previous spending plans, cutting spending on investment projects, public services like healthcare and transport and social welfare such as child and unemployment benefits. Or it may find a way to raise some taxes without upsetting the FDP.

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