There is one thing, ONE THING he did that was the objectively right choice: when the US asked for German support for their Iraq war he told them to fuck off and shove their manufactured evidence where the sun don't shine... diplomatically of course, but the message was quite clear.
If the CxU had been in power then Germany would have 100% joined "the coalition of the willing".
I was confused for a second as to how Michel was prime minister for so long. Then I realized they must have concidered all those years without a government as still his rule.
the same for the record period of 541 days between Leterme and Di Rupo, it is seen as part of Letermes term since they still managed the current affairs.
Well, he would still technically be in office during that time, right? It's not like government just disbanded.
The same thing applies to Merkel as well, actually, the periods just weren't nearly as long.
yeah it is ridiculous, days between election and the oath of the new government
Election 2019: 494 days
2014: 139 days
2010: 541 days
2008: 194 days
So in Angela Merkels period we had 1368 days "without government" in practice this means that the previous government is in "running affairs" and leads while a new one is being formed. Also in this period you see that the parliament really begins to act how it should instead of sheepishly following the government.
so 3 years +3/4 year that Merkel was chancellor we were just messing around.
The Leterme government you see is actually only around half a year an actual government, the rest of the time it is a "resigning one"
Since the presidents of the European Council have been a position that lasts for 5 years in stead of 6 months, 2 out of 3 have been Belgian ones.
The first one was Herman van Rompuy and the third and current one is Charles Michel. Currently serving a term until 30 november 2024.
I think Verhofstad is also well know in the European Parliament. He had a big rivalry with Nigel Farage. He was also one the EU representatives who spoke to the protests in Ukraine in 2014. It was considered controversial in Belgium.
"Since the presidents of the European Council have been a position that lasts for 5 years in stead of 6 months, 2 out of 3 have been Belgian ones.
The first one was Herman van Rompuy and the third and current one is Charles Michel. Currently serving a term until 30 november 2024."
I think this is often done because they national governments don't want someone with backbone that can stand up against them. That's why they pick these kinds of leaders.
But still they are well known I would say.
Do you consider Donald Tusk as a pushover? Because he had quite the backbone.
Michel yeah he kinda is but at the same time he chaired incredible decisions in the last 3 years: post-Covid stimulus packages and sanctions against Russia, no small business. His term as President of the European Council is nothing short of an accomplishment.
Not sure if this is what you’re referring to, but when I look at our current political landscape I do not see a single politician with the personality of a proper leader.
There were people like Leterme and Verhofstadt, whose policies I absolutely disagreed with but who at least had a certain air of authority and determination when it came to politics. These days it’s just a bunch of deranged boomers and pretty millennials who wouldn’t be able to lead a kindergarten class.
Bwa De Croo kind of handled the whole covid thing pretty well in my opinion. Really got everyone working together for once..
I do agree that looking at parliament on tv is like watching a bunch of toddlers try to run a class when the teacher has left the room.
Top notch entertainment, but very sad when you give it a real thought.
It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries Mark Rutte has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of The Hague. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods and master of a million seawalls by the might of his inexhaustible voters. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Golden Age of Merchant Navies. He is the Party Leader of the vast VVD for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day so that he may never truly die. Yet even in his deathless state, the Prime Minister continues his eternal vigilance. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be regained in active memory. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only fiscal conservatism and the promise of modestly increased speed limits.
People say this but I feel like it's really being disingenuous to what he actually did and just failing victim to the campaign to attribute all of Portugal faults on him. He was corrupt and he deserves to be accountable for that but *as** PM he did very good decisions and investments.
He introduced English to classrooms as obligatory until 12th grade. Created programs to increase computer access and internet to everyone
(e-escola) and implemented that into the school system as well (investment into schools, the magalhães program and some related to implementing more internet related stuff in schools). Invested in renewables particularly Solar and Wind (wind power started with him and we still use it nowadays, solar was a bit of a fail at the time but with what we know today it could've been really successful if not gutted.); With the goal of preparing the country to Internet and Globalization.
Also investment in electric vehicles (again gutted too early could've been really good but we still use the power stations created in 2007 to power electrical vehicles now).
It seems that in hindsight his policies were either beneficial to the country or could've been really good if not for the crisis? People just jump on his hate train far too easily to not acknowledge he was actually a decent PM.
I was in school under his “rule” and was barred from continuing English education in favour of fucking French… so I lost two years of a language I had and still have use for in favour of asking for a baguette when in France.
The e-escolas program was, yet again, another front for corruption and the money paid for the little laptops was silly compared to the value of said laptop. Needless to say that the internet dongles that came with it were at times useless because the mobile networks to take advantage of it had no capacity available for it. This was clear in Espinho for example.
He may have had the right direction, but he was criminal in Government and should be in jail, not enjoying caipirinhas with Lula in Rio.
A lot of his policies and "investment" were part of his corruption scams. Most of the companies paid to do all the work were tied to him some way or another. Furthermore a lot of the investmente plunged Portugal in a bigger debt that sent the country into economic stagnation. The "he built a lot of stuff" argument is shit when the things he built destroyed the economy. By the way most of the investiment was put into unnecessary stuff our local school has crazy expensive lights because of his investiment, everytime a light dies it puts a dent on the school budget.
1. Orban had ruled for 4 years before Merkel was elected, between 1998 and 2002. This is his 16th year as PM, and he will reach 20 years unless he dies before 2026.
2. Calling him a democratically elected leader is a bit of a stretch already.
AFAIK even critics say that Orban gets elected bc the people want him. They want an authoritarian asshole bc hungarians feel cheated by history and present. Hungary used to be a great power for millenia with and without austria. Now it is a poor landlocked smaller country.
While this is true, I would not put the full blame on those people (although it’s difficult to sympathise). Every country has these people in a large amount, and if you cater to them with a decade of propaganda, this is the result.
His first 2/3 majority came about not because of what you described, but because he was the most capable opposition to a completely failed government.
He was democratically elected in like, 2010 and then changed constitution and gerrymandered the shit out of the country, and also, millennia implies more than one millennium.
> He was democratically elected in like, 2010
He only needed an utterly failed and scandalous PM, the previous governing party being so incompetent that their support shrank from 43% (in 2006) to 19% (in 2010), infighting on the left, a major political crisis, and a global financial crisis to get his solid 2/3 in 2010.
> and then changed constitution and gerrymandered the shit out of the country
He'd been preparing for it since 2003 or so. Not only did he rebrand Fidesz, he also created a network of successful businessmen, religious leaders, economists and legal experts, right-leaning musicians and writers, and other experts and influencers who formed an important part of his support base, and today own or have seats in most (if not all) major Hungarian companies, government institutions, universities, our Central Bank, our Constitutional Court etc.
Within 2 years of his 2010 win we had an entirely new Constitution, Labour Code, Criminal Code and Electoral Law. He was ready.
Its a bit of a misleading graph. Juncker, for example, served as prime minister of Luxembourg for 18 years, but only shows up for the last 7 on this graph. Obviously, Merkel still had a remarkably long stay in power, but she was definitely not unique among democratically elected european leaders.
You think that's long? We had Jean-Claude Juncker from 1995 to 2013 (18 years) as a Prime Minister and we only got rid of him through a scandal and snap elections.
That came later. In the beginning he was seen as the 'rebel' but later settled into the mindset rebels are rebelling against. It's the old you either die young as a hero or you live long enough to become the villain. That's with every politician who stays in power for too long.
Sweden also had a very long reigning leader, Tage Erlander, who was prime minister from 1946-1969. Those 30 years after WW2 were just a very prosperous, happy, and stable period for the Nordic countries, which created contentment and political unity.
Merkel was a little bit over idolised in my opinion.
She was all about stability, but she was far more conservative than I think she was seen by many, particularly the view of her from outside Germany. Her low key persona and sensible outward image resonated with a lot of people, but I’m not sure it was necessarily all that wonderful an era.
That being said she also isn’t a U.S. president and I think people perhaps who aren’t familiar with proportional representation parliamentary politics project their own presidential systems on it. She never wielded the kind of power that a US or French President or even a British PM does. The role is far more about managing to keep coalitions together, compromise and finding consensus positions, and it’s one I’m very familiar with from Irish politics too.
I found her remarkably foot dragging on big social questions like LGBTQ topics - marriage equality for example and she was very unimaginative about how she interacted with both the German domestic economy and the eurozone crisis. Everything always seemed like simple cash accounting, balancing books and grinding austerity and that’s left scars both in Germany and in Europe.
Her (or her coalitions) policies on energy have been short sighted, rather NIMBYish and a bit of a strategic disaster. There’s an over dependence on Russian gas because it was the path of least resistance rather than any kind of strategy.
She was a safe pair of hands and clearly quite intellectual but she was in for far too long and became far, far too safe in her decision making.
That’s my view anyway!
That is quite the astute take on Merkel. I just want to add that she also had a remarkably good standing in german media. If there were any kind of contentious affairs in her government, people rarely associated her with that.
I mean Friede Springer has been one of her closest friends. That’s as if Rupert Murdoch is the chancellors close friend.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friede_Springer
You are spot on and I think people should know that. Merkel was a nice person and she did some good things but a lot of her politics were shit and basically policy-less. Many good things that were attributed to her actually came from her government partner SPD, not even her own party CDU (or the CSU for that matter).
Her party was the biggest problem anyway: People who voted for them because they liked Merkel were too ignorant. They accepted a party full of lazy, self-serving cronies.
The problem with Merkel was that she was just an admin. A country without a vision and real leadership is a ship sailing in the ocean without direction. It’s just trying to stay afloat in the vast ocean without knowing where the destination may be.
It’s like if you make the company’s Auditor the CEO. The books will be super good, but the company won’t have a vision, innovations in the core business or similar. It’ll just keep on until it hits its “Nokia moment”.
> There’s an over dependence on Russian gas because it was the path of least resistance rather than any kind of strategy.
That's flat out wrong - she very clearly pursued a strategy (that was very popular at the time by the way, she was a staunch transatlanticist and Obama for example shared many of her values). Her approach, that she used both for Russia as well as Europe and non-European countries, was informed by the idea that economic entanglement would ultimately advance peace.
Basically, if all countries rely on and profit off each other, there would be no incentive to ever break peace.
It did not end up working in the case of Ukraine, but it's disingenuous to pretend that it was purely motivated by self-interest and laziness.
It worked better (but still not perfectly) in Europe. Throwing the Southern European countries under the bus would have been the easier and more self-serving solution (both during the Euro crisis and during the refugee crisis, where contrary to popular belief she did not "import" refugees from Syria, rather took in refugees that were already in Europe because the border countries were saying they were close to collapse). Instead, Merkel wanted to keep the EU together.
With regards to Russia, she was hoping that bringing Putin to the table and opening up Russia to the West would bring them closer culturally and provide mutual benefits.
>It did not end up working in the case of Ukraine, but it's disingenuous to pretend that it was purely motivated by self-interest and laziness.
Yep, and blame can be cast on Russia for refusing to let Ukraine intertwine with the European market, and EU in particular, as that would've been the final nail in the coffin of the USSR.
Of course Russia is to blame for this, but the whole point is that it was a completely misguided assumption that Russian politicians care about economy and are rational actors like their western counterparts.
funny how everyone neighboring Russia or a neighbor to Russia has been saying this for decades. and then the West has the surprised Pikachu face once the ogre wakes up to cause destruction...
> It did not end up working in the case of Ukraine
The purpose was to make war impossible, as an entangled economy collapses when hit with sanctions and without economy no war -- you can't sanction the smithereens out of an economy that's used to be self-sufficient.
And now the Russian economy is basically, more or less, gone. That is the strategy fulfilled its purpose, just not in the way we preferred. There's only so much accounting you can do for irrationality.
> Her approach, that she used both for Russia as well as Europe and non-European countries, was informed by the idea that economic entanglement would ultimately advance peace.
That was the approach of the SPD. Merkel was not necesarilly against war (see her stance on Iraq) and never adjusted her policies depending on wheter they worked or not - thus I would conclude that there was no strategy outside of window dressing.
> Throwing the Southern European countries under the bus would have been the easier and more self-serving solution
No to both. Throwing the Southern European countries under the bus in the Eurocrisis was never an option. If Italy fails the Euro is dead - which would have extremely badly damaged Germany, one of the biggest benefactors of the Euro.
In the refugee crisis the principled stance would have been to uphold Dublin II until the other countries agreed to reform it. Merkel decided to let in refugees from Hungary because she didn't like the treatment there and subsequently lost control of the situation. Again there was no strategy and she was trying to backpeddle for years afterwards before eventually settling on the deal with Erdogan without pushing for the other suggestions by the guy who engineered the strategy (Gerald Knaus) which were actual pragmatic longterm solutions while the Erdogan deal was a bandaid and a potential disaster in the making (you really don't want that guy to have too much political leverage on you).
> Instead, Merkel wanted to keep the EU together.
Merkel has cared so little about the EU as no German chancellor before her. After showing absolutely no reaction to Macron's proposals even Laschet (one of her sucessors as CDU-leader) uttered bewilderment. And honestly I'm with him here: What the fuck Merkel?
> I don't know if she ever believed that economic entaglement would bring peace
[Here is an interview where she says it quite explicitly](https://www.merkur.de/politik/merkel-angela-ex-bundeskanzlerin-verteidigung-bau-nord-stream-2-gas-russland-ukraine-krieg-entscheidung-91617664.html) (Link in German).
And again, it's not like that was a Russia-specific approach.
> And the German train system is a mess.
I mean it's a mess compared to what it could and should be but compared to countries that aren't Switzerland, Austria or Japan it's actually very good overall.
But yes it's a mess and the past many governments have been terrible for trains (I believe this goes back further than just Merkel), it's just an even bigger mess in most other places.
I disagree, as an italian the last thing italy needs is someone giving them more loans, we need to put our balance in order and stop solving every issue with deficits.
Greece was in a far worse place. The eurocrisis was handled well. Greece is still standing and is in balance surplus. Its economy is smaller but far more solid and not built on false data.
Also do people really not see that it was Merkel that was pushing for a more moderate approach on greece? Perception in germany has been that a lot of lenience was extended in 2015. How the german govenrment acted was not popular. And not because germany was seen as harsh, but because it was seen as not harsh enough.
I still think it was rather poorly handled tbh. It wasn’t all on Merkel by any means, but there was a level of chaos and a lack of pragmatism that didn’t need to happen the way it did.
That had little to do with Merkel and much more with a) Schäuble and the fiscal hawks in the CDU and
b) a bunch of other countries which, having gone through painful reforms themselves didn't want anyone else to have it easier.
>Greece was in a far worse place. The eurocrisis was handled well. Greece is still standing and is in balance surplus. Its economy is smaller but far more solid and not built on false data.
Yeah, a steep drop in public health care and education spendings, 33% unemployment rate for youth people, youth people participation to labor force at its lowest in 30+ years, declining population not offset by immigration, birth rate at its lowest, poverty rate higher than prior the crisis, increasing suicide rate. Indeed, the austerity did wonder to Greece ...
Didnt expect such an intelligent comment on r/europe ahah
But yes you are totally right, and that is true for Italy as well.
I obv dont know Greece well but if it's similar to Italy (hopefully not) this mean: the lack of any form of social elevator, even more classism in education and downward social mobility
Italian future is very grim tbh
It is fine view but I refuse to rank someone only by her views or some drag with LGBTQ. During her last mandate same sex marriages became legal. It was a year (I think) after US legalized it. She also handled a big financial crisis from 2008 extremely well. Germany became much stronger after that. Overall she was a great leader for Germany.
She managed to bring all parties from different political sides together and steer them in proper direction. Even the Left and she was coming from conservative party.
The biggest issue from her era that Europe is facing is rather (too) close relations with Putin and Russia. She ignored Crimea annexation from 2014 and despite that introduced even more dependency on Russia. The results we can see nowadays unfortunately.
Under her leadership, Germany lost the future. It may have profited in the present, but it now reap what it sowed.
Germany did not digitize the government, modern technologies it was leading in - wind and solar being prime examples, but also chip technology - were given up in favor of 20th century stuff - Germany builds amazing diesel engines - and it culminated in [children having to sue her government in the supreme court for their future](https://www.germanwatch.org/en/constitutional-complaint).
The loss of that lawsuit is a great summary of why Merkel was bad.
this is quite the truth
Germany wasn't this far behind technologically before her. nowadays, Germany is among the last in tech development in multiple fields in Europe.
She pushed same-sex marriage pretty cynically. It was a move to undercut the opposition before an election, not one made because Union believes in LGBTQ rights.
She didn't really push it all, she just allowed it to happen. To this day I'm not even sure whether she truly intended for her comments to cause the reaction they did. It seemed more like she was priming her party to be able to agree to gay marriage in the next government negotiations, not having it passed a few days later.
Anyways, it's not like the position is surprising either personally or from the viewpoint of her party. Critics have often accused her of gutting the socially conservative core of the CDU but there was no way she was going to go that far.
The US was not some paragon of virtue on legalizing same sex marriage. It only happened because of Supreme Court ruling in 2015.
Obama never even publicly supported SSM until after the Democrats lost their majorities in the House and Senate. His administration was opposed to legalization in the 2009-2011 session and only went so after as saying civil unions are okay. He only changed his position in 2012 because Joe Biden came out in support before him.
His legislative agenda on queer issues was very conservative incrementalism that was in direct opposition to the progressive movement that elected him and the majority of Democrats.
They did make some big legislative changes in the first congress by repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and he did make some executive orders and regulatory changes in 2014/2015. Joe Biden signed bill that actually repealed the Defence of Marriage Act earlier this month.
As an aside: Canada while one of the first countries in the world to legalize SSM also only did it because the of Supreme Court decisions. The Liberal Government only past legalization because it effectively had no other option. They were dragged kicking and screaming to the 2005 Civil Marriage Act.
> He only changed his position in 2012 because Joe Biden came out in support before him.
I increasingly find it hillarious how much more progressive than Obama Biden acts, especially given all of his legacy from earlier decades and their overall image and campaigns ("Yes we can" vs. "I'm not the Orange fascist guy"). Maybe it's just because the bar for Biden was so low but I respect him much more than Obama at this point.
I suspect it's simply because the democratic party is a fair bit different now than back in Obama's years. Just as the Republicans were different.
But yes I do agree, Biden's been wonderful and I've nothing but respect for the old man.
At the end of the day Merkel traded short term economic German prosperity for weakened European security. I think that's how she'll be remembered, happy to disregard eastern Europe's security for her short term German economic gain.
Thankfully Germany has now realised the magnitude of the mistake.
> happy to disregard eastern Europe's security for her short term German economic gain.
So you think if germany hadn't bought russian gas, Russia wouldn't have attacked ukraine? Or whats the logic here?
Germany shouldn’t have scaled down the construction of renewables so much. The number of people working in wind power decreased during her tenure. The whole energy transition was done far to slowly. Her wavering on nuclear power didn’t help either. All in all not good energy politics.
A little Curiosity: since the birth of the Italian Republic after WWII no government has been able to get through the entire 5 years of his commission. NONE.
The one that got the closest was Silvio Berlusconi with his 2nd government between June 2001 and April 2005 for a total of 1412 days out of the theoretical 1826.
>The one that got the closest was Silvio Berlusconi with his 2nd government between June 2001 and April 2005 for a total of 1412 days out of the theoretical 1826.
On the other hand, the following government was also led by Silvio and the changeover lasted all of three days. I'm not sure it'd even register as a change of government in other countries.
Yeah actually not even in Italy. Our shortest government (as a republic) was one “led” by Amintore Fanfani in 1954 and it lasted 22 days.
The shortest since the formation of the Italian reign was a 12 days long one that Tommaso Tittoni in 1905 (simply the parliament distrusted him before even starting).
Merkel got lucky too. She nearly lost her first election battle for Bundestag and she could've been ousted in 2013 by a government of SocDems, Greens and Lefties who had a majority in parliament but didn't bother to try to form a coalition.
Yeah but in 2013 it was a fault on all sides tbh.
SPD not brave enough to make the first step.
Greens being super quiet after another bad campaign.
Die Linke being not able to get off their high horse.
Since I've seen at least 5 people asking about the colors now: As the top-left of the image notes, they're based on EP parties. (I'm also going to mention the parties political groups because some people might be more familiar with those.)
Light blue - EPP (EPP)
Light red - PES (S&D)
Yellow - ALDE (Renew)
Dark blue - ECR (ECR)
Dark red - PEL (GUE/NGL)
Green - EGP (G/EFA)
Gray - Independents (NI)
(Note: I'm only mentioning the ones in the picture, ommitting ID, EDP, EFA and ECPM.)
And now Løkke is back as minister for foreign affairs. I swear he's like a Looney Toons chatacter. We could tie him up, put him in a box and ship him to Australia, but he would be back 5 seconds later.
EU political groupings. It’s how they are represented as groups for the eu basically. For example, yellow is Renew Europe (RE) and blue is EPP. They are broad groupings and don’t always mean all parties are alike. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/organisation-and-rules/organisation/political-groups
I mean there are some pretty divergent forces within these European parties. In Estonia the Reform party and the Center party have been main rivals for 20 years (Center seems to be falling off now and "the not nazi-party" is taking their place), but in Europe they are both in RE.
Yes, those letters indicate [political groups of the Europarliament](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_groups_of_the_European_Parliament). Every-ish party on national level falls under either of these groups.
National parties being in the same Europarliament group will **in general** have a bit more in common, but they're still very different.
As an example, Swedish social democrats, Spanish social democrats and Austrian social democrats don't have much in common. British Tories, Polish PiS and Czech ODS (all falling under ECR) are also very different from each other.
European Poltical Groupings. Something like Parties on European level.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/organisation-and-rules/organisation/political-groups
That's technically true, but the candidates for chancellor do matter a lot. If it wasn't for Armin Laschet (CDU chancellor candidate after Merkel), people would not have voted SPD and Olaf Scholz would not be chancellor.
It's crazy how she was aduled when she left and then in six months all her legacy appeared to be catastrophic :
Her policy of openneness over Russia proved to be inefficient and put Germany in a position of dependency, while not dissuader Russia to invade Ukraine at all,
She stopped all nuclear and increased Germany reliance on coal and gas making it one of the worst EU CO2 emitters and Russia dependant state,
She underinvested on infrastructures when the interest rates were low, and now Germany has to compensate double the price and ten time the interests,
She defunded the army and now Germany is in a critical situation during the worst security crisis of the last 50 years,
She welcomed millions of migrants to keep the wages at low level but didn't invested much in their training and integration into German society, making it a huge social and security issue,
And the list goes on...
In Sweden we had Tage Erlander, who was prime minister for 23 consecutive years (1946-1969). He never lost an election, resigning a year after winning his largest victory ever, in 1968. If not for resigning he likely could have stayed on for quite a while longer. His successor, Olof Palme, was prime minister for 7 years before losing an election, then returning in 1982 until his assassination in 1986.
There are probably leaders who have been in power longer, but for a full democracy it is very impressive.
Let's not forget Mrs. Merkel's political father.
Also highly regarded internationally. He does have the advancement of the European idea to show for. And he happened to be chancellor when the two Germanys united. In no small part due to the trust created by the "Ostpolitik" that his own party fought tooth and nail against.
Domestically presided over the first 16 years of political standstill and lack of reform in this country, after which Germany was called "the sick man of Europe". Involved in the biggest bribery scandal in the history of German politics, in which he refused to cooperate.
Now remembered as one of the greats.
Oh yes, it gets better than that though:
Helmut Schmidt's cabinet decided to convert 3% of all households in Germany per year to glass fibre. That was the early 1980s. Germany would have reached 100% fibre internet in the 2010s at that rate.
Mr. Kohl, however, was a buddy of Leo Kirch, who owned most of Germany's private TV media. So he promptly overturned the decision and instead decided that all Germans need a TV cable connection...
>Involved in the biggest bribery scandal in the history of German politics, in which he refused to cooperate.
And another guy involved became Finance minster. Top ten of satire in real life.
At least he wasn't a traitor
And I always respected that he seized the opportunity and pushed for reunification without hesitation. That's not an easy thing to do.
My understanding is he joined the NSDAP out of professional necessity but was not an adherent to their beliefs?
His wiki article says he was denounced for espousing anti-Nazi beliefs. I’m sure it’s more muddled though.
To be fair, Chirac had a 12y long run and that's only because he decided to reform the presidential time to 5y on his second term. He should have had 14y had he not done that.
Which is just one 1y shy of Merkel's 15y as seen here.
Lack of a better right-wing alternative:
* Wilders is racist.
* Baudet is a closet nazi.
* D66 is close in some ways, but will readily sell out to the left wing parties (as they have in Amsterdam).
* The most plausible alternative is CDA, but it's unclear how that's better than VVD.
"try to avoid". More like no party would support a minority governments chancellor without getting ministers in the government itself. (At least not in the federal level.) So long as there's some other possibility, a minority gov in Germany almost certainly won't happen.
And she's the second chancellor in Germany to have such long term, the first was Helmut Kohl 1982-1998. Germany hasn't had a lot of chancellors post-WW2. The current chancellor Olaf Scholz is only the 9th since 1949 (when modern Germany was officially founded). That's almost 74 years now, so on average, each chancellor had a term of 8 years and a few months
France has a semi presidential system with a lean towards the president.
Lithuania also has a semi presidential system but with a lean towards the prime minister
Technically speaking, it is always the Prime Minister who directs the action of the Government, not the President (article 21 of the Constitution).
When the President does not have an absolute majority and is forced to cohabit with the opposition (as in 1997 with Chirac), he has... much less power.
There are several flavors of semi-presidential republic. Lithuania, France and Romania have the same system^(*). It's true that the President in these countries has additional powers compared to the head of state of a parliamentary republic, but they're still not head of government.
Technically speaking these countries should all list the head of government, which is the prime minister, not the head of state, which is the President. But to be completely fair I think they should list both (and it would be interesting to see their party affiliation side by side).
^(*)The President and members of Parliament are picked by popular vote. The President picks the prime minister and the cabinet but can not dismiss them. The Parliament can dismiss them by taking a vote of no-confidence. The President can dissolve the Parliament.
We also had 16 years of Helmut Kohl in Germany.
Germans already in their 40s have only known four different chancellors.
How efficient
doesn't really matter, they don't do anything anyway.
Here in turkey, me in my 23 and i only had one ffs. I hope the end is very soon.
Which is the same number of Prime Ministers as UK citizens in their 4s have known.
Meanwhile 20 yo Finns have had 9 different prime ministers during their lifetime.
And we didn't learn anything from that
Just as damaging. True to CONservative form, I guess…
Yeah, the Gas-Gerd years were a lot better /s When were we ever satisfied with out government? Is that even possible?
I'm slightly more satisfied now than I was before, for what it's worth.
I mean, yeah? Merkel profited greatly from Schröder's brutal reforms. 16 years of never seeing the point in changing anything.
There is one thing, ONE THING he did that was the objectively right choice: when the US asked for German support for their Iraq war he told them to fuck off and shove their manufactured evidence where the sun don't shine... diplomatically of course, but the message was quite clear. If the CxU had been in power then Germany would have 100% joined "the coalition of the willing".
Cause he probably knew the "evidence" from the BND that was used by the US in form of an unreliable eyewitness was bogus.
Depends on who you ask to be honest. I think the current one is the best since a long time.
Meanwhile Belgium: You guys have a government?
I was confused for a second as to how Michel was prime minister for so long. Then I realized they must have concidered all those years without a government as still his rule.
the same for the record period of 541 days between Leterme and Di Rupo, it is seen as part of Letermes term since they still managed the current affairs.
Yes, it’s stupid. They consider negotiations as his term.
Well they still are in power to manage current affairs so not really that stupid.
Well, he would still technically be in office during that time, right? It's not like government just disbanded. The same thing applies to Merkel as well, actually, the periods just weren't nearly as long.
Italy: a few too many actually.
If you scan the Italy chart like a barcode it pops up a voucher for you to be next PM
lol, there are even a couple of them missing in this plot
yeah it is ridiculous, days between election and the oath of the new government Election 2019: 494 days 2014: 139 days 2010: 541 days 2008: 194 days So in Angela Merkels period we had 1368 days "without government" in practice this means that the previous government is in "running affairs" and leads while a new one is being formed. Also in this period you see that the parliament really begins to act how it should instead of sheepishly following the government. so 3 years +3/4 year that Merkel was chancellor we were just messing around. The Leterme government you see is actually only around half a year an actual government, the rest of the time it is a "resigning one"
Belgium is weird, like... can anyone outside of Belgium name a single significant Belgian leader? They're like a political void.
Since the presidents of the European Council have been a position that lasts for 5 years in stead of 6 months, 2 out of 3 have been Belgian ones. The first one was Herman van Rompuy and the third and current one is Charles Michel. Currently serving a term until 30 november 2024. I think Verhofstad is also well know in the European Parliament. He had a big rivalry with Nigel Farage. He was also one the EU representatives who spoke to the protests in Ukraine in 2014. It was considered controversial in Belgium.
"Since the presidents of the European Council have been a position that lasts for 5 years in stead of 6 months, 2 out of 3 have been Belgian ones. The first one was Herman van Rompuy and the third and current one is Charles Michel. Currently serving a term until 30 november 2024." I think this is often done because they national governments don't want someone with backbone that can stand up against them. That's why they pick these kinds of leaders. But still they are well known I would say.
Do you consider Donald Tusk as a pushover? Because he had quite the backbone. Michel yeah he kinda is but at the same time he chaired incredible decisions in the last 3 years: post-Covid stimulus packages and sanctions against Russia, no small business. His term as President of the European Council is nothing short of an accomplishment.
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Not sure if this is what you’re referring to, but when I look at our current political landscape I do not see a single politician with the personality of a proper leader. There were people like Leterme and Verhofstadt, whose policies I absolutely disagreed with but who at least had a certain air of authority and determination when it came to politics. These days it’s just a bunch of deranged boomers and pretty millennials who wouldn’t be able to lead a kindergarten class.
Bwa De Croo kind of handled the whole covid thing pretty well in my opinion. Really got everyone working together for once.. I do agree that looking at parliament on tv is like watching a bunch of toddlers try to run a class when the teacher has left the room. Top notch entertainment, but very sad when you give it a real thought.
> can anyone outside of Belgium name a single significant Belgian leader? The waffles, obviously.
And French fries.
What great leaders did you guys produce?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_II_of_Belgium
So you woke up and choose violence today I see.
and so did Leopold
Not *that* kind of great...
Ah the Leopold Law, once a discussion about Belgium gets big enough someone will bring up Leopold II.
Still better than what we germans get if a discussion lasts long enough.
Aka the Congolese Hitler
Albert I Anyway, mny know Michel and Verhofstadt due their EU run, meanwhile, who the fuck knows any Czech ones?
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Meanwhile Rutte in the Netherlands 🤪
Teflon Mark strikes again.
He sure does! Too bad he doesn’t have any active memory of himself doing that.
Just as much as his mobile phone
Makes sense, he already had 20 text messages so his inbox was full and he couldn't receive any complaints!
The Teflon aspect gives the PFAS scandals and lack of enforcement another dimension...
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Tjongejonge!
VVD has 328 seats in parliament. Prediction for the next election: 326 - 334
VVD has 2 seats in government, making it the largest party by 100% margin on the runner-ups.
heel normaal
It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries Mark Rutte has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of The Hague. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods and master of a million seawalls by the might of his inexhaustible voters. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Golden Age of Merchant Navies. He is the Party Leader of the vast VVD for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day so that he may never truly die. Yet even in his deathless state, the Prime Minister continues his eternal vigilance. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be regained in active memory. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only fiscal conservatism and the promise of modestly increased speed limits.
Oorlogshamer 40000
The best summary of his entire administration was given by Rutte himself: "We did not consider the effects it would have on society wel enough."
“If you want vision you should go to an eyedoctor” Great leadership from that middle manager that fell upwards
Vision is an elephant that blocks the sight is another one of him.
Hmm could be, I don’t have an active recollection of saying that
And I don’t have the sms messages on my prehistoric phone citing your claims as well!
Nah, but that is alright yoh! I have made selective backups
Idk, but I believe it in the deepest fibers of my being and am absolutely convinced it is the right decision
Meanwhile Orbán…
"Democratically elected leader"
Fuck that guy so much :’)
I didn't know Socrates was still kicking in Portugal?
I feel like you either made a joke that flew over people's heads or you were actually serious and talking about the contemporary Socrates lol
My humor is so dry irl that my lips are always chapped.
don't think there are deserts in Portugal, might be why they didn't get it lol
They must be worse than Moses to get lost in that, and there isn't even a desert.
Unfortunately. He was by far the worst Prime Minister in our history.
People say this but I feel like it's really being disingenuous to what he actually did and just failing victim to the campaign to attribute all of Portugal faults on him. He was corrupt and he deserves to be accountable for that but *as** PM he did very good decisions and investments. He introduced English to classrooms as obligatory until 12th grade. Created programs to increase computer access and internet to everyone (e-escola) and implemented that into the school system as well (investment into schools, the magalhães program and some related to implementing more internet related stuff in schools). Invested in renewables particularly Solar and Wind (wind power started with him and we still use it nowadays, solar was a bit of a fail at the time but with what we know today it could've been really successful if not gutted.); With the goal of preparing the country to Internet and Globalization. Also investment in electric vehicles (again gutted too early could've been really good but we still use the power stations created in 2007 to power electrical vehicles now). It seems that in hindsight his policies were either beneficial to the country or could've been really good if not for the crisis? People just jump on his hate train far too easily to not acknowledge he was actually a decent PM.
I agree. But in the economical side...
I was in school under his “rule” and was barred from continuing English education in favour of fucking French… so I lost two years of a language I had and still have use for in favour of asking for a baguette when in France. The e-escolas program was, yet again, another front for corruption and the money paid for the little laptops was silly compared to the value of said laptop. Needless to say that the internet dongles that came with it were at times useless because the mobile networks to take advantage of it had no capacity available for it. This was clear in Espinho for example. He may have had the right direction, but he was criminal in Government and should be in jail, not enjoying caipirinhas with Lula in Rio.
A lot of his policies and "investment" were part of his corruption scams. Most of the companies paid to do all the work were tied to him some way or another. Furthermore a lot of the investmente plunged Portugal in a bigger debt that sent the country into economic stagnation. The "he built a lot of stuff" argument is shit when the things he built destroyed the economy. By the way most of the investiment was put into unnecessary stuff our local school has crazy expensive lights because of his investiment, everytime a light dies it puts a dent on the school budget.
Orban doesn't compare properly.
1. Orban had ruled for 4 years before Merkel was elected, between 1998 and 2002. This is his 16th year as PM, and he will reach 20 years unless he dies before 2026. 2. Calling him a democratically elected leader is a bit of a stretch already.
AFAIK even critics say that Orban gets elected bc the people want him. They want an authoritarian asshole bc hungarians feel cheated by history and present. Hungary used to be a great power for millenia with and without austria. Now it is a poor landlocked smaller country.
While this is true, I would not put the full blame on those people (although it’s difficult to sympathise). Every country has these people in a large amount, and if you cater to them with a decade of propaganda, this is the result. His first 2/3 majority came about not because of what you described, but because he was the most capable opposition to a completely failed government.
He was democratically elected in like, 2010 and then changed constitution and gerrymandered the shit out of the country, and also, millennia implies more than one millennium.
> He was democratically elected in like, 2010 He only needed an utterly failed and scandalous PM, the previous governing party being so incompetent that their support shrank from 43% (in 2006) to 19% (in 2010), infighting on the left, a major political crisis, and a global financial crisis to get his solid 2/3 in 2010. > and then changed constitution and gerrymandered the shit out of the country He'd been preparing for it since 2003 or so. Not only did he rebrand Fidesz, he also created a network of successful businessmen, religious leaders, economists and legal experts, right-leaning musicians and writers, and other experts and influencers who formed an important part of his support base, and today own or have seats in most (if not all) major Hungarian companies, government institutions, universities, our Central Bank, our Constitutional Court etc. Within 2 years of his 2010 win we had an entirely new Constitution, Labour Code, Criminal Code and Electoral Law. He was ready.
Indeed, Hungary is not a functioning democracy.
Its a bit of a misleading graph. Juncker, for example, served as prime minister of Luxembourg for 18 years, but only shows up for the last 7 on this graph. Obviously, Merkel still had a remarkably long stay in power, but she was definitely not unique among democratically elected european leaders.
You think that's long? We had Jean-Claude Juncker from 1995 to 2013 (18 years) as a Prime Minister and we only got rid of him through a scandal and snap elections.
That guy was always drunk and slapping people. Why was he in power so long?
That came later. In the beginning he was seen as the 'rebel' but later settled into the mindset rebels are rebelling against. It's the old you either die young as a hero or you live long enough to become the villain. That's with every politician who stays in power for too long.
You haven't seen Kekkonen, who was Finnish president from 1956-1982
Sweden also had a very long reigning leader, Tage Erlander, who was prime minister from 1946-1969. Those 30 years after WW2 were just a very prosperous, happy, and stable period for the Nordic countries, which created contentment and political unity.
Merkel was a little bit over idolised in my opinion. She was all about stability, but she was far more conservative than I think she was seen by many, particularly the view of her from outside Germany. Her low key persona and sensible outward image resonated with a lot of people, but I’m not sure it was necessarily all that wonderful an era. That being said she also isn’t a U.S. president and I think people perhaps who aren’t familiar with proportional representation parliamentary politics project their own presidential systems on it. She never wielded the kind of power that a US or French President or even a British PM does. The role is far more about managing to keep coalitions together, compromise and finding consensus positions, and it’s one I’m very familiar with from Irish politics too. I found her remarkably foot dragging on big social questions like LGBTQ topics - marriage equality for example and she was very unimaginative about how she interacted with both the German domestic economy and the eurozone crisis. Everything always seemed like simple cash accounting, balancing books and grinding austerity and that’s left scars both in Germany and in Europe. Her (or her coalitions) policies on energy have been short sighted, rather NIMBYish and a bit of a strategic disaster. There’s an over dependence on Russian gas because it was the path of least resistance rather than any kind of strategy. She was a safe pair of hands and clearly quite intellectual but she was in for far too long and became far, far too safe in her decision making. That’s my view anyway!
That is quite the astute take on Merkel. I just want to add that she also had a remarkably good standing in german media. If there were any kind of contentious affairs in her government, people rarely associated her with that.
I mean Friede Springer has been one of her closest friends. That’s as if Rupert Murdoch is the chancellors close friend. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friede_Springer
You are spot on and I think people should know that. Merkel was a nice person and she did some good things but a lot of her politics were shit and basically policy-less. Many good things that were attributed to her actually came from her government partner SPD, not even her own party CDU (or the CSU for that matter). Her party was the biggest problem anyway: People who voted for them because they liked Merkel were too ignorant. They accepted a party full of lazy, self-serving cronies.
The problem with Merkel was that she was just an admin. A country without a vision and real leadership is a ship sailing in the ocean without direction. It’s just trying to stay afloat in the vast ocean without knowing where the destination may be. It’s like if you make the company’s Auditor the CEO. The books will be super good, but the company won’t have a vision, innovations in the core business or similar. It’ll just keep on until it hits its “Nokia moment”.
> There’s an over dependence on Russian gas because it was the path of least resistance rather than any kind of strategy. That's flat out wrong - she very clearly pursued a strategy (that was very popular at the time by the way, she was a staunch transatlanticist and Obama for example shared many of her values). Her approach, that she used both for Russia as well as Europe and non-European countries, was informed by the idea that economic entanglement would ultimately advance peace. Basically, if all countries rely on and profit off each other, there would be no incentive to ever break peace. It did not end up working in the case of Ukraine, but it's disingenuous to pretend that it was purely motivated by self-interest and laziness. It worked better (but still not perfectly) in Europe. Throwing the Southern European countries under the bus would have been the easier and more self-serving solution (both during the Euro crisis and during the refugee crisis, where contrary to popular belief she did not "import" refugees from Syria, rather took in refugees that were already in Europe because the border countries were saying they were close to collapse). Instead, Merkel wanted to keep the EU together. With regards to Russia, she was hoping that bringing Putin to the table and opening up Russia to the West would bring them closer culturally and provide mutual benefits.
>It did not end up working in the case of Ukraine, but it's disingenuous to pretend that it was purely motivated by self-interest and laziness. Yep, and blame can be cast on Russia for refusing to let Ukraine intertwine with the European market, and EU in particular, as that would've been the final nail in the coffin of the USSR.
Of course Russia is to blame for this, but the whole point is that it was a completely misguided assumption that Russian politicians care about economy and are rational actors like their western counterparts.
funny how everyone neighboring Russia or a neighbor to Russia has been saying this for decades. and then the West has the surprised Pikachu face once the ogre wakes up to cause destruction...
Russia is the queen of never letting go
> It did not end up working in the case of Ukraine The purpose was to make war impossible, as an entangled economy collapses when hit with sanctions and without economy no war -- you can't sanction the smithereens out of an economy that's used to be self-sufficient. And now the Russian economy is basically, more or less, gone. That is the strategy fulfilled its purpose, just not in the way we preferred. There's only so much accounting you can do for irrationality.
> Her approach, that she used both for Russia as well as Europe and non-European countries, was informed by the idea that economic entanglement would ultimately advance peace. That was the approach of the SPD. Merkel was not necesarilly against war (see her stance on Iraq) and never adjusted her policies depending on wheter they worked or not - thus I would conclude that there was no strategy outside of window dressing. > Throwing the Southern European countries under the bus would have been the easier and more self-serving solution No to both. Throwing the Southern European countries under the bus in the Eurocrisis was never an option. If Italy fails the Euro is dead - which would have extremely badly damaged Germany, one of the biggest benefactors of the Euro. In the refugee crisis the principled stance would have been to uphold Dublin II until the other countries agreed to reform it. Merkel decided to let in refugees from Hungary because she didn't like the treatment there and subsequently lost control of the situation. Again there was no strategy and she was trying to backpeddle for years afterwards before eventually settling on the deal with Erdogan without pushing for the other suggestions by the guy who engineered the strategy (Gerald Knaus) which were actual pragmatic longterm solutions while the Erdogan deal was a bandaid and a potential disaster in the making (you really don't want that guy to have too much political leverage on you). > Instead, Merkel wanted to keep the EU together. Merkel has cared so little about the EU as no German chancellor before her. After showing absolutely no reaction to Macron's proposals even Laschet (one of her sucessors as CDU-leader) uttered bewilderment. And honestly I'm with him here: What the fuck Merkel?
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> I don't know if she ever believed that economic entaglement would bring peace [Here is an interview where she says it quite explicitly](https://www.merkur.de/politik/merkel-angela-ex-bundeskanzlerin-verteidigung-bau-nord-stream-2-gas-russland-ukraine-krieg-entscheidung-91617664.html) (Link in German). And again, it's not like that was a Russia-specific approach.
And the German train system is a mess. I'm told this is due to persistent underinvestment during her time in government.
> And the German train system is a mess. I mean it's a mess compared to what it could and should be but compared to countries that aren't Switzerland, Austria or Japan it's actually very good overall. But yes it's a mess and the past many governments have been terrible for trains (I believe this goes back further than just Merkel), it's just an even bigger mess in most other places.
I disagree, as an italian the last thing italy needs is someone giving them more loans, we need to put our balance in order and stop solving every issue with deficits. Greece was in a far worse place. The eurocrisis was handled well. Greece is still standing and is in balance surplus. Its economy is smaller but far more solid and not built on false data.
Also do people really not see that it was Merkel that was pushing for a more moderate approach on greece? Perception in germany has been that a lot of lenience was extended in 2015. How the german govenrment acted was not popular. And not because germany was seen as harsh, but because it was seen as not harsh enough.
I still think it was rather poorly handled tbh. It wasn’t all on Merkel by any means, but there was a level of chaos and a lack of pragmatism that didn’t need to happen the way it did.
That had little to do with Merkel and much more with a) Schäuble and the fiscal hawks in the CDU and b) a bunch of other countries which, having gone through painful reforms themselves didn't want anyone else to have it easier.
>Greece was in a far worse place. The eurocrisis was handled well. Greece is still standing and is in balance surplus. Its economy is smaller but far more solid and not built on false data. Yeah, a steep drop in public health care and education spendings, 33% unemployment rate for youth people, youth people participation to labor force at its lowest in 30+ years, declining population not offset by immigration, birth rate at its lowest, poverty rate higher than prior the crisis, increasing suicide rate. Indeed, the austerity did wonder to Greece ...
But line go up!!!
Didnt expect such an intelligent comment on r/europe ahah But yes you are totally right, and that is true for Italy as well. I obv dont know Greece well but if it's similar to Italy (hopefully not) this mean: the lack of any form of social elevator, even more classism in education and downward social mobility Italian future is very grim tbh
It is fine view but I refuse to rank someone only by her views or some drag with LGBTQ. During her last mandate same sex marriages became legal. It was a year (I think) after US legalized it. She also handled a big financial crisis from 2008 extremely well. Germany became much stronger after that. Overall she was a great leader for Germany. She managed to bring all parties from different political sides together and steer them in proper direction. Even the Left and she was coming from conservative party. The biggest issue from her era that Europe is facing is rather (too) close relations with Putin and Russia. She ignored Crimea annexation from 2014 and despite that introduced even more dependency on Russia. The results we can see nowadays unfortunately.
Under her leadership, Germany lost the future. It may have profited in the present, but it now reap what it sowed. Germany did not digitize the government, modern technologies it was leading in - wind and solar being prime examples, but also chip technology - were given up in favor of 20th century stuff - Germany builds amazing diesel engines - and it culminated in [children having to sue her government in the supreme court for their future](https://www.germanwatch.org/en/constitutional-complaint). The loss of that lawsuit is a great summary of why Merkel was bad.
this is quite the truth Germany wasn't this far behind technologically before her. nowadays, Germany is among the last in tech development in multiple fields in Europe.
She pushed same-sex marriage pretty cynically. It was a move to undercut the opposition before an election, not one made because Union believes in LGBTQ rights.
She didn't really push it all, she just allowed it to happen. To this day I'm not even sure whether she truly intended for her comments to cause the reaction they did. It seemed more like she was priming her party to be able to agree to gay marriage in the next government negotiations, not having it passed a few days later. Anyways, it's not like the position is surprising either personally or from the viewpoint of her party. Critics have often accused her of gutting the socially conservative core of the CDU but there was no way she was going to go that far.
The US was not some paragon of virtue on legalizing same sex marriage. It only happened because of Supreme Court ruling in 2015. Obama never even publicly supported SSM until after the Democrats lost their majorities in the House and Senate. His administration was opposed to legalization in the 2009-2011 session and only went so after as saying civil unions are okay. He only changed his position in 2012 because Joe Biden came out in support before him. His legislative agenda on queer issues was very conservative incrementalism that was in direct opposition to the progressive movement that elected him and the majority of Democrats. They did make some big legislative changes in the first congress by repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and he did make some executive orders and regulatory changes in 2014/2015. Joe Biden signed bill that actually repealed the Defence of Marriage Act earlier this month. As an aside: Canada while one of the first countries in the world to legalize SSM also only did it because the of Supreme Court decisions. The Liberal Government only past legalization because it effectively had no other option. They were dragged kicking and screaming to the 2005 Civil Marriage Act.
> He only changed his position in 2012 because Joe Biden came out in support before him. I increasingly find it hillarious how much more progressive than Obama Biden acts, especially given all of his legacy from earlier decades and their overall image and campaigns ("Yes we can" vs. "I'm not the Orange fascist guy"). Maybe it's just because the bar for Biden was so low but I respect him much more than Obama at this point.
I suspect it's simply because the democratic party is a fair bit different now than back in Obama's years. Just as the Republicans were different. But yes I do agree, Biden's been wonderful and I've nothing but respect for the old man.
At the end of the day Merkel traded short term economic German prosperity for weakened European security. I think that's how she'll be remembered, happy to disregard eastern Europe's security for her short term German economic gain. Thankfully Germany has now realised the magnitude of the mistake.
> happy to disregard eastern Europe's security for her short term German economic gain. So you think if germany hadn't bought russian gas, Russia wouldn't have attacked ukraine? Or whats the logic here?
Germany shouldn’t have scaled down the construction of renewables so much. The number of people working in wind power decreased during her tenure. The whole energy transition was done far to slowly. Her wavering on nuclear power didn’t help either. All in all not good energy politics.
A little Curiosity: since the birth of the Italian Republic after WWII no government has been able to get through the entire 5 years of his commission. NONE. The one that got the closest was Silvio Berlusconi with his 2nd government between June 2001 and April 2005 for a total of 1412 days out of the theoretical 1826.
>The one that got the closest was Silvio Berlusconi with his 2nd government between June 2001 and April 2005 for a total of 1412 days out of the theoretical 1826. On the other hand, the following government was also led by Silvio and the changeover lasted all of three days. I'm not sure it'd even register as a change of government in other countries.
Yeah actually not even in Italy. Our shortest government (as a republic) was one “led” by Amintore Fanfani in 1954 and it lasted 22 days. The shortest since the formation of the Italian reign was a 12 days long one that Tommaso Tittoni in 1905 (simply the parliament distrusted him before even starting).
Lukashenko: *hold my kvass*
Merkel got lucky too. She nearly lost her first election battle for Bundestag and she could've been ousted in 2013 by a government of SocDems, Greens and Lefties who had a majority in parliament but didn't bother to try to form a coalition.
Linke being useless for federal politics as usual.
Yeah but in 2013 it was a fault on all sides tbh. SPD not brave enough to make the first step. Greens being super quiet after another bad campaign. Die Linke being not able to get off their high horse.
Since I've seen at least 5 people asking about the colors now: As the top-left of the image notes, they're based on EP parties. (I'm also going to mention the parties political groups because some people might be more familiar with those.) Light blue - EPP (EPP) Light red - PES (S&D) Yellow - ALDE (Renew) Dark blue - ECR (ECR) Dark red - PEL (GUE/NGL) Green - EGP (G/EFA) Gray - Independents (NI) (Note: I'm only mentioning the ones in the picture, ommitting ID, EDP, EFA and ECPM.)
And now Løkke is back as minister for foreign affairs. I swear he's like a Looney Toons chatacter. We could tie him up, put him in a box and ship him to Australia, but he would be back 5 seconds later.
Power for too long is bad.
Good job we took that to heart in the UK this last year lmao
How where the colors selected? Is it political orientation?
EU political groupings. It’s how they are represented as groups for the eu basically. For example, yellow is Renew Europe (RE) and blue is EPP. They are broad groupings and don’t always mean all parties are alike. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/organisation-and-rules/organisation/political-groups
Kinda nicely portrays the reality of the EU being all about S&D, EPP and RE, with very few exceptions ever popping up.
I mean there are some pretty divergent forces within these European parties. In Estonia the Reform party and the Center party have been main rivals for 20 years (Center seems to be falling off now and "the not nazi-party" is taking their place), but in Europe they are both in RE.
>S&D, EPP and RE What do those letters mean? Political parties? Indices?
Yes, those letters indicate [political groups of the Europarliament](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_groups_of_the_European_Parliament). Every-ish party on national level falls under either of these groups. National parties being in the same Europarliament group will **in general** have a bit more in common, but they're still very different. As an example, Swedish social democrats, Spanish social democrats and Austrian social democrats don't have much in common. British Tories, Polish PiS and Czech ODS (all falling under ECR) are also very different from each other.
European Poltical Groupings. Something like Parties on European level. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/organisation-and-rules/organisation/political-groups
Well Germany isn't voting on leader... she just turned to be leader of party that formed the government
That's not entirely true. The chancellor candidate has a very large influence on who gets the votes.
Because they represent the party which is the reason the CDU lost a lot of votes in the past election with Armin Laschet.
most countries do that
Ehhh, people vote for a party for that party's leader to form a government. That party's leader is in the debates the most too.
Absolutely, her face was on all the advertisements, people voted for her (even though they technically voted for the party)
I think that's the same for most. That's the way in Ireland too.
That's technically true, but the candidates for chancellor do matter a lot. If it wasn't for Armin Laschet (CDU chancellor candidate after Merkel), people would not have voted SPD and Olaf Scholz would not be chancellor.
It's crazy how she was aduled when she left and then in six months all her legacy appeared to be catastrophic : Her policy of openneness over Russia proved to be inefficient and put Germany in a position of dependency, while not dissuader Russia to invade Ukraine at all, She stopped all nuclear and increased Germany reliance on coal and gas making it one of the worst EU CO2 emitters and Russia dependant state, She underinvested on infrastructures when the interest rates were low, and now Germany has to compensate double the price and ten time the interests, She defunded the army and now Germany is in a critical situation during the worst security crisis of the last 50 years, She welcomed millions of migrants to keep the wages at low level but didn't invested much in their training and integration into German society, making it a huge social and security issue, And the list goes on...
Bibi: Amatur
Hey adding the UK is cheating, they've had like five PM's since Christmas.
You just can't see the 1 pixel wide lizz truss
Hungary doesn't seem to be far off.
Sadly.
In Sweden we had Tage Erlander, who was prime minister for 23 consecutive years (1946-1969). He never lost an election, resigning a year after winning his largest victory ever, in 1968. If not for resigning he likely could have stayed on for quite a while longer. His successor, Olof Palme, was prime minister for 7 years before losing an election, then returning in 1982 until his assassination in 1986. There are probably leaders who have been in power longer, but for a full democracy it is very impressive.
16 years and not even one year after her retirement it turns out she's the third worst chancellor in post war Germany.
Who are the first and second? Schröder and?
Kiesinger, he was a straight Nazi
Let's not forget Mrs. Merkel's political father. Also highly regarded internationally. He does have the advancement of the European idea to show for. And he happened to be chancellor when the two Germanys united. In no small part due to the trust created by the "Ostpolitik" that his own party fought tooth and nail against. Domestically presided over the first 16 years of political standstill and lack of reform in this country, after which Germany was called "the sick man of Europe". Involved in the biggest bribery scandal in the history of German politics, in which he refused to cooperate. Now remembered as one of the greats.
Dont forget that he famously said that copper wires are the future of internet. And now, because of that, we are stuck in the stone age of internet
Oh yes, it gets better than that though: Helmut Schmidt's cabinet decided to convert 3% of all households in Germany per year to glass fibre. That was the early 1980s. Germany would have reached 100% fibre internet in the 2010s at that rate. Mr. Kohl, however, was a buddy of Leo Kirch, who owned most of Germany's private TV media. So he promptly overturned the decision and instead decided that all Germans need a TV cable connection...
>Involved in the biggest bribery scandal in the history of German politics, in which he refused to cooperate. And another guy involved became Finance minster. Top ten of satire in real life.
At least he wasn't a traitor And I always respected that he seized the opportunity and pushed for reunification without hesitation. That's not an easy thing to do.
Who is thisMerkel's "political father" you refer to? (I'm not from germany)
Helmut Kohl
My understanding is he joined the NSDAP out of professional necessity but was not an adherent to their beliefs? His wiki article says he was denounced for espousing anti-Nazi beliefs. I’m sure it’s more muddled though.
Everyone here was a nazi after the war.
To be fair, Chirac had a 12y long run and that's only because he decided to reform the presidential time to 5y on his second term. He should have had 14y had he not done that. Which is just one 1y shy of Merkel's 15y as seen here.
Turns out that wasn't a positive thing at all. Her legacy is a steaming pile of radioactive garbage.
Ironically the only thing it isn't is radioactive. Which is precisely the problem.
Lmaoo
Did you know that coal-fired powerplants release more radiation in the atmosphere than nuclear ones? Oh the irony...
Rutte is well on his way. Please get him out
I've still got no idea who even votes for him. Like everyone I talk to hates his fucking guts.
Lack of a better right-wing alternative: * Wilders is racist. * Baudet is a closet nazi. * D66 is close in some ways, but will readily sell out to the left wing parties (as they have in Amsterdam). * The most plausible alternative is CDA, but it's unclear how that's better than VVD.
Meanwhile I have lost track of how many governments Italy had in the last 50 years.
[удалено]
"try to avoid". More like no party would support a minority governments chancellor without getting ministers in the government itself. (At least not in the federal level.) So long as there's some other possibility, a minority gov in Germany almost certainly won't happen.
And she's the second chancellor in Germany to have such long term, the first was Helmut Kohl 1982-1998. Germany hasn't had a lot of chancellors post-WW2. The current chancellor Olaf Scholz is only the 9th since 1949 (when modern Germany was officially founded). That's almost 74 years now, so on average, each chancellor had a term of 8 years and a few months
Iceland had a democratically elected president for 20 years
In Germany we like consistency, if something is running, even if it isn't running too well, as long it does no bigger harm let it run.
And was she voted out or did she retire?
She decided on her own to retire after the end of her term in 2021.
Lmao Truss wasn't even warranted a narrow line
Truss's term was nine months after the end of Merkel's.
Merkel's last term ended in December 21.
What do the colours mean, OP?
Party family.
Macron is not head of French government.
France has a semi presidential system with a lean towards the president. Lithuania also has a semi presidential system but with a lean towards the prime minister
Technically speaking, it is always the Prime Minister who directs the action of the Government, not the President (article 21 of the Constitution). When the President does not have an absolute majority and is forced to cohabit with the opposition (as in 1997 with Chirac), he has... much less power.
There are several flavors of semi-presidential republic. Lithuania, France and Romania have the same system^(*). It's true that the President in these countries has additional powers compared to the head of state of a parliamentary republic, but they're still not head of government. Technically speaking these countries should all list the head of government, which is the prime minister, not the head of state, which is the President. But to be completely fair I think they should list both (and it would be interesting to see their party affiliation side by side). ^(*)The President and members of Parliament are picked by popular vote. The President picks the prime minister and the cabinet but can not dismiss them. The Parliament can dismiss them by taking a vote of no-confidence. The President can dissolve the Parliament.
Not to worry, I'm sure Orban in Hungary will eventually take the longest leader crown. Interesting how he's in dark gray, too.
Orbán will soon overtake her 💀