“Maybrit Illner”: “Of course I vote for the CDU,” Merkel has to assure

Do you have to listen to her again? Read another interview with her, watch another talk show with former Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU)? Hasn’t everything been said? Is it. Nevertheless: The interview on Thursday evening with Maybrit Illner on ZDF was entertaining, enjoyable – and irritating at the same time.

Because the conversation was over and the microphones were off, Merkel didn’t look grumpy or irritated. The past hour has been anything but a cuddle session. Angela Merkel smiled, girlishly, relieved. Now everything was said. The justification of 16 years as chancellor was complete. If you want to know more, you should read her book “Freedom” now.

In the hour before, there was a presenter who kept the pressure high throughout and asked the former Chancellor the right questions. Merkel didn’t let her off the hook and didn’t leave out any topic that could make the interviewee uncomfortable. And who couched her questions in poisonous praise so charmingly that it took a moment to recognize the pitfall in it. And Merkel? She was aggressive, quick-witted – and completely unreasonable in the face of criticism of her decisions in office.

But it was only at the very end of the conversation, in the last minute, that Angela Merkel said the sentence that revealed more about her than any other before: “Of course I vote for the CDU.” She had to emphasize that because it’s not self-evident. “They”, i.e. the CDU, “are my party overall,” explained Merkel. In total. Somehow. But not completely.

With every minute at Maybrit Illner it became clearer: Angela Merkel is as far away from the CDU under its current party leader Friedrich Merz as the moon is from the earth. For 16 years, Germany had a CDU chancellor who always remained alien to her own party. When Illner said goodbye to the former Chancellor, it became obvious to everyone that there was probably only one thing that really bothered Angela Merkel about the traffic light coalition: the FDP.

One or two nice questions to start with, then Illner came to the well-known core criticism of Merkel: the nuclear phase-out, the opening of the border in 2015 and her migration policy. The long-standing policy towards Russia’s autocrat Vladimir Putin, the gigantic investment backlog that sometimes makes Germany look like a developing country today. Finally, the hesitant support for Ukraine. Ukraine took up most of the interview’s space.

Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has spoken of mistakes in German policy towards Russia and Ukraine. As a member of Merkel’s cabinet, he played a key role in determining it. “We should have taken the warnings from our Eastern European partners more seriously,” Steinmeier admitted.

Merkel, on the other hand, said to Illner: “I only apologize for things, for example the Easter rest due to Corona, if I am of the opinion that they were made incorrectly at a certain point in time.” Everything was done right, except for the blown Easter rest, she said Message.

Of course, in 2021 it was impossible to predict with what force and brutality Putin would attack Ukraine. But not a word about whether it was right to do business with Russia until the end, to only half-heartedly enforce the sanctions, and not to strengthen our own defense preparedness. Instead, everything was done to get the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline completed.

For Angela Merkel, the pipe in which Russian gas was to be pumped to Germany is still a “private sector project” to this day. Even if that were true, it would be an oath of disclosure from a Chancellor. Simply handing over the planned main artery of German energy supply to a consortium of companies would have been grossly negligent. Of course, Nord Stream 2 was highly political. To this day, Merkel doesn’t want to know anything about it.

Regarding initiatives to end the war in Ukraine, she said that “it is right and important that friends do this together.” So Ukraine shouldn’t decide alone. And that to end the war “one should always take the diplomatic route”. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) would nod at these sentences. The current Chancellor would also do the same with many of the former Chancellor’s other positions.

The nuclear phase-out? It wasn’t a mistake and doesn’t need to be corrected, said Merkel. “I was by no means the only one in the Union who said that something had to change,” she said, referring to the reactor disaster in Fukushima, Japan in 2011 and the federal government’s decision to withdraw. That’s right, CSU leader Markus Söder, who was not yet Prime Minister at the time, vehemently called for an end to nuclear power in Germany. But the conditions have changed and so has Söder’s opinion. Angela Merkel, on the other hand, steadfastly advises an end to nuclear power: “I wouldn’t get back into it, I would save money and expand renewable energies,” she said at Illner. People in the SPD and the Greens will be happy to hear that.

Illner continued to joke cheerfully, quoting a quip that Merkel had so much to do with the modernization of the CDU that she could no longer worry about the modernization of Germany. Merkel said dryly: “I’ve never heard that before.”

The former Chancellor dismissed her failures and pointed to others: the Greens, who are blocking everything, the long legal processes, the states, the municipalities. The lack of self-criticism was enormous, but what is really despairing is that Merkel has a point. The country’s standstill was not only due to the Chancellor’s policies; those responsible at all levels of politics and in the economy were enjoying the fruits of the boom and had little appetite for reforms and cuts. That’s how it is when it’s running. Even looking back, Merkel showed no insight into this.

Not even when it comes to migration policy. “I said: ‘We can do it’ because it was clear to me that it wasn’t that easy,” explained the former Chancellor. Does that make it any better now that it’s clear we’re not really doing a good job? The best way to limit migration is through migration agreements with the countries of origin, said Merkel. But does that make the decision to open the borders in 2015 any more right?

Recently, Angela Merkel revealed a strange understanding of democracy. She admitted that the AfD had made significant gains during her time in government. But the reasoning is irritating: it “didn’t do any good” that the democratic parties argued “so massively” about immigration and measures to limit it.

From Angela Merkel’s point of view, debates between elected parties about core problems of the state are a mistake. But aren’t they actually the core of political decision-making, of a democracy in general? During Angela Merkel’s term in office, debates in the respective coalitions were carefully avoided; that was the Chancellor’s trademark. Now, however, after around three years of traffic light disputes, people are tempted to wish that back.