Left, right and centre: Germany’s election

0:02The Economist

0:10Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

0:25Part of Donald Trump's rapidly shifting policy on Ukraine is the claim that America has spent far more money than other allies have, notably Europe. We dig into the numbers. Spoiler alert, he's wrong. And if you've had a relatively distinguished career, have good personal and communication skills, and fancy a real change, Britain's Parliament may have an offer for you. Be warned, though, you're going to have to wear tights.

1:01First up, though...

1:10Some of what happened overnight in Germany went entirely as expected. The Christian Democratic Union and its sister, Christian Social Union, topped the poll with 29%. The CDU's leader, Friedrich Merz, will be Chancellor.

1:30As expected, the hard-right alternative for Germany, or AFD party, had its best ever national result. By a factor of two, 21 % of the vote. A bit more surprising was the poor showing of the Social Democrats, or SPD, which led the outgoing government.

1:51Olaf Scholz, outgoing German Chancellor, called it a bitter election for the party. Also, on top we've got the CDU-CSU alliance, then the AFD, which no one will work with, and then the SPD. With me so far? Then there are the smaller parties that probably won't end up in government. So, as confusing as it all is, our Berlin bureau chief Tom Nottle says it's not as messy as it could have been. Well, we have woken up to clarity. Fridt Mertz's CDU and his sister party, the Christian Social Union, will lead the next government. They will attempt to form a coalition with the Social Democrats. We had a bit of a nail-biter overnight when one small party, the Sarah-Wagen-Konnect Alliance, was bobbing above and below the 5 % threshold needed to enter Parliament.

2:40If they had made it, then Mr Mertz would have needed three parties to form a coalition, and nobody wanted that. In the end, the Saravaglionek alliance fell short, and so these two parties will have the numbers to form a coalition. Now, when we spoke to you last week, it was a riot of colours and possible flags, and it all came down to which parties actually made the 5 % cut in the election. Talk us through who did and who didn't, and what that means for you. Okay, so we're going to have basically a five-party Bundestag. The Social Democrats who lead the outgoing minority government slumped to a huge defeat on around 16 percent, their worst result in history.

3:20They will be needed to make up the numbers in the coalition that the Christian Democrats will lead. The Free Democrats, a pro-business party who used to be in the government, they got booted out of Parliament entirely. They didn't make the 5 percent threshold. Christian Lindner, the former finance minister and their leader, has said he's going to quit politics. And then finally, the Green Party, who are the junior partner in the outgoing government. Pretty bad night for them, slightly down on their result at the last election. They're now on around 12 percent and they will now go into opposition as well.

3:53In summary of all of that, what does the who's in, who's out kind of tell you about the political mood in Germany right now? I mean, essentially, Germans are very, very grumpy. One reason I think that the CDU-CSU didn't do as well as might have been expected is that Fridjik Matz, the candidate for chancellor who will now take over from Olaf Scholz as chancellor, is not a popular figure amongst Germans. His approval rating sits at around 30%, which is pretty bad for someone hoping to take over the government. The problem is that the parties of the outgoing government were even more unpopular. Olaf Scholz's government was staggeringly unpopular.

4:32It argued about everything. It couldn't get anything done in Europe. It couldn't get much done at home. It fell apart early in November when the Free Democrats were kicked out. That's what precipitated this early election. So you find all manner of polls that find that Germans are very distrustful of politics, extremely grumpy. And of course, that's the mood that in large part has lifted the AFD to this extraordinary result. And so about the question of what is in the new chancellor's intray, the inevitable question, let's talk about the frustrations that he'll face. In particular, at home, what do you think will be on his mind?

5:11Okay, three things. The first is Germany's flatlining economy. In real terms, it hasn't grown for six years. The second is irregular migration, which was perhaps the dominant theme of the election campaign. You might remember that Friedrich Merz caused uproar last month when he pushed through some anti-immigration motions with votes from the AFD. He wants to turn back asylum seekers from Germany's borders. He wants permanent controls at those borders. Now, the SPD, with whom he's going to have to begin coalition talks, say that these proposals violate German constitution and violate EU law. So it's not easy to see how you're going to find a path through that thicket.

5:53And the third thing is Germany's legendary debt break. This is the rule in the constitution that limits the federal government's ability to run deficits. There's a general consensus now that this rule is going to have to be relaxed to allow for more public investment and in particular to allow Germany to raise its defence spending. The problem is that to change the debt break, because it's in the constitution, you need a two-thirds majority in parliament and the mainstream parties in the next parliament are going to fall slightly short of that. That means that they are going to need some votes from Die Linke, a hard-left party that did very well yesterday, and that is going to involve all sorts of complicated horse trading and compromises that might be very, very difficult to achieve.

6:43And at the mention of defence spending, what about the international sphere? What will Mr Merz be thinking about there? So this was one of the most interesting things about last night, Jason. So a few hours after the exit polls appeared, Frisik Merz, who's being interviewed along with the other party leaders, made some extraordinary statements, particularly about America. The absolute priority is to understand the Europeans, that they are united together. At the time, the biggest part of the European politics is without Germany. Of course, it has to do with the election and the between. He said that Europe was going to have to consider an independent defense capability, independent from NATO.

7:26He said that America was not a reliable partner. He said that America's government does not care much. about the fate of Europe. And to understand just how extraordinary these statements are coming from somebody like Fridjik Mears, he is steeped in the transatlanticism of the CDU. In his long years outside of politics, he was head of a pro-America lobby group called the Atlantic Brooker, the Atlantic Bridge. What he appears to understand is that Donald Trump has turned the assumptions about the global diplomatic order on their head. He is now supporting the Russian side rather than the Ukrainian side.

8:09And this has huge implications for Germany and for Europe. Now, normally in Germany after an election, the country sort of goes into hibernation when it spends weeks or months negotiating a coalition. And it's still going to take time to do that this time around. But what Mr. Maas appears to understand, in fact, he said this yesterday, is that the world cannot wait for Germany. He wants very speedy coalition talks. He said he wants to get them concluded by April 20th, by Easter. That's optimistic, but there is a sense of urgency that attaches to these coalition talks that I haven't previously seen.

8:43And for someone like Friedrich Meertz to make statements like this is a very strong signal that the future of German diplomacy may look very different from what it's been in the past. And we spoke last week about, in particular, the AFD, the firewall, the reluctance of any party to really work with the AFD, and yet they had their best result ever. I mean, what does that tell you about sort of unresolved tensions inside the electorate? There's no sugarcoating this. It's really worrying. The AFD has doubled its score relative to 2021. It's now going to occupy nearly one quarter of the seats in the Bundestag.

9:21And in particular, it had a very good night across eastern Germany. What Friedrich Merz says, he will not work with the AFD. He could not have been clearer on that. But it's going to be tricky. And again, these are these two issues, the economy and irregular immigration. Mr Merz says, fix those problems and you can deal with the rise of the AFD. That's easier said than done. And in particular, if we do end up with a coalition deal between the CDU-CSU and the SPD, that is a sort of muddy compromise rather than a clear document. One thing you can say is that a very large majority of Germans continue to reject the AFD.

9:59But yes, there's no getting away from it. This is going to be one core domestic challenge for the next German government is trying to deal with the rise of a populist right party that in some respects rejects the entire post-war democratic order that Germany has been built on. Tom, thanks very much for joining us. Thanks, Jason.

10:32Three years of resistance. Three years of support. Three years of unity. But outside the country, the unity of support for the resistance has frayed. Friedrich Merz, soon to be Germany's new chancellor, knows this all too well in his extraordinary comments overnight about independence from America. Because among Donald Trump's fixations on falsehoods is the notion of who has ponied up more support for Ukraine. I think Europe has given$100 billion, and we've given, let's say,$300 plus. And it's more important for them. This hints at yet more uncertainty from America about its aid. And for Ukraine, the constancy of support is nearly as important as the magnitude of it.

11:35But let's just be clear about which countries have done and are doing the most. Donald Trump has consistently claimed that America has given Ukraine far more than the Europeans have. Anton LaGuardia is The Economist's diplomatic editor. He claims America has spent three times more on Ukraine than the Europeans have. But the evidence is that that's completely wrong. Well, I mean, let's dig into the evidence then. What numbers should we be working from here? The place to start is the regular reports done by the Kiel Institute. This is a German think tank that compiles all donations to Ukraine of military and economic aid and crunches the numbers.

12:24And the last report that came out earlier in February says that worldwide countries have provided 267 billion euros. That's about 280 billion dollars. So the global total is smaller than Donald Trump claims the American contribution has been thus far. America obviously remains the single most important donor, but it's also the largest economy. But European contributions now outstrip America's aid to Ukraine, and regardless of how you count that. Whereby how you count means which kind of aid, I guess? It's not just pallets of cash showing up in Ukraine? No, it's not pallets of cash, although there is a lot of cash going to Ukraine.

13:09It is also equipment that's come from the stores of countries that bought them years, if not decades ago, and has to be valued. But the main distinction that the Kiel Institute makes is counting aid according to whether it's been already allocated, which in their language means given or specifically earmarked for a particular project or contract. and aid that is committed but not yet allocated. And so calculated narrowly as allocated aid, the Europeans have provided about 132 billion euros and the Americans have provided about 114 billion euros. Within that number, the Americans are slightly ahead on military aid to Ukraine.

13:57If you then count in the aid yet to be allocated, in other words committed but not yet allocated or given then the numbers are much different the europeans are way ahead on both military and financial aid to ukraine it's important to note however that even within those military numbers the most crucial weapons have come from america so long-range strike missiles uh and so on the the ones that make a real difference the battlefield tend to be American weapons, although the Europeans have also provided a small number of cruise missiles. And so far we've been discussing the contributions from Europe as a bloc, as a continent.

14:41What do we know about aid from individual countries? Yeah, so the numbers I gave you include both European countries and European institutions. As countries go, the Germans are the biggest single European donor, followed by countries such as Britain and Denmark and others. That's calculated in absolute terms. If you then calculate in terms of share of GDP, in other words, how much of a national effort has each country made or the citizens of each country made, then the Baltic states and the Nordic states and Poland come out way on top of everybody else. So in other words, countries essentially that are closer to the border with Russia.

15:27Yes, the closer you are to Russia, the more you feel the military threat and the more willing you are to help Ukraine fight. This is broadly speaking. But a striking exception is perhaps Japan, which is on the other side of the world from Ukraine, but has been giving more as a share of GDP than several European countries. And the reason is, number one, they're actually quite close to Russia, and they're worried about Russia. But more important, Russia and China are forming an increasingly close partnership, and the Japanese are extremely worried about China. And they feel that they have a direct stake in what happens in Ukraine because that will affect the balance of power in the Pacific.

16:08And whatever the numbers for what America has done before now and more or less than the EU on various scores, it seems the direction of travel here is very clearly towards America doing less. That's absolutely right. At the most optimistic end, the Americans will do less to help Ukraine and less to help Europe. Pete Hexeth, the defense secretary, made that extremely clear. He said we have other priorities, particularly in the Pacific. The pessimistic scenario is that the Americans stop supporting Ukraine altogether and possibly withdraw their forces from Europe, where there are tens of thousands of American soldiers.

16:43So the Europeans will have to spend a lot more money on their military forces, not only to help Ukraine, but also to defend themselves. I guess the question there is like, is it all hands to the pump? If America pulls out like 100%, just gone, sorry, we're busy. And Europe is left like basically holding the bag. Does it feel as a bloc or any individual country, like it has to like step up in a massive way, right? Like what does happen in that scenario? I know this is like the squillion dollar question, but like, do you have a thought? Well, the rhetoric from the Europeans at the moment is very much, we will continue helping Ukraine, even if the Americans don't.

17:27And we will spend more on defense because we must defend ourselves from Russia, especially if the Americans pull out. but also in the hope that being seen to be more martialed will give the friends that they still have in America an argument with which is saying, no, America must remain committed in some way within Europe, even if it's in a lesser fashion than hitherto. So defense spending has both a political signal to Russia and to the United States and is a necessity. The question at home is whether they convince their publics to spend more on defense and therefore spend less on social services and other forms of spending at a time when budgets are all under strain.

18:11So in short, we're going to have to wait and see what the American administration actually does rather than what it's said so far it's going to do. Yes, you never know exactly what Donald Trump is going to do. So the more cool-headed people in Europe are saying we still have to try and keep the Americans on board. We have to show that we've got more skin in the game. We've got to show that we're doing more in defense. But there's no guarantee that that's going to work. Anton, thanks very much for joining us. Pleasure to talk to you.

19:00On the British government's website, a curious job posting has turned up. Wanted, a lady or gentleman usher of the Black Rod. It's an administrative role and a very ceremonial one. There's been a person known simply as Black Rod in the Palace of Westminster since 1350. I think it's fair to call it an interesting gig. They have to wear tights, and the most important part is they carry a black rod, which is, by the way, formally called a staff. Love this country. Blackrod is a ridiculous title for what is actually a very necessary job. Catherine Nixie writes about Britain for The Economist. Britain has both a king and a parliament, but like oil and water, the two don't mix.

19:47But once a year, for the king's speech, they have to. Blackrod is the person whose job it is to bring the two together. Blackrod! What Parliament does is they shut the door in the face of Black Rod ceremonially.

20:05And then Black Rod has to knock on the door three times with the Black Rod.

20:18And then the MPs will come out and go and see the king. But it's a big dramatic show which is put on really to show that the king does not get to rule the government, that the government is in charge, even if they do turn up and watch the king give a speech on a nice fancy throne. And so now apparently there's going to be a new black rod in town. Tell me about the job posting. What are they looking for? Well, the job posting has been really clear. Apart from banging a door with a stick while you're wearing tights, the House of Lords says that the candidate must demonstrate strong interpersonal and influencing skills.

20:55They have to have a calm manner and they have to have excellent communication skills. This is actually sort of true because Black Rod doesn't merely attend the state opening of Parliament. They help to organise it and lots of other ceremonial events as well. When the Queen was lying in state, Black Rod was one of the people who organised all of that. And they have other duties too. So Blackrod is also an usher of the noble order of the garter. They're the sergeant at arms in the House of Lords. And they are also the secretary to the great Lord Chamberlain, which is a ridiculous series of titles that sounds more like something you might read in a novel by Tolkien than a job advert.

21:30Tell me about the sort of the particulars of the job. What are the perks? Well, the salary has caused a bit of a furore because it's 87 ,000 to 114 ,000 pounds a year, which everyone seems to think is quite a lot for hitting a door with a stick. And they also have generous civil service pension schemes and they have kind of other perks. So they get to have their own corner office, which is called Black Rod's Box. And they have a frankly unparalleled ability to wear tights and ruffles in public. And so what kind of person really wants to tap into that ability to wear tights in public? I think someone who fancies a nice retirement with a few perks.

22:04So it sounds like a silly job. It's been held by some very serious people. The current Black Rod is called Sarah Clark, and she ran Wimbledon before she ran the Lords. And all the Rods before her have been men. Most of them have been military men, and that's important because one of the other duties of Black Rod is organising security in the House of Lords. And it's quite a traditional role, but apparently, according to the advert, the hiring process is not going to be. The House of Lords, like the House of Commons, says it's committed to becoming an even more welcoming, inclusive and diverse organisation.

22:37I mean, if they're really going to stick to that, then I am tempted to apply myself. Are you? Should we give it a go? Do we have a chance, Catherine? So I spoke to an insider who said that like one of the key things is, so one of the good things about military people is that they're really good at organizing the security. And one of the bad things about military men is that hairy legs, he says, can play havoc with the tights that you have to wear. So I guess, you know, if you've got the legs for it, I'd go for it. I am not incredibly her suit. I think I could probably get away with that. I mean, for that kind of money, I might even shave my legs.

23:12Who waxed them for that kind of money?

23:18Catherine, thanks very much. I've got to go fill out an application. Good luck.

23:34That's all for this episode of The Intelligence. We'll see you back here tomorrow.