Germany’s recent elections could mean trouble for Europe
German Chancellor and leader of the German Christian Democrats (CDU) Angela Merkel, standing with leading members of her party, speaks to the media in the early hours after preliminary coalition talks collapsed following the withdrawal of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) on November 20, 2017 in Berlin, Germany.
Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Germany has long been the economic and political center of Europe.
But the recent elections saw big losses for the mainstream Christian Democrats and Social Democrats and gains for fringe parties of the left and right.
The centrist parties will need to change if they want to hold off more extreme parties.
Germany has the fourth-largest economy in the world and the largest in Europe.
This country has been the stable center of the European system for download pdf decades. Amid social and political tensions that have torn the European Union since 2008, Germany has been the solid rock on which Europe has rested.
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It is not an overstatement to say that if Germany destabilizes, the EU won’t survive. Germany has not yet destabilized, but it is wobbling.
The political ground in Germany has shifted
One sign is the inability of German parties to form a new government since
elections in September
.