Pirates of Westfalen

A slightly amusing story in yesterday’s Bild caught our attention this morning concerning a growing row over the seating arrangements in the Nordrhein-Westfalen regional parliament (Landtag) which has to be re-thought following the recent elections. Namely the far-Left Die Linke were wiped out, while the pirate party continued its recent hot streak and won seats in NRW for the very first time with 7.8% of the vote. The other parties want a straight swap with the pirates taking over Die Linke’s old seats on the far left of the chamber, but the Pirates are outraged by this proposal, demanding instead to be sat in the middle, between the governing and remaining opposition parties.

Ostensibly of no great significance, this spat does however illustrate a wider point in German politics: the difficulty for the country's political structure to come to terms with alternatives to the traditional parties. Although, to be fair, classifying and categorising the pirate party, particularly using the traditional left-right labels, isn't easy. For example, polling has shown that it has garnered support from across the political spectrum from the Christian Democrats through to Die Linke. Unsurprisingly, this is reflected in their manifesto, which combines strongly libertarian aspects (e.g. on civil liberties) with more traditionally social-democratic policies (e.g. on universal child care). While there are some interesting parallels with UKIP (e.g. on drug policy), overall the Pirates are pro-EU membership, in particular aspects such as free movement. However, as we have pointed out before, they have been highly critical of the eurozone bailouts, and this could have been a significant factor in their recent rise.

One to watch is whether the Pirates could see a surge in support by vocally oppose the introduction of eurobonds or greater ECB intervention, particularly if Merkel starts to give ground on those issues. So far she is standing firm, but Merkel does have form for crossing red lines...

Is this party over?

Yesterday's elections in the German region of Saarland saw a somewhat unexpected surge for Angela Merkel's CDU party, which won 35.2% of the votes, ahead of the Social Democrats (SPD) on 30.6% and the far-left Die Linke on 16.1%.

As Torsten Krauel comments in Die Welt, despite expectations of an SPD victory, “The CDU held its own. Angela Merkel will appreciate this when it comes to the formulation of further conceivable eurozone rescue packages”.

But perhaps equally significantly, Merkel’s junior coalition partner at the national level, the FDP, won only 1.2% of votes - a massive drop of 8% compared with the previous elections. In fact, the FDP only just beat the neo-Nazi NPD party by 267 votes.

This also means that in all the regional elections that have taken place over the last two years, the FDP has only managed to get re-elected its heartland of Baden-Württemberg, and even then they just about scraped in with 5.3% of the vote. Despite its history as a party of government (it has often played the role of kingmaker for either the SPD or CDU/CSU), it is literally being wiped off the map, having completely failed to re-invent itself.

As the party stares into the abyss, former party leader and one-time golden boy of German politics Guido Westerwelle (in our view increasingly marginalised as Foreign Minister) organises conferences looking at the prospects for fundamentally re-shaping the EU's constitutional architecture after the crisis, which although undeniably important in the longer term, can hardly be deemed to be a priority for voters concerned about the 'here-and-now' of the eurozone crisis and Germany's role in the bailouts.

Meanwhile, Germany’s young and swinging Pirate Party, which has been critical of the bailouts, came fourth with 7.4%, meaning it has secured seats in Saarland’s regional parliament for the first time. It also won seats in last year's regional election in Berlin and looks competitive in polls ahead of the impending elections in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany's most populous state. The Pirates are also contributing to a wider cultural change in German politics, for example pushing mainstream politicians to become more social media-savy, e.g. by joining Twitter, which the Pirates have utilised to great effect.

So as the FDP's star wanes (or more accurately comes crashing down to earth), the Pirates are definitely the ones to keep an eye on...