German party politics has been overshadowed by yesterday’s atrocity in Berlin. But in light of this tragic event, which Angela Merkel has said was probably a terrorist attack, party politics actually matters more than ever. Increasingly, it seems next year’s Bundestag elections will be the defining event of 2017, not just for Germany but for Europe – and last week’s change of government in Berlin was a sign of things to come.
On the face of it, ‘Social Democrats take control of Berlin’s city council’ looks like an inconsequential story. Berlin has always been an SPD stronghold after all. However, there’s more to this story than meets the eye. Before September’s elections, Berlin’s Social Democrat Mayor, Michael Muller, presided over a ‘grand coalition’ of the SPD and the CDU – a local replica of Merkel’s national government. Now, he’s been reinstalled as Mayor of Berlin, but as the leader of a left-wing coalition of SPD, Greens and Die Linke.
The SPD have governed with the Greens many times, at every level, but this is the first time they’ve ever agreed to work with Germany’s far-left.
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