Commentaries

A camel for EU president?

A camel, says an old Middle East joke, is a horse designed by a committee.

The European Union is in danger of getting camels for its two new leadership positions — president of the European Council and foreign policy High Representative — because of the dysfunctional appointment process created by the Lisbon Treaty.

The secretive horse (or camel)-trading by which EU governments choose the 27-nation bloc’s top office-holders seems designed to deter strong candidates and produce lowest-common-denominator outcomes. Some of the most able potential contenders would rather stay at home than take the key jobs to Brussels.

The treaty does not provide for a democratic election because the EU is not a state, and national governments don’t want a European president with his own legitimacy. However, the rules also seem to set aside the basic principles and procedures that any private sector company or public authority would use to select the best CEO or manager.

In a normal selection process, the jobs would go to the best qualified candidates with a clear vision, relevant experience and a track record of achievement, normally after a series of rigorous interviews. But the treaty suggests that the need to share the spoils among large and small states, and countries from the north, south, east and west of Europe is more important than criteria such as ability, charisma or experience.

Germans vote for change; will they get it?

Germans have voted for change. A centre-right government with a clear parliamentary majority will replace the ungainly grand coalition of conservatives and Social Democrats that ran Europe’s biggest economy for the last four years.

This should mean an end to ”steady as she goes” lowest common denominator policies, and at least some reform of the country’s tax and welfare system. The liberal Free Democrats, who recorded their best ever result with around 14.7 percent, will try to pull the new government towards tax cuts, health care reform, a reduction in welfare spending and a loosening of job protection in small business.

Conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel, a cautious centrist, made clear in her first post-election comments that she she would not allow a radical lurch to the right. She promised to be the ”chancellor of all Germans” — old and young, entrepreneurs and workers — and said the conseravtives would be sufficiently dominant in the new coalition to prevail “in questions that affect social balance”.

The new government faces tough economic challenges in what is bound to be a more polarised political atmosphere, with the Social Democrats in opposition. The economy is expected to contract by at least 5 percent this year, and export-led growth is likely to return only slowly. Unemployment is set to explode in the coming months as short-time work schemes run out. The budget deficit is set to top 6 percent of gross domestic product next year, more than twice the EU limit. So 2010 will be an extremely difficult year. But there are some problems that are even more urgent.

The first big choice involves Germany’s ailing banks. Outgoing Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck admitted last week that the public-owned regional Landesbanks “continue to pose an enormous systemic risk to our market”. The outgoing parliament passed a virtually useless “bad bank” law meant to encourage stricken financial institutions to put their toxic assets into state-guaranteed special purpose vehicles. The banks have so far spurned the system because it leaves the risk of losses with them rather than with the taxpayer.

Merkel and her new partners need to amend the law so that the state takes more of the risk, otherwise Germany faces a future of “zombie” banks that are too burdened with liabilities to lend to the real economy. That won’t be popular, with the left bound to claim that taxpayers are being forced to bail out wealthy bankers.

Fixing the banks is more urgent than cutting taxes or curbing public spending to revive the economy. That also means merging the Landesbanks, shrinking their activities and privatising as much as possible. The Germans must also be ready to allow healthy foreign banks to buy up sickly German ones. That is the logic of the European single market, to which a centre-right government is likely to be more committed.

Steinmeier’s recipe deceptively seductive

It was about as scintillating as a discussion among accountants, but Social Democratic challenger Frank-Walter Steinmeier outshone conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany’s only general election television debate.

True, Steinmeier failed to land the knockout punch he needed to overcome a 12-point deficit in opinion polls two weeks before the Sept. 27 vote. But he did score a points win that makes Merkel’s preferred option of a centre-right pact with the pro-business Free Democrats slightly less likely, and another glacial Grand Coalition of the two major parties more likely.  And that is concerning.

The centre-left foreign minister’s platform of a national minimum wage, executive pay curbs and switching off nuclear power is hardly a recipe to pull Europe’s biggest economy out of its deepest post-war slump.

In the current anti-capitalist mood, both leaders felt obliged to support regulating bankers’ bonuses, although Merkel made clear that, absent an improbable international accord, she opposed tough national rules that would drive business abroad.

On nuclear policy, Steinmeier has a point that investment in renewable energy could stall if Germany changes course and lets its atomic power stations keep working beyond 2020.

The idea of a minimum wage isn’t necessarily bad. The problem is the timing.

Contrary to liberal dogma, minimum wages do not necessarily destroy jobs or lower growth. Europe cannot hope to compete with China or India on pay, but only on know-how and quality.