First: an explanation about the term Ampel (traffic light coalition) https://www.iamexpat.de/education/education-news/german-words-expats-should-know-ampel
Excerpt: Ampelkoalition: Ampel in politics
The eternal flux of languages is illustrated nicely in the case of Ampel by the fact that the word now means something else in modern German usage, following the result of the 2021 federal election, which saw the SPD party form a coalition with the FDP and the Greens.
Referring to the colours associated with these political parties – red, yellow and green – the German media began to use the word “Ampelkoalition” (traffic-light-coalition), “Ampelregierung” (traffic-light-government) or simply “Ampel” to refer to the new German government.
Second: The featured image of this posting, delivers a realistic view of the analogue infrastructures in good old and backwards Germany.
Germany is in the midst of a veritable government crisis. This has not gone unnoticed in the USA either: the coalition rupture has plunged the country into a deep political crisis, which is being exacerbated by massive economic problems, according to the US media following the traffic light (Ampel) quake.
‘The collapse of the coalition is unbelievable for a country that has long been known for its reliable unity,’ says theNew York Times (German). Germany is currently the economically weakest country of all the G7 nations, American readers are told. As a result, populist parties on the extreme right and left are gaining a lot of support. The warning: ‘This could herald a new era of political instability in Germany.’
According to the business magazine ‘Fortune’: ‘Germany’s political turmoil could not have come at a worse time for Europe’s largest economy’. The coalition break-up leaves Germany rudderless (German).
US media: ‘Traffic light exit hits Germany at the most critical moment imaginable’
And all of this in the turbulent times following Donald Trump’s election victory, the business paper quotes a bank analyst. The forecasts sound gloomy: the end of the traffic light system is hitting Germany at the most critical moment imaginable – with a shrinking economy, ageing infrastructure and an unprepared Bundeswehr.
‘Political restructuring could exacerbate growing frustration with Germany’s mainstream parties and benefit populist movements such as the xenophobic AfD (German).’
AFD exerpt:
Among the parties in the Federal Republic of Germany, the AfD is regarded as a euro-critical, national-conservative, economically liberal and right-wing populist party. The ‘Alternative for Germany’ was founded in Berlin in 2013 as a reaction to the euro bailout policy. The AfD won a national mandate in the 2014 European elections and entered the state parliaments of Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia. In 2015, the AfD gained city parliaments in Hamburg and Bremen
The headline on the CNN news channel: ‘Germany’s normally stable government collapses.’ Yet Germany has always stood for stability. However, the situation has escalated in the dispute over the disastrous economy.
The US broadcaster explains the reasons as follows: In addition to rising energy and high labour costs and a dramatically ageing population, a completely outdated physical and digital infrastructure are also responsible for the misery.
The flipside of austerity and underinvestment: ‘A desolate infrastructure’
The conservative ‘Wall Street Journal’ (WSJ), which often interprets current events differently to the left-leaning CNN channel, agrees: Germany has a low level of national debt compared to its European neighbours, it explains to American readers.
However, the flip side of this thriftiness and years of underinvestment is ‘a desolate infrastructure: motorways with potholes, crumbling bridges, unpunctual trains, the third-lowest percentage of fibre-optic networks in Europe (German), offices still stuck in the paper age and unprepared armed forces’.
According to the business paper, the traffic light (Ampel) switch-off will now be followed by months of paralysis – at a time of countless dangerously seething crises. ‘Germany’s economic model is broken. Europe’s entire relationship with the US is being redefined. Berlin urgently needs to make decisions and back them up financially. And there is not much time left,’ warned Sudha David-Wilp from the German Marshall Fund of the USA in the WSJ.
Germany’s biggest challenge is a deep economic crisis
The daily cites alarming figures: 6.6 million refugees have come to Germany in the past decade, costing taxpayers 30 billion euros a year.
But the biggest challenge is a deep economic crisis: the German economy has been stagnating since 2019 and is now set to shrink for the second year in a row, ‘even without Trump’s new import tariffs, which could cost Germany’s economy an additional 33 billion euros of gross domestic product’. A new government urgently needs to invest in infrastructure, cut social benefits and improve incentives to work.
‘Europe has a Germany problem in the new Trump era,’ reads the headline from US news agency Bloomberg. ‘Life can change from one minute to the next, especially in Berlin.’ First, Trump won the election with the promise to turn the global trade economy upside down. ‘Then Olaf Scholz fires the finance minister and causes his coalition to collapse.’
Europe now has ‘a Germany-sized hole in its collective responses’ to the problems ahead. Above all, the uncertainty that Trump will bring with him: from import tariffs to aid for Ukraine.
‘The German government in free fall’
‘The German government in free fall’, says the Christian Science Monitor. The news agency nevertheless sees reason for hope: ‘This crisis could turn out to be a blessing in disguise in the long term,’ economist Carsten Brzeski is quoted as saying.
‘Elections and a new government could and should end the current paralysis of an entire country and provide new, clear guidelines and security.’
Cautious optimism also in the ‘Seattle Times’. Here, economic expert Daniel Gros says that Trump’s import tariffs could even benefit the German car industry.
‘Trump can save the German automotive industry by maintaining the tariffs on Chinese e-cars. The USA is the only market in the world where German car manufacturers face little competition from China (German). Some plants will certainly have to close, but perhaps fewer.’
