It doesn't seem that long ago that Angela Merkel became Germany's first woman chancellor. Yet she already has her eye on the next prize—winning re-election in 12 months' time. You can tell this from a giveaway phrase that is occurring with increasing frequency in her speeches.
When Merkel says "speaking as chair of the Christian Democratic Union" at a press conference, it is the sign that she wants to change gears, out of the measured tone of a chancellor and into the more biting language of the leader of the largest party in her uneasy grand coalition with the Social Democrats.
Her political barbs are rarely aimed at the opposition. With the exception of the ascendant Left party, they have made little impression on her alliance, which since November 2005 has controlled two thirds of Germany's parliamentary seats. No, her target is her coalition partner: the SPD.
Take the SPD's call for a national minimum wage of €7.50 an hour. As chancellor, Merkel says she is "working closely with my coalition partner" on basic pay levels. But as CDU leader, she is "deeply concerned" by the SPD's plans for a minimum wage. "This would seriously endanger German competitiveness," she says.
Merkel's goals are to be re-elected chancellor and to be able to switch coalition partner to the smaller, more pliable liberal Free Democrats. Hence her repeated praise for the FDP, which has lost its way since leaving national office a decade ago.
One of Merkel's closest aides asked me recently who I thought would win the election next year. I said I thought his boss would become chancellor again, but with the same coalition partner. His face fell, but he didn't disagree. While the CDU has a ten-point opinion poll lead over the SPD, the rise of the Left party means votes and seats will be spread among five parties (the Greens are the other player). A CDU-FDP coalition seems less likely and a repeat of the CDU-SPD marriage of the unwilling, more so.
As for the SPD, all eyes are on foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the clever technocrat likely to lead the party into battle with Merkel. He has yet to say whether he wants to be a candidate for chancellor, which is understandable given the chaos in his party. Familiar bloodletting between the party's left and right wings, held under control during the chancellorship of Gerhard Schröder, has erupted under the weaker leadership of Kurt Beck, a provincial state premier.
And there lies Steinmeier's problem: while he is as popular with the public as Merkel is, he is not popular with his party, or at least with its increasingly powerful left-wingers. They remember his role as co-author of Schröder's economic reforms package—one that still sticks in the throat of SPD members, who dream of those comfortable days last century when globalisation hadn't been invented.
The return of Helmut Schmidt
The SPD's dark days seem to have given a new lease of life to its über-elder statesman, ex-chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Schmidt, who turns 90 in December, has recently re-emerged as a media darling, popping up on television talk shows and in newspaper profiles, and often giving a clearer sense of Social Democratic purpose than those running the party.
Schmidt is also a famous and unrepentant smoker. He writes a column, "A cigarette with Helmut Schmidt" in Die Zeit, the Hamburg-based paper of which he is one of the publishers. Germany is still catching up on smoking bans, and meanwhile Schmidt keeps on puffing, even on live television.
Montgomery vs the liberal media
Spare a thought for those embattled German journalists working for David Montgomery. Or perhaps our sympathies should lie with the British media mogul himself, since he is having a trying time teaching Berlin's liberal media set his brand of robust Manchester capitalism.
A battle is under way between Montgomery and his colleagues at Berliner Zeitung, one of the capital's three broadsheets. The paper was bought three years ago by Mecom, Montgomery's private equity group, and the US company Veronis Suhler Stevenson—making it the first German newspaper group to be taken into foreign ownership.
Montgomery, who in the early 1990s took over the Mirror group after the death of Robert Maxwell, has said his goal is to "create synergies" between the Berliner Zeitung and his other German titles (Mecom owns 300 publications across Europe). His reign has been a culture shock and has brought cost-cutting to the Zeitung's expensive operations.
The journalists saw him coming, donning "you're not welcome" T-shirts during his first editorial visit in 2005. Since then he has brought in a tough management team, and this summer he sacked 30 journalists, a quarter of the editorial staff.
The remaining staff seem dazed, unsure whether the answer lies in polite letters calling for a "more appropriate proprietor" or street protests. But the union chapel has the measure of the man. According to one of its leaders, the last few years were foreplay, and "now it's getting serious." Any bets on who will win?
