MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Germany’s ‘Mom’ Angela no darling for the EU Mediterranean members

Mutti Merkel, despised by clear majorities in Spain, Greece, Portugal and Italy

Southern Europeans are facing four more years of ‘mutti’ (Mom) Angela Merkel — whether they like it or not. Majorities of 82% in Spain, 65% in Portugal and 58% in Italy repudiate the German leader’s handling of the Euro area’s debt crisis, blaming her for drastic cuts in social services, recession and record unemployment, according to a German Marshall Fund poll released last week.

The majority that matters, in Germany, decided otherwise Sunday, putting Merkel back in charge and saluting policies that have kept the currency union intact while at times veering close to letting it unravel. Any concessions now are likely to come on the margins: a little more money for Greece here, a little less austerity there, without altering her determination at most to drip-feed aid to countries that embrace tight budgets, wage restraint and export-oriented industry.

Merkel will start her third term with Europe perched between crisis and recovery. The 17-nation Euro-zone is emerging from an 18-month recession and Ireland is poised to become the first of five aid-dependent countries to be weaned off outside help.

While Ireland’s 10-year bonds now yield about two percentage points more than German debt, making it the first aid recipient to fall in line with interest-rate targets, progress has been spottier elsewhere. Greece, with a yield premium of about eight percentage points, needs further relief; Portugal, with a 5.1 percentage-point premium, might also need a top-up.

Germany’s 28% weight in the 12.7-trillion Euro-area economy, top credit rating and pre-eminent role in the creation of the Euro enabled it to dominate the crisis response. German views may gain more clout, now that two crisis-management allies, Netherlands and Finland, face fiscal and economic problems of their own.

“We cannot prematurely drop the pressure to reform,” Merkel said on German television. Defending her habit of feeling her way into problem-solving instead of laying out grand visions, she said that “once I know that something will cost something, I'll say so.”

Her next government will most likely be a rerun of her 2005-2009 coalition with the Social Democrats, her party’s traditional rivals. The Christian Democratic bloc won 311 seats in the Bundestag, five short of an absolute majority, forcing Merkel to share power with the Social Democrats or Greens.

“The German SPD is much more in sync with other countries, also in the south,” said Laurens Jan Brinkhorst, a former Dutch deputy prime minister.

Defections from her own ranks have already compelled her to enlist the Social Democrats as de facto crisis-management partners. On at least four occasions, including this year’s aid package for Cyprus, Merkel relied on opposition votes to pass save-the-euro measures in the Bundestag.

Merkel is grappling with a north-south challenge that was at least temporarily deepened by her austerity-first prescriptions. The 5.3% unemployment rate in Germany that smoothed her re-election contrasts with a Euro-zone average of 12.1%. Joblessness is 16.5% in Portugal, 26.3% in Spain and 27.6% in Greece, where the debt crisis broke out just as Merkel started her second term in late 2009.