The upcoming German election

[OCSockOrphanage]

Can Angela Merkel win another term? What do Germans think about the progress of Brexit negotiations so far? What line do Germans think should be taken on economic migrants and refugees and how they might help Mediterranean countries deal with them? My German is not up to reading politics and papers in German, so I invite those who take an interest, from left and right, East and West, to shed some light.

Good questions. Hope we get some good answers as I'm interested too.

Have just asked my German DP (we live in Germany but I struggle to fully follow the political debate programmes).

He says there is no real competition to Angela and she is expected to win.

The only other candidate who can mount a challenge is Martin Schulz from the Socialist Party but he is not expected to come close to Angela.

Angela and Martin will appear in a televised debate on Sunday in a head to head debate. Will be interesting to see the outcome of that.

Re Brexit - "what progress?".
Which echoes my own feelings.

Re Refugees / economic migrants "that is the big question if this election and there is no clear or easy solution".

Thank you for posting Someone. That goes along with what I read in English papers.

Hoping the thread will get some reads and some input as the German campaign gathers speed. Please keep updating with any interesting insights.

I'm German and this election is the last one I can vote in, I'll be out of the country for too long next time.
I think Angela Merkel will win again and safely, not because people think she is great but because it feels like there isn't really an alternative. Most of my friends at this point don't know who to vote for, many don't really want to vote for Merkel, but Martin Schulz isn't an inspiring candidate for the SPD, nobody that I know would vote AfD and FDP has always been fairly marginal as have been the Greens. Any of the smaller parties will only be important for propping up a coalition if they get in at all (5% hurdle).
The big issue is refugees/migrants but as far as I can tell from outwith the country, with the exception of the AfD which a majority is considering to be unelectable, there is no party that offers a different approach to the Merkel one. It's hard to tell how most people feel about it though, most articles in the media that I follow disallow comments on articles in this area and the German parenting forum where I'm a member has descended into a battle zone where everybody who voices any concern about the number of migrants is shouted down as an AfD-troll.
My prediction at the moment is a win for Merkel and nobody really being happy about it and a bad loss for the SPD (which makes me sad coming from a long line of metall workers but I do think they have lost the plot). I have no real feeling about how any of the smaller parties will be doing.

Thanks, Igneococcus. I am interested that German public opinion and social media finds migration as polarising an issue as MN. Do your politicians actively support the EU Commission/Messrs Juncker and Barnfield in the intransigent line they are taking in the Brexit negotiations? After the elections, how long will Berlin stand on the sidelines before insisting on a new and hopefully more imaginative approach to the transition and a new relationship? Sadly behind the Times' paywall, there was an interesting article about this yesterday on the Op Ed pages.

The debate has become very polarized. Spiegel has pulled a few comments sections (when they allowed them in the first place) and entire articles disappear from the front of the online editions if there are too many negative comments, at least that is my suspicion.
I don't really have a good idea what German politicians' plans regarding Brexit are. I'm not sure how much influence they have on Juncker et al. For me the EU and its institutions feels quite removed from daily country politics although Merkel will of course have lots of influence. As far as I can tell many Germans, by far not all, are baffled why anyone would not want to be part of the EU and are a bit offended by it. In the media that I follow Brexit is nowhere near as big a topic as other things.
Is that the Iain Martin comment? I can read the Times, I have a look after work.

I live in Germany. I must admit that I don't read German papers much though [bush] I do listen to the radio, and I do live and work in all German environments, not in an ex pat bubble.

I've met people who are anti migrant and sound like German versions of Nigel Farge/ UKIP supporters ... Generally people in low paid jobs who have an instinctive but unthought out fear that in some way migrants will "take" their housing and jobs and prevent their daughters walking home at 3am safely. I met people with views like that when working in a care home where a lot of people were earning lower than average wages and had relatives who couldn't find affordable accommodation in the area they wanted to live in (especially a daughter or sister who had had a baby young and now "couldn't find a flat") - looking for someone to blame. The same people who face struggles and look for a scape goat in the UK... However it was interesting that almost every time anyone aired views like that they would be challenged - usually by one of the younger staff, and a debate would ensue with strong views on both sides, so no strong hold of anti migrant opinion seems to go unchallenged.

Their are often anti migrant comments on the facebook page of our local paper - they are also challenged.

The thing is that most of the anti migrant views expressed aren't well thought out - it's a lot of "taking our affordable housing" when it is in fact a widely reported fact that landlords are quite racist as a group (in fact its probably not overt racism so much as lazyness and not wanting the hassle of dealing with people without fluent German who don't know the rules) and there have been lots of reports of how males with an Arab name have a vastly reduced chance of finding accommodation, and landlords are rarely letting to foreigners if they have suitable German applicants. Most of the migrants still live in container accommodation 4 to a room.

Brexit is viewed as a bit of a joke - it's barely mentioned ever. Gets a line on the radio occasionally about Junker warning the UK not to be silly. Nobody really cares. People realise I'm not actually Polish but English and say "Ah your kids are lucky - always a 1 in English! Do you know the queen?" laugh laugh "What about Brexit? Crazy!" laugh laugh - and then talk about something else...

Yes, Igneo, the Iain Martin piece. I know he's a Leaver, but he does sum up all the reasons that many in the UK get so irritated with the Commission and Brussels. Just before the referendum, the Times quoted a senior functionary (without attaching a name IIRC) suggesting that people not educated to degree level should be denied a vote, which rubbed me rather the wrong way. That would have excluded the vast majority of my family, despite them holding service commissions and like qualifications.

I've got German citizenship. Have been to Germany in the last few weeks.

No other option than Merkel really.

And Brexit? A joke. Basically, some people think that the UK is really proving that it's being inhabited by so-called 'island monkeys' (Inselaffen) who are being led by a bunch idiots.

I just scanned some of the news reports about yesterday's TV duel between Merkel and Schulz and as far as I can tell Brexit wasn't mentioned at all, or if it was it didn't make it into the reports about it.
Based on the quotes I read the topics were: car industry (Diesel scandal), Turkey (the question if Turkey becomes a member of the EU worries the average German more than Brexit, in my opinion), refugees, Trump, the pension age and right at the end Schulz seems to have managed to mention inequality.
In the comments sections it seems most people thought Merkel was vague and evasive and that Schulz did better than expected but this is based on very low expectations.

Oh... and of course, immigration is a topic. Isn't that the case everywhere though? That topic won't 'stop' any time soon. With Africa's population expected to balloon over the coming decades, this is only the beginning. I'm assuming the world will look very different in a hundred years time compared to today (and the last few centuries).

When I did my German citizenship test the moderator referred to me as yet another Brexit Flüchtlinge... She did say it was good for Germany, bad for Britain...

Flüchtlinge

Is that "fleeing tongue" ????

Why tongue? Tongue is "Zunge" in German.

Igneo what is the german mumsnet?

floatingcamel there is no German mumsnet, if there is I haven't found it yet.
There is a site called Rund ums baby but it is nothing at all like mumsnet. It has a much smaller number of members and the dynamic is very different. I used to be a fairly active contributor to one of the forums called "Aktuell" kind of the equivalent of In the News and remember some good discussions but in the last year or so it has become extremely polarized and I just can't be bothered at the moment with the namecalling and troll hunting which kill any resonable debate.

Apparently Angela Merkel has the vote of the young, who wholeheartedly agree with her policy on immigration. Martin Scholz or rather the SPD supported her policy, so don't really have a leg to stand on opposition wise. From the few snippets I saw he thought that the whole situation could have been organised a bit better. Meh.

Brexit is not a topic at all. People usually just roll their eyes at the craziness of it and move on.

Turkey is a huge worry, as it is pivotal in the whole migrant situation as well. I wish Germany would take a more forceful stance, though. What's happening there is beyond the pale.

A Flüchtlinge is an asylum seeker or an escapee ...

A Flüchtlinge is an asylum seeker or an escapee ..

as I have just been told by a colleague. Still, marks for trying ????

Thank you igneo

Brexit is seen by every German I know and every major newspaper as a completely ludicrous idea that will result in a lot of economic pain and loss of influence for Britain, and the negotiations so far an utter joke with May et al refusing to wake up to reality and continuing to propose unworkable fantasies.

Merkel I think is expected to win again as she's generally well liked, despite her open door policy to refugees.

As far as immigration goes, lots of older Germans (including my father) are quite prejudiced against certain ethnic groups, but racist views are generally challenged as a pp said. But while many accept that Germany had a historic responsibility to take in a lot of refugees in recent years, they think that it has to be reduced in future as 1 million people a year is simply unsustainable.

I found the bpb wahlomat (yes really is called that) interesting tool when thinking about who to vote for. www.bpb.de/politik/wahlen/wahl-o-mat/

And yes - I think Frau Merkel will win again. Im concerned about the AfD leading the opposition. There's a guardian article in english on that if you want to read more.

German relatives used to vote for her but feel she isnt as warm and congenial to other world leaders incl ours over Brexit - Greece etc and feel she is damaging but yes - who else to vote for?