Merkel—German Leadership Challenge Begins
Germany’s main opposition party, former coalition partner of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (cdu), the Social Democratic Party (spd), has chosen its candidate to contest Merkel for the leadership of the European Union’s most powerful nation.
Immediately upon confirmation of his candidature as the spd’s frontrunner in the 2013 elections, Merkel’s former finance minister in her previous cdu/csu coalition government, Peer Steinbrück, has thrown down the gauntlet to the chancellor. He has roundly criticized her for not fully disclosing to the German electorate that it will take both more time and money to help Greece, caught in the grip of its current financial and social chaos.
“Steinbrück said Merkel ‘must finally tell German people the truth: Greece will not be able to borrow money on the capital markets in the coming seven or eight years. We will have to help it until then’” (EUobserver, October 1).
Rejecting any prospect of the spd joining in coalition with Merkel’s cdu following the election, Steinbrück told a press conference last week, “We want to oust this government. We want to make sure it isn’t just partially replaced but completely replaced with an spd-Greens government” (ibid).
In keeping with his background in finance, Steinbrück has released a report suggesting certain banking reforms be initiated by Germany. These include a financial transactions tax and centralized banking supervision for eurozone banks.
Though opinion polls give Merkel a strong lead over all comers for the chancellorship at present, this has more to do with the current lackluster lot of prospective candidates for leadership of the German nation than with anything special about Merkel’s leadership.
This will probably remain the case unless some bright sparks stir anew the political prospects of the likes of Edmund Stoiber, or the charismatic Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg.
German politics are at a crucial stage. The twin concerns of pan-Islamism—in particular Iranian aggression—and the continuing financial crisis are wearing away at the German electorate. The gravest of risks to German stability remains economic. Should anything change to risk upsetting the good life that continuing demand for Germany’s exports has given the nation in a general time of austerity in the rest of Europe, then the mood of the electorate could change dramatically.
More to the point, should the German imperial elites perceive their moment has come to “fix” the euro crisis by imposing their own solution on the crisis, then watch out for powerful structural changes in Europe of a nature far in excess of Merkel’s ability to control them.
The 2013 federal elections in Germany must thread their way into this volatile mix of European politics, especially under the newly dominant Rome/Berlin axis. Out of it all, as your Bible prophesies, will emerge a 10-power European empire, under the political, economic and military rule of Germany, with Rome providing the religious ideology to glue it all together for its briefly devastating seventh and final heyday.
The next 12 months are crucial to the formation of the ultimate decision that will emerge from Germany’s 2013 elections as to who will take on the chancellorship at this vital time in Germany’s—and Europe’s—history. All indications are that we are so close to the prophesied sudden change in the global world order, under a Rome-Berlin axis, that will herald a time of tremendous suffering for the increasingly godless Anglo-Saxon societies in particular (Daniel 8, 11; Revelation 13, 17).
This is a time, as the greatest of prophets declared, to “Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:36).
