# Germany's Decade of Policy Failures: From Role Model to Cautionary Tale
During the 2010s, Germany was widely regarded as a global role model—a beacon of pragmatic governance led by Angela Merkel, representing a serious and methodical approach to national management. Fast forward to 2024, and that reputation has dramatically unraveled.
## Strategic Misjudgments
Several of Merkel's signature policies now appear profoundly misguided:
1. **Energy Policy Disaster**: Shutting down nuclear power plants was a monumental error. Ironically, this decision has paradoxically made much of the world suddenly pro-nuclear, exposing the shortsightedness of Germany's energy strategy.
2. **Russian Dependency**: Despite Russia's 2014 Ukrainian incursion, Germany continued placating Putin, most egregiously through the Nordstream 2 pipeline. This geopolitical naivety created a dangerous energy vulnerability.
3. **Refugee Management**: The wholesale acceptance of Syrian refugees has been widely considered a catastrophic miscalculation, with significant societal and economic repercussions.
## Economic Mismanagement
Germany's economic strategies reveal a pattern of systemic short-sightedness:
- Implementing austerity during recession
- Neglecting capital investment while maintaining low debt
- Failing to modernize labor regulations
- Stifling technological innovation through bureaucratic hurdles
## Tech and Innovation Stagnation
The country's inability to digitize effectively has birthed the sardonic "Germans can't code" meme. Both public and private sectors have spectacularly failed to adopt modern software practices. The suggested remedy? Hire talent from Poland and Estonia.
## Renewable Energy: Ambition vs Reality
Germany's renewable energy transition epitomizes good intentions undermined by poor execution. While ambitious, the strategy resulted in solar panel and EV manufacturing shifting to China, trapped by NIMBY permitting rules. Only recently, facing the gas crisis, has some much-needed deregulation occurred.
## The Merkel Legacy
Perhaps most damning is how Merkel left office bathed in undeserved positive sentiment, having effectively planted multiple policy time bombs for her successors. The ultimate irony? Her party might well return to power in the next election.
To truly recover, they would need to comprehensively disavow Merkel's entire policy framework—a tall order for a political establishment deeply invested in her legacy.
*A cautionary tale of how pragmatism without vision can lead a once-admired nation astray.*
Sometime during the mid 2010s, i ran into a German national at a bar. Somehow our conversation turned into a critique of Merkel. I don't remember most of the conversation but do remember that he was extremely dissatisfied. After reading your rundown of her major achievements, i wonder if he saw something that was not being picked up at the time. Regardless, Merkel is in spin mode. Attempting to save her legacy with a recently released memoir that no one is reading.
# Germany's Decade of Policy Failures: From Role Model to Cautionary Tale
During the 2010s, Germany was widely regarded as a global role model—a beacon of pragmatic governance led by Angela Merkel, representing a serious and methodical approach to national management. Fast forward to 2024, and that reputation has dramatically unraveled.
## Strategic Misjudgments
Several of Merkel's signature policies now appear profoundly misguided:
1. **Energy Policy Disaster**: Shutting down nuclear power plants was a monumental error. Ironically, this decision has paradoxically made much of the world suddenly pro-nuclear, exposing the shortsightedness of Germany's energy strategy.
2. **Russian Dependency**: Despite Russia's 2014 Ukrainian incursion, Germany continued placating Putin, most egregiously through the Nordstream 2 pipeline. This geopolitical naivety created a dangerous energy vulnerability.
3. **Refugee Management**: The wholesale acceptance of Syrian refugees has been widely considered a catastrophic miscalculation, with significant societal and economic repercussions.
## Economic Mismanagement
Germany's economic strategies reveal a pattern of systemic short-sightedness:
- Implementing austerity during recession
- Neglecting capital investment while maintaining low debt
- Failing to modernize labor regulations
- Stifling technological innovation through bureaucratic hurdles
## Tech and Innovation Stagnation
The country's inability to digitize effectively has birthed the sardonic "Germans can't code" meme. Both public and private sectors have spectacularly failed to adopt modern software practices. The suggested remedy? Hire talent from Poland and Estonia.
## Renewable Energy: Ambition vs Reality
Germany's renewable energy transition epitomizes good intentions undermined by poor execution. While ambitious, the strategy resulted in solar panel and EV manufacturing shifting to China, trapped by NIMBY permitting rules. Only recently, facing the gas crisis, has some much-needed deregulation occurred.
## The Merkel Legacy
Perhaps most damning is how Merkel left office bathed in undeserved positive sentiment, having effectively planted multiple policy time bombs for her successors. The ultimate irony? Her party might well return to power in the next election.
To truly recover, they would need to comprehensively disavow Merkel's entire policy framework—a tall order for a political establishment deeply invested in her legacy.
*A cautionary tale of how pragmatism without vision can lead a once-admired nation astray.*
She was so popular when she left, but now she is despised on the left, libertarians, anti migrant right and she is even criticized by the center left.
The conservatives would have shit on her as well. But then they would have to shit on their most consequential leader in 2 decades.
Sometime during the mid 2010s, i ran into a German national at a bar. Somehow our conversation turned into a critique of Merkel. I don't remember most of the conversation but do remember that he was extremely dissatisfied. After reading your rundown of her major achievements, i wonder if he saw something that was not being picked up at the time. Regardless, Merkel is in spin mode. Attempting to save her legacy with a recently released memoir that no one is reading.
To be clear, the stuff on Germany was before Merkel. That was Gerhard Schröder.
But forcing austerity on Greece part was Merkel
That's the guy who de-regulated the labour market right? Didn't he stop Germany from being the sick man of Europe?
Germany went from 1% growth per year in the 90s to 2% growth (inflation adjusted) in the 2000s
Yep! that's what I wrote about in #5.