Political Jurassic Park

A description of Angela Merkel’s new coalition government in Germany, based upon its perceived decrepitude.

On October 24, Germany’s Christian Democrats signed a coalition deal with the Free Democrats. Deborah Cole reported for Agence France-Presse on the reaction:

Trade unions, opposition leaders and the press savaged German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s new-look government Sunday over what they called a fiscally reckless and socially unjust plan for the next term. …

“After three weeks of coalition talks, there is no nicer way to put it: this start is a failure in terms of the issues, the personnel and the vision,” Der Spiegel political reporter Christoph Schwennicke wrote in an online editorial.

He said Merkel’s new cabinet resembled a political “Jurassic Park”with policies to match.

“There is absolutely no sense of a new beginning. … It is as if the figures from the bedrock of the Kohl age had risen again,” he said, referring to veteran chancellor Helmut Kohl, who last led a centre-right coalition up to 1998 including a number of the same ministers in Merkel’s new team.