Germany and the familiy. The martyrdom of Ursula

Date: 04/02/06

The coalition deal on child care says much about Germany's politics

"CHASING another pig through the village." This German expression, meaning pushing a new cause before finishing an old one, was pertinent under Chancellor Gerhard Schroder. But under Angela Merkel's grand coalition, fewer political pigs run around. This is partly because the new government leaks little and backstabs less.

That makes even small rows more interesting. The latest one concerns tax breaks for child care. As part of its euro25 billion ($30 billion) programme to boost the economy, the government wanted to induce working parents to hire nannies, creating badly needed service jobs and perhaps boosting Germany's low birth rate. Double-income families with children under 14 would set up to euro4,000 a year of child-care costs against taxes; those with children under six would qualify only if they spent more than euro1,000 (to avoid the subsidy going simply to pre-school fees).

It took some time for the plan's logic to sink in. When it did, there was uproar, showing how German politicians are stuck in the past on family matters. The Social Democrats (SPD) found the measure "socially unjust" because it was aimed at richer families. The Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of the Christian Democrats (CDU), complained that traditional families with one (male) breadwinner were at a disadvantage.

For Ursula von der Leyen, the (CDU) minister of family affairs, and famously a mother of seven children, the row is a mixed blessing. It has raised her party's profile in family affairs, but it has also shown how far it and especially the CSU have to go to accept that there is no longer a monolithic view of what makes a family. Traditionalists even mutter that the busy politician must be a bad mother.

The argument has at least raised Ms von der Leyen's own profile, especially among working mothers. Until recently, critics were saying that, if she has two degrees (in economics and medicine), can look back at four years spent in Silicon Valley and boast such a large brood, it was only because she came from a family rich enough to pay for generous child care. Now the critics have seen her trying to win more help for all working mothers.

The argument over child care has also changed perceptions of the government, by showing how hard it is for the two parties to work together. The SPD reneged on the original plan, partly because it is on the defensive. Its poll ratings have dropped to near 30%. It could lose the March 26th election in Rhineland-Palatinate, the only big state still to have an SPD premier. And Germans seem to have fallen in love with their new chancellor, not least because she sometimes sounds like a Social Democrat herself. None of her predecessors was as popular as she is after just two months in office. Pundits are talking of Merkelliebe and wondering how long it will last.

Yet the eventual compromise on child care hammered out this week also shows that it will be harder for Ms Merkel to cut as good a figure at home as abroad. In a win for the SPD, child-care expenses will be deductible from the first euro for all ages, up to euro4,000, but only for two-thirds of what is spent. To keep the CSU happy, single-earner families are included, but only for children between the ages of three and six. This messy compromise will simply remind voters of the inherent tensions inside the grand coalition.

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