German politics. Liberals in the wilderness

German liberals have no natural home - least of all in the party claiming to be theirs

HOW should liberty-loving Germans vote in next month's election? This is a hard question, whether your liberalism is of the economic kind, based on minimal state intervention, or of the social variety, reflecting an unconventional lifestyle. Four parties have a claim on liberals' sympathies. None of them - not even the self-professed liberals of the Free Democrats (FDP) - can make a very convincing case.

That is partly because Germany as a country is not particularly favourable to liberal ideas. There is an irony here. Germany's unification in the 19th century reflected the ideals of free trade and the state as the guarantor of civil rights. But these days, the fashion is for security over freedom. Ralf Dahrendorf, a former liberal politician and academic who became a British lord, says his adopted country is “institutionally liberal”, whereas Germany is “institutionally social-democrat”. Oswald Spengler, an authoritarian philosopher, put it more strongly: “There are principles in Germany that are detested and disreputable; but on German soil it is only liberalism that is contemptible.”

Different kinds of liberals also tend to end up in different parties. Those politicians who defend civil liberties are not particularly interested in economics and finance - areas that are mostly left to experts, who rarely think outside their own box. And politicians who credibly combine economic, political and social liberalism are an even rarer species.

When people like Lord Dahrendorf ran it in the 1960s and 1970s, the FDP was the clear choice for liberals of all descriptions, from free-marketeers to student radicals. But it lost its left-of-centre supporters in 1982 when it ditched its Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners to join with the Christian Democrats. It also came to be seen as a lobby for business.

One obvious home for liberal refugees was the SPD, particularly under Gerhard Schroder, the present chancellor, who used to talk about a “new centre ” - -the German version of Tony Blair's ephemeral Third Way. But that appeal has lessened, leaving the Greens as the more likely home for leftish liberals.

Though the Greens' programme features higher taxes and some other illiberal ideas, their leading figures, mainly ministers in the current coalition government, are impressively efficient and pragmatic. And they champion the neglected cause of civil liberties - at least in theory, albeit only patchily when in office.

The FDP is trying to regain ground on that, though. Its manifesto contains much language about privacy and civil liberties, along with simplifying taxes, increasing competition and giving citizens more power and bureaucrats less.

But Germany's coalition-based politics mean that politicians matter more than election programmes. That is the FDP's big weakness: the party leader, Guido Westerwelle, toyed with right-wing populism in the last election, and is a belated and unconvincing convert to the cause of civil liberties. And even on paper, the FDP's liberalism shies away from hurting the comfily protected professions that make up the bulk of the party's voters: architects, pharmacists and doctors.

The big new contender for the liberal vote is a surprising one: the Christian Democrats (CDU), long seen as a prime defender of Germany's cautious, consensual welfare capitalism. In a speech in October 2003 entitled “Quo Vadis Germany?”, its leader, Angela Merkel, portrayed herself as somebody who would, if in doubt, put freedom first - and inject much more of it into the country's economy.

Culturally, too, Ms Merkel represents a revolution within the CDU. Only a few years ago, it would have been unthinkable for a politician with her background to become a candidate for chancellor. As a childless Protestant woman from the east, she stands out from the Catholic family men who used to run the West German party. Under her, a group of open-minded youngish politicians has grown into positions of power. The CDU now even boasts a state minister with an earring who was patron of his local gay pride parade.

Still, the CDU's politics are anything but liberal on issues such as immigration and civil liberties. And Ms Merkel's recent appointment of Paul Kirchhof, a lawyer, as shadow finance minister, embodies the CDU's problems. Mr Kirchhof is a radical reformer - he wants a 25% flat tax. But the party's powerful regional chiefs in state governments quickly started talking his plan down, calling it a vision that could be implemented only in the very long term. Besides, Mr Kirchhof's views on policy would send most social liberals hurrying away: he thinks mothers should be homemakers while men earn the money.

So to whom will homeless German liberals hand their vote? Many will probably opt for the CDU, with the Greens coming in second. By making this choice, they are likely to tip the scales in favour of an FDP-CDU coalition - the outcome that the opinion polls currently suggest is most likely. Secretly, though, quite a few liberals will be hoping for an unlikely, albeit attractive, alliance between CDU and the Greens.

It is indeed hard to see how Ms Merkel, a former physics professor from the east and Joschka Fischer, Germany's Green foreign minister and a former taxi driver (and stone-throwing radical) from the west, would get along. But perhaps next time around, Ms Merkel and another Green leader could form a dream team for Germany's liberals. If that fails, there is always Lord Dahrendorf's example. The search for liberalism, he says, was one reason that he chose to emigrate.

Article discusses the issue of which political parties in Germany most suit Germans who are 'liberal' by inclination.