When Germany's Deputy Chancellor and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle held a briefing for reporters in Berlin last month, he arrived exuding an aura of defiance and ebullience. It didn't last. Germany's Westerwelle had come to talk about the Bundestag's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. Instead, he found himself bombarded with questions about a rumored rift with his boss, Chancellor Angela Merkel. "We have an absolutely untarnished relationship," Westerwelle insisted. "We text each other like there's no tomorrow."
Perhaps they should talk, instead. Five months after Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party began forming a new center-right government with Westerwelle's probusiness Free Democratic Party (FDP), the alliance that was billed as a marriage made in heaven is on the rocks. The government has been riven by infighting, bitter personal rivalries and squabbles over policy direction. The partisan bickering has grown so bad it threatens complete inertia. "The new government [has] had a catastrophic start," Gerd Langguth, author of a biography of Chancellor Merkel, tells TIME. "There's a cacophony of ideas and egos, and Angela Merkel still hasn't come up with a vision for her new government."
Read Full Article »
