繁荣成为德国不能承受之重
When last did a nation collapse under the unbearable weight of its prosperity? For a visitor in Berlin, Germany’s coAlition talks straddled the line between complacency and smugness. Elsewhere, European politicians are struggling to balance the books by cutting education spending and capping pensions. Angela Merkel and her prospective coalition partners spent a fruitless month arguing about how to share out the rich spoils of economic success.
If you believe the headlines, the failure of the chancellor’s Christian Democrats and their Bavarian sister party, the CSU, to strike a deal with the economically liberal Free Democrats and the leftish Greens has plunged the nation into crisis. No one has told the well-heeled Christmas shoppers crowding Berlin’s stores. Wages are high, unemployment is low and the government is awash with cash. Crisis, Germans are asking, what crisis?
如果你相信这些头条新闻，德国总理领导的的基督教民主联盟（CDU，简称：基民盟）及其巴伐利亚州的姊妹党基督教社会联盟（CSU，简称：基社盟）未能与奉行经济自由立场的自由民主党（Free Democratic Party，简称：自民党）和左派的绿党(Greens)敲定协议一事，已经使这个国家陷入危机。没人把这件事告诉挤在柏林的商店内为圣诞节购物的富人。工资高、失业率低，政府现金充裕。德国人在问：危机？什么危机？The country has turned inward as well as rightward. The politics of plenty might have persuaded an earlier generation of postwar politicians to raise their sights to the future of Europe. Not this one. Now what you catch is a visible irritation with the troubles of Germany’s less fortunate partners in the eurozone. If they want to succeed, they should jolly well behave more like, well, Germany.
这个国家已经变得自我封闭，已经向“右”转。经济富足造就的政治局势，可能说服了早先的一代战后政治家把目光投向欧洲的未来。现在这一代政治家可不是这样。现在，对于德国在欧元区内运气没那么好的伙伴国面临的麻烦，你看到的是显而易见的恼怒。如果他们想成功，他们应该表现得更像，呃，德国。
What was it that Ms Merkel said not so long ago about picking up the torch for liberal democratic values and working with French president Emmanuel Macron to advance the cause of European integration? By the account of those inside the talks, the chancellor now professes indifference. A coalition agreement should say nothing to offend Mr Macron directly. On the other hand, it need not make any commitments.
默克尔不久前说的——接过自由民主价值观的火炬、和法国总统埃马纽埃尔?马克龙(Emmanuel Macron)一起推进欧洲一体化事业——代表了什么？据谈判内部人士说，默克尔如今主张的是冷处理。组阁协议不应该包含任何直接冒犯马克龙的内容。另一方面，它无需作出任何承诺。The breakdown of the talks was a shock to Berlin’s political establishment. A deal would be reached, everyone had previously agreed, because the alternatives of a minority government or another election were unthinkable. The Brexit vote in the UK, Donald Trump in the US, even the success of the nativist Alternative for Germany in September’s elections — these are things that should have taught us that politics is no longer played by the old rules.
谈判破裂震惊了柏林政界。每个人之前都认为，会达成组阁协议，因为少数派政府和再举行一次大选这两个替代选择都是不可想象的。英国退欧公投、美国的唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)、甚至奉行本土主义的德国新选择党(Alternative for Germany)在9月选举中的成功——这些都应该告诉我们，政治的游戏规则变了。Germany may have to get used to a new dynamic. By taking nearly 13 per cent of the vote, the AfD changed the arithmetic of traditional coalition building. Add its share to the 9 per cent score of the formerly communist Die Linke and more than a fifth of the seats in the Bundestag are now occupied by MPs shunned by the political mainstream. The permutations for workable coalitions have shrunk accordingly.
德国可能不得不习惯一种新节奏。德国新选择党拿到了接近13%的选票，这改变了传统的组阁算法。再加上前共产主义政党德国左派党(Die Linke)拿到的9%的选票，德国联邦议院(Bundestag)超过五分之一的席位如今都属于被政治主流闪避的议员。可行的组阁方案也相应减少了。Political calculation on the part of the Free Democrats rather than irreconcilable policy collisions with the Christian Democrats and Greens scuppered Ms Merkel’s hopes for a Jamaica coalition — so called because the three parties’ colours match that of the Caribbean nation’s flag. There were real differences — about immigration controls, climate change, Europe, and tax and spending — but a mix of compromises and fudges had all but closed even the gaps between the Greens and the CSU.
扼杀默克尔组建“牙买加联盟”（联盟中三党的代表色与这个加勒比国家的国旗颜色一致）希望的是自民党方面的政治盘算，而不是它与基民盟和绿党之间什么不可调和的政策冲突。它们之间确实在移民控制、气候变化、欧洲一体化以及税收和开支等问题上存在分歧，但是就连绿党和基社盟之间的分歧也几乎快要凭借一系列妥协和敷衍弥合了。
