Grand Coalition Policy Meets the EU’s Multiple Crises: Stability Discourse versus Party Politics

Abstract

The article investigates the cohesion of public discourse by members of the Merkel III government on three challenges of European governance: the negotiations on UK withdrawal from the EU, the management of the Greek debt crisis, and political responses to the entry of migrants into the EU and the refugee pact with Turkey. The rationale is to assess how unfolding controversy on German leadership in the EU prompted by these challenges is reflected in claims-making in relation to three frameworks of reference: namely, the supranational institutions and policies of the EU, the definition of German EU policy at the level of intergovernmental negotiation, and domestic policy in the context of European developments. Based on a mixed-method review of debates in the Bundestag, the main findings highlight the tension between two different forms of parliamentary debate: on the one hand, a mostly normative discourse making the case for the stability and continuity of EU policies by the Chancellor and other members of the Grand Coalition government; on the other, the projection of party political claims to call for policy modification at the EU and intergovernmental level, exposing fissures and even direct contestation between coalition partners, particularly in the controversy on the migrant crisis.