President Wulff resignation ‘meaningless’ for Polish-German relations

Chancellor Merkel with political ally Christian Wulff: EPA/Wolfgang Kumm

“In my opinion, from the perspective of Polish affairs, the resignation is of little or even no importance,” Prof. Cezary Eugeniusz-Krol at the Department of Political Science at Collegium Civita in Warsaw has told the PAP news agency.

“The constitutional position of the Federal President is relatively weak, and the focus of power exercised in Germany lies in the office of the Chancellor,” he adds.

Chancellor Angela Merkel lost her second president in 20 months this morning when President Wulff, a centre-right political ally, resigned after land-deal sleaze allegations when he was state-president of Lower Saxony.

”I am today stepping down from the office of federal president to free up the way quickly for a successor,” the 52 year-old Wulff said in a statement this morning.

"The developments of the past few days and weeks have shown that trust and thus my effectiveness have been seriously damaged,” he said after prosecutors called earlier this week for his immunity from prosecution to be lifted so they could pursue allegations of financial impropriety during his time as state-president.

Wulff also had to apologise to the editor of the German tabloid Bild after he rang him and threatened the paper if they printed any more scandalous stories about him.

Though the resignation will have little practical impact on German foreign or domestic policy, it is a severe blow to Chancellor Merkel and her Christian-Democrat party, which has to defend seats in local state elections later this year.

Wullf was elected president by the German parliament after the resignation of his predecessor, Horst Köhler, who resigned in 2010 after he told Deutschland Radio that German soldiers serving in Afghanistan or with other peacekeeping missions were deployed “to protect German economic interests.”

This was the first time in four decades that a German president for forced to resign. (pg)