Does the Chancellor Really 'Matter'?

An American would typically say that the individual holding the President's office.....matters.  This is said in the sense that the executive form of government (all of the agencies under this 'plank' of the government)...belong to the President's office.

But is this true with Chancellor Merkel and the agencies that exist in Germany?  In simple terms.....no.

The Chancellor job is given to the party that achieves the most votes in an election, or is negotiated to the coalition partner party as part of some deal (rarely if ever to happen).  The individual party leadership will decide long before the election occurs.....who will be the candidate, and an internal vote will occur (it's not exactly the public determining the party possible leader).

So this Chancellor 'winner' arrives and now has to put together a coalition government with a partner party.  In effect, you could have the Finance Ministry, the Budget/Finance Ministry, and the Military Ministry under the leadership of the coalition party, and thus their leaders (the opposing party) runs those agencies.  If there is disagreement about something....they have a 'arguments team' which meets and goes over the problem to iron out some compromise.  So what the Chancellor thinks or says in public.....doesn't always mean that much.

These national or international speeches by Chancellor Merkel?  Well....she has to demonstrate some dynamic related to a German 'direction' on things, but it really doesn't mean much.  She's not acting in the role of an executive running the entire government.....she's just a 'token' authority of the party.....who was deemed by the party as having the charisma or personality to attract votes.  And to win a German election....you don't want an idiot, a scandal-plagued individual, or a 'Chance-the-gardner-character' (from Being There, the movie).....to run an election.

Did Chancellor Kohl realize this gimmick that he was putting into place when he recruited young Merkel from the old DDR 'ruins' to step into the lower threshold of the CDU Party?  I kinda doubt it.  He simply saw someone without any tainted background, who seemed to be bright and intellectual in capability, and not likely to be a scandal-magnet. 

Am I suggesting these speeches that are often quoted from Merkel mean little?  More or less.  While often quoted and discussed at length by the news media....the general script from these speeches really have minimal impact on the government policy, unless she's got the second party (the coalition partner) to sing along with her script.