In August this year, UCPH prorector for Education Lykke Friis went on research leave. She wanted to fully re-engage with her old field of European politics.\u00a0So, the German election came right on time.<\/p>\n
Over the last couple of weeks, Lykke Friis visited several cities throughout Germany and participated in many different election campaign meetings. She went from Berlin to Frankfurt (Oder), Cottbus, G\u00f6rlitz, Brandenburg an der Havel, Freiburg, Hannover, Hamburg and beyond. According to Lykke Friis, most of those gatherings were relaxed, and people stayed calm.<\/p>\n
However, she still noticed a change in atmosphere when visiting cities in the Eastern parts of Germany.<\/p>\n
\u00bbThe atmosphere was very tense. People reacted very emotionally and even screamed at Chancellor Angela Merkel. I haven’t experienced such hatred at a political meeting in Denmark.\u00ab<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Lykke Friis was positively surprised that in Germany, you still go “on the street” during the election period \u2013 whether it is politicians for their campaigns or citizens who turn up to listen, comment and try to make up their own minds.
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Lykke Friis was not that surprised with the election results.<\/p>\n
\u00bbI think it was pretty obvious that \u00bbI was also expecting that the \u00bbYes, Merkel has to rethink and come up with new strategies. But, in my opinion, Germany did have and will still has a stable government – there is no need to worry. Berlin is not Weimar to paraphrase a German Classic.\u00ab \u00bbFrom a scientist point of view, I am very curious about the idea of a coalition between CDU\/CSU, \u00bbI would love to see more students being interested in learning the German language or deciding to do a semester abroad in Germany. I think, it is very important to understand the political activities in Germany to get a picture of the country itself. Because in my eyes, you won’t get to know Europe if you don’t understand the importance of Germany’s political interactions. Being on the ground also changes your perspective. Or as the Germans say: ‘Wenn jemand eine Reise tut, so kann er was erz\u00e4hlen’.\u00ab On research leave, Lykke Friis recently travelled through Germany to gain a first-hand impression of the election. The University Post got the chance to ask her how she experienced the election ‘in situ’ and if it surprised her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":10542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[815,814],"class_list":["post-56040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-german-elections","tag-politics","expression-feature_article"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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\nHowever, Lykke Friis did not expect that the
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\nBeing a former politician as well as a political scientist herself, Lykke Friis is looking forward to seeing a new composition within the German Bundestag.<\/p>\n
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\nLykke Friis finds German politics interesting and diverse and thinks it would be valuable for Danish students to look into.<\/p>\n
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