Angela Merkel needs all the help she can get

Wenn der Garton Ash (wohl der beste europ. Historiker mit Hobsbawm) das sagt, dann wird es wohl stimmen! (hfk)

Date: 11-02-2012
Source: The Guardian: Timothy Garton Ash

Few had anticipated the leadership dilemmas of a European Germany in a German Europe

In 1953 the novelist Thomas Mann appealed to an audience of students in Hamburg to strive for „not a German Europe but a European Germany“. This stirring pledge was endlessly repeated at the time of German unification. Today we have a variation that few foresaw: a European Germany in a German Europe.

Angela Merkel’s Berlin republic is a European Germany, in the rich, positive sense that the great novelist had come to use the term. It is free, civilised, democratic, law-bound, and socially and environmentally conscious. It’s far from perfect, obviously, but as good as any other big country in Europe – and the best Germany we’ve ever had.  Yet because of the crisis of the eurozone this European Germany finds itself, unwillingly, at the centre of a German Europe. No one can seriously doubt that Germany is calling the shots in the eurozone. The reason we have a fiscal compact treaty agreed by 25 EU member states is that Berlin wanted it. Desperate, impoverished Greeks are being told to „do your homework“ by Germans. More extraordinary still, the German chancellor is now telling French voters who to vote for in their own presidential election, through a series of campaign appearances with Nicolas Sarkozy. Everyone says that Europe is being led by „Merkozy“, but the reality is more like Merkelzy.

Germany did not seek this leadership position. Rather, this is a perfect illustration of the law of unintended consequences. German leaders, from Helmut Schmidt to Helmut Kohl, had envisaged advancing the European project through a European monetary union, but it was François Mitterrand’s France that insisted on pinning Germany down to it, in the context of German unification.

Historians can argue about how far the commitment in the Maastricht treaty was a direct quid pro quo for French support for German unification, but two things are clear. Both sides of the Rhine agreed that this was an important part of binding a newly united Germany into a more united Europe, in which France would continue to play a – if not the – leading role. And many Germans saw giving up their precious deutschmark as paying an economic price for a larger political good.

Twenty years on from Maastricht, we see that the precise opposite has happened. Economically, the euro turned out to be very good for Germany. Politically, it is precisely the monetary union that has put Germany in the driving seat and relegated France to the front passenger seat.

So far Germany is proving a reluctant, nervous and not very skilful driver. There are many reasons for this. One of these is not wanting to be in the driving seat in the first place. Another is suspecting that everyone else in the car wants you to pay for the petrol, the motorway meal and probably the overnight hotel too. On a panel at the Munich Security Conference last week, I and Robert Zoellick of the World Bank suggested in our different ways that Germany should show a little more economic and political leadership. The German defence minister, Thomas de Maizière, responded that Anglo-Saxon calls for more German leadership „usually meant … not leadership but money“. He was wrong – but accurately reflected the way many Germans feel.

Then there is the unhappy sense that they are damned if they do lead and damned if they don’t. The terrible history that prompted Mann’s postwar appeal plays a role here. If Germany suggests a commissar to oversee Greek budget cuts, he inevitably gets called a Gauleiter. Then there is the fact that the German elite simply is not used to playing such a leadership role in Europe, unlike the French elite, who like nothing better. The French want to, but can’t; the Germans can, but don’t want to.

Above all, there is the perennial dilemma of Germany’s awkward, inbetween size: „too big for Europe, too small for the world“, said Henry Kissinger. Even with the most self-confident, adroit elite, and even without the memories of 1914-1945, leadership from that inbetween position would be difficult.

Two things are therefore needed. First, all Germans should go back and read Mann’s short talk, both to understand the historical dimension of today’s challenge and to recall the intellectual and moral grandeur that was once theirs. For Mann’s beautifully crafted, profoundly moving message to those young Germans in 1953 can also be summarised in three short American words: „Yes we can“.

Second, they need a lot of help from their friends. They won’t manage it on their own. We may laugh at Sarko’s antics in the front passenger seat („Non, non, ma chérie! Tout droit, tout droit!‘), but he’s got the right idea. For David Cameron to consign Britain to the back seat – if not the dog boot – of the European car at this critical moment is folly beyond words. Earlier this week, Merkel again stressed how much Germany wants to see this fellow north European, free-market liberal country return to the heart of European affairs.

Back in Hamburg in 1953, the British were doing everything they could, in a far from ignoble way, to help ruined Germany back on its feet. It would be so short-sighted, so plain dumb, for Britain to abandon Germany to its own devices just when it finds itself playing such a decisive role in Europe – a role that it did not seek, for which it is ill-prepared and in which it needs all the help that it can get.