A different statesman comes to mind.
Posted on 07/31/2021 3:42:49 PM PDT by nickcarraway
German trust in the EU seems to have collapsed during the COVID-19 pandemic
As Germany prepares for its federal elections in September, many are wondering what will come next. Under outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany has become an “indispensable nation” in Europe and within the broader rules-based international order.
The consensus is that she will be succeeded by someone offering more of the same. Her own anointed successor as leader of the Christian Democratic Union, Armin Laschet, is indeed running on a continuity platform.
And yet, as Merkel prepares to retire, there are signs that Germans are growing tired of their country’s traditional role within the European Union.
Although there is no danger of Germany leaving the bloc or falling into the hands of a Euro-sceptic party, polls commissioned by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) show that German trust in the EU has collapsed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2019 and 2020, Germans expressed much more faith in the EU’s political system than French and Italian respondents did. But the European Commission’s poor performance during the pandemic seems to have changed their view. Some 55% of Germans now think the EU’s political system is broken — a jump of 11 percentage points since last year.
Whereas one in two Germans believed that the system was working as of November 2020, only 36% do now, and 49% claim to have “less” or “much less” confidence in the EU as a result of its vaccines policy. Around 33% of Germans now think that EU integration has gone too far, compared to 23% in 2020.
To be sure, these new figures come from just one poll, and sentiment toward the EU may well recover once most Germans are vaccinated. A series of ECFR polls in 2019 and 2020 showed Germans rallying in support of proposals that would remove long-standing hurdles to deeper European integration.
But if the recent loss of confidence persists, the long-term consequences could be serious. German leaders could come under increased public pressure to go it alone on policies ranging from vaccine procurement and migration to trade and energy.
After all, the world outside Germany is changing dramatically, bringing new threats to Germany’s status as an Exportweltmeister (“export world champion”). China and the United States have both recently embraced various forms of protectionism, and other EU member states wear the pursuit of narrow national interests as a badge of honour.
With countries like Hungary and Poland openly putting their own interests ahead of European solidarity, German politicians’ rhetoric about Europe risks sounding increasingly out of step. Why should Germany put Europe before itself when no one else is willing to do the same?
Germany’s populist politicians have already seized on this disconnect. Christian Lindner of the Free Democratic Party, for example, has aggressively opposed the mutualisation of European debt, and now says he will not join any putative coalition that puts the pro-EU Greens in charge of the finance ministry.
Although the world outside is changing, German foreign-policy elites still tend to look at European and international policy from the perspective of global obligations and the sacrifices needed to maintain solidarity. Given the country’s twentieth-century history, it is understandable that its leaders would want to avoid talking about national, rather than European, interests. But this failure to adapt brings risks of its own.
Many Germans have come to see their country’s European policy as a series of sacrifices that are meant to answer for historical crimes, rather than making the country stronger, richer, and safer. This resentment eventually could boil over if German elites do not change their rhetoric. After the disastrous Trump presidency in the US, we all know what a revolt against the mainstream can look like.
Paradoxically, the best way to get Germans to commit to a pro-European cosmopolitanism is to make a patriotic case for it. By avoiding any talk of German patriotism, progressives have left a vacuum that the far right has been happy to fill with ultranationalism and xenophobia.
But with an outward-looking patriotic message, a new government could openly embrace the idea that Germany has national interests worth defending. And because these interests inevitably will be best served within a broader European context, such a change need not come at the EU’s expense.
In making the patriotic case for Europe, German politicians can point out that the choice now is between European sovereignty or no sovereignty at all. Germany will need to reorient its economic model to adapt to the ongoing digital and green revolutions. But it also needs to find ways to push back against protectionism, sanctions, and other great-power machinations — regardless of whether they come from friendly countries like the US or less friendly ones like China.
From a European perspective, it is essential that Germany undergoes this transformation. What is true for the German economy is even more true for smaller economies. Other EU countries should not be threatened by an honest debate about German interests and what they imply for its Europe policy. The alternative, German disengagement, is far more dangerous.
The latest ECFR poll should serve as a warning that the German public may be falling out of love with Europe. An individual who contracts COVID-19 can experience a short, acute phase of sickness but also a wide range of longer-term pathologies.
The virus’s political effects should be thought of the same way. In the short term, the pandemic provoked a strong immune response as Germans mobilised behind ambitious pan-European policies. But now the less-understood political effects of “long COVID” are setting in. Unless the German political class finds a new approach to Europe, the EU will likely remain sclerotic and at risk of a protracted malaise.
Mark Leonard is Co-Founder and Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations
America was asking a similar question not so very long ago...
Where is Otto von Bismarck when you need him?
A different statesman comes to mind.
“After the disastrous Trump presidency in the US...”
The only thing disastrous about it was that his second term was stolen from him...you schmuck.
“The alternative, German disengagement, is far more dangerous.”
It’s always about the boogey man.
>>After the disastrous Trump presidency in the US, we all know what a revolt against the mainstream can look like.<<
If this euroweenie calls it “disasterous” that means it was successful.
I hope Trump notes this statement in 2024.
What Germany needs is another leader (führer) like Adolph Hitler only minus the annexation of the Sudetenland, Anschluss with Austria, invasion of Poland, Baltic States, Russia, France, Low Countries, Norway, Denmark, air war on Britain, Gestapo, SS, etc AND Holocaust.
Where were you educated?
The fact that you like totalitarian socialists who want to micromanage it's subjects mean you should have voted for Biden.
You, apparently inadvertently, showed you endorse Merkel.
Of course, in September 1939.
5.56mm
“Where were you educated.”
Good schools I can assure you! I knew this would get a rise out of somebody!😎
Obviously someone has not gone to good schools as they know nothing about the French version of Adolf - He did loose at Waterloo and the Krouts where there to see to it
Guilt like hope is a dangerous thing.
B.S.
Germany, like France, views a united Europe as an extension of its own power.
They are as self-interested as any other country, if not more so.
France is likely to turn on the EU project before Germany does.
The French like to rebel. The Germans like to obey.
The EU is the realization that every European country wants to dominate all of Europe, which is a whole lot less destructive if they all agree to dominate each other simultaneously.
This article is a steaming pile of laughable horse droppings.
The Trump presidency, far from being “disastrous” was excellent for the United States. We became energy independent. We restocked the military after Obama’s procurement holiday had left it dangerously depleted. We secured our border. We finally started standing up for ourselves in various international forums and with so called “allies” like the Germans who have been playing us for suckers for decades.
I know the Germans like to see themselves as making oh so many sacrifices for the EU, the truth is that the EU is Germany by other means. They basically control it. Even a supposed sacrifice like bailing out the Southern Europeans was really done to keep those markets open to German exports. What happens if they don’t bail them out? Greece crashes out of the EU, reintroduces the Drachma and engages in massive competitive devaluation. This inflates their debt obligations to German banks away, makes German goods much more expensive in Greece and makes Greek goods much cheaper in Germany. Now repeat this with Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc. How much of that can Germany take? Just shut down a bunch of their export markets and see how well their mercantilist economic policy works.
Yeah that’s the other thing. I LMAO when they act like the Poles and the Hungarians are ungrateful after they pumped a bunch of money into their economies. I make a big show of saying “Gosh as an American, I have no idea what that feels like. Do tell.” when I’m in Germany.
Most of them have the brains to be embarrassed and fall silent.
How’s it feel guys? You’re STILL leaching off of us for your national defense and for your pharmaceuticals/medical devices.
It’s all in good fun!😀
Finality.
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