From a European Germany to a German Europe?

Arguably the most fascinating exercise one can indulge in ever since the early days of the eurozone crisis is to compare the coverage of said crisis in the German media discourse with that everywhere else in Europe. Within Germany, the focus lies on the hard-working, financially frugal Germans who fail to understand why they should pay for the Greeks (and now Irish, soon Portuguese and maybe Spanish) after those had been living it up on borrowed money for years. A touch of racism has always been part of this portrayal – the lazy Greeks who live in a vacation world – but it more importantly points to the German populace’s financial solidarity not extending past the German borders. After all, there have been little protests against the solidarity tax benefiting the five new East German Länder ever since reunification especially when compared to the far less expensive yet absolutely stunning response by (not just) populist outlets during the lead-up to a European Council finally offering substantive aid to Greece. The German government out of conviction or fears of an electoral backlash played along with this anti-support sentiment until the extent of the crisis forced it to intervene. Yet in the process, the price for saving Greece had risen substantially. (There is an interesting ARTE-documentary available for free for a week providing a good summary of events)

Now of course, there is a recurrent situation with Ireland and potentially Portugal and Spain afterwards. European attempts at dealing with this tremendous challenge of the euro is a subject for another day though. The focal question in this piece is rather how European the new Germany is. As shown above, German public opinion is convinced of its government’s response having been adequate if not too lenient towards those having to be punished for their past misbehavior. Outside of Germany though, a different story may be discerned. Here the German government is seen as having shed its pro-European nature of the Bonn Republic years. The recent, Berlin Republic, governments (essentially the Schröder- and Merkel-led ones) is perceived as far more focused on its own interests than greater goods such as European integration.

While it is ironic that few Germans seem to realize how aggressive and self-focused their governments positions (on Greece or the loss of voting powers in the European Council in the case of non-adherence to the Stability and Growth Pact, but also the coal subsidies) are perceived to be, it is true that Germany has lost much of what made its foreign policy rather unique following the Second World War. It always was a myth to claim that German governments did not pursue their proper interests of course, but at the same time the need to regain the trust of its European neighbors forced the country to be more indulging towards others’ interests. The European Coal and Steel Community, as the starting bloc of today’s EU, was far less interesting economically for Germany than for France for example. Even Kohl’s agreement to the establishment of the euro has to be seen as further integration in exchange for little (open and outward) opposition to German reunification in that sense.

All of these restraints have been removed by now. Germany has become a completely sovereign state once again, it is not only the biggest and most important economy in Europe but also the most dynamic. Most importantly maybe, during this crisis it is the only European state that has significant debt reserves in order to sustain other country’s difficult positions. Traditionally, the engine of European integration has been the Franco-German tandem, these days a more power-aware Germany is far more dominant in deciding what to propose and, more importantly, what does not stand a chance (such as European economic governance). For better or worse, Germany has become a state like the others once again.