Few Germans can imagine this mess dragging on for the three and a half years left in his term. But it’s their neighbors who are really getting concerned. Germany’s troubles come at an inopportune moment for Europe. The global slowdown threatens its export-dependent economies. Its leaders are divided over everything from Iraq to the future shape of their newly enlarged Union. How to apportion power and decision making among so many members? Should there be a strong European president? Is inflation or deflation the greatest economic threat? With a stricken giant at its middle, Europe’s answers to these problems will be very different than just a few years ago. What’s more, its leaders now face another perplexing question–how will Europe manage a weak Germany and its aimless chancellor?
The consequences of Germany’s weakness are only just dawning on Europe. For starters, consider its ultimate vision of itself as a United States of Europe. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer flew to Brussels last week to reiterate Berlin’s demand for a strong central authority to lead the EU. He was promptly rebuffed by Britain’s Deputy Foreign Minister Denis MacShane, who ridiculed the proposal as calling for a “kaiser” to rule over Europe. Neither France nor Britain wants to transfer more power to Brussels; each prefers to negotiate European policies individually, among national governments. For years Germany has carried the torch for a federal Europe–and by virtue of its sheer size and economic strength, it has largely prevailed. But can it continue to do so now that yesterday’s European “locomotive” has become its caboose? “Germany’s weakness means the chances for the old model of ever-closer union are rapidly deteriorating,” says Holger Schmieding, chief European economist for the Bank of America in London. The prospect, he says, is a Europe that increasingly closely resembles “a glorified free-trade area.”
That’s likely to also doom what’s called, in Eurospeak, the Common Foreign and Security Policy. For decades, European leaders have dreamed of speaking with a single voice. Their cacophony of conflicting opinions has hampered Europe’s ability to stand up to the United States in times of crisis. Iraq is but the latest case in point. For many Europeans, it’s bad enough that Prime Minister Tony Blair aligned Britain with George Bush so unequivocally. But when Schroder unilaterally ruled out Germany’s involvement in a war–under any circumstances–he sacrificed European foreign policy to his own domestic interests. Once again, Europe’s voice is fractured and weak.
France now speaks for Europe, more than does Germany. As it has for decades, Paris continues to nurture a “Franco-German alliance,” by which it seeks to exercise leadership in partnership with its neighbor. But these days, in contrast to the past, it is the stronger partner economically and politically, having grown at a faster rate than Germany for most of the past decade. Gone is the old fear of a unified and resurgent Germany, when French newspapers would feature Chancellor Helmut Kohl wearing a Kaiser Wilhelm-style spiked helmet and ready to take over Europe. Now Paris is confidently calling the shots.
Berlin must dutifully follow. “The Germans are no longer able to resist the French kisses, if you will,” says Dominique Moisi of the French Institute of International Relations. Late last year, in the run-up to enlargement, Schroder bowed to French pressure to extend until 2013 the EU’s infamous agricultural subsidies, which benefit French farmers more than anyone else. He’s now lining up behind France’s position on Iraq, with its “maybe” on war–but if so, only through the United Nations. French dominance is almost sure to complicate relations with the United States, given France’s historic allergy to U.S. leadership, says Alistair Murray at the Centre for European Reform in London. “If future European foreign policy is going to be defined by France, that’s going to make relations with America much more prickly.”
Germany’s weakness will also bring headaches for Britain. Slowing European growth, dragged down by Germany, will make it that much more difficult for Tony Blair to call and win a referendum on entering Europe’s single currency. “The British public equates the euro’s troubles with Germany’s,” says Murray. Once, Schroder and Blair were allies on moving the EU toward promarket economic policies, raising hopes of a Europe-wide renaissance. Now Germany is helping push Britain away from the Continent.
It’s ironic that all this comes at the moment of Europe’s greatest glory. At Copenhagen in December, it enlarged its Union from 15 to 24 members, opening a new chapter in its history. At the grandly named Convention on the Future of Europe, underway in Brussels, a new generation of “founding fathers” is debating everything from a European constitution to an entirely new way of governing its affairs. Yet the profound weakness at its heart–Germany–threatens decades of progress. Without a strong Germany, says Daniel Gros at the Center for European Policy Research in Brussels, “everything will become more difficult.” Without strong German lobbying, for example, Western countries may prevent the weaker Eastern European members from joining the euro or the Schengen zone, which allows borderless travel and labor mobility.
And Europe can certainly forget its ambitions of rivaling America, despite its hand-wringing over U.S. “unilateralism” and “hyperpower.” “Without a resurgent Germany,” says Britain’s MacShane, “Europe will never carry the same weight as the United States.” None more ardently pursued this vision than Germany. What a paradox that it should become the greatest obstacle to its realization.
