Massimo Faggioli - 11/ 2011

Germany's inclusion in the European project has been a guarantee of stability on the continent politically, militarily, economically and in terms of the borders. Twenty years on from the Wende, the end of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and German reunification, Europe is beginning to fear that that drive is coming to an end because of the very country on which much of the European project was founded: Germany. The sense of a waning German Europeanism is widespread. Accusations of “egoism” directed against Germany by the other European Union countries are rife. From American shores, the perception is of a Germany which, as Foreign Policy recently put it, “is no longer a slave to post-war contrition”. There is no doubt that the “German question” in the context of Europe's financial crisis reflects a long-term historical-political issue: a Germany which is increasingly secure in its neighbours (Poland under a reassuring and recently re-elected Tusk; Russia whose oil and gas will become increasingly vital for a denuclearised Germany) and able to withdraw from international commitments (such as the war in Libya), and is paying the price of unpopularity and the embarrassment of being in the company of non-democratic countries such Russia and China in the UN vote. In a Germany in which Europeanism is no longer seen as a passport to respectability, the accusation of “anti-Europeanism” – once fatal – is becoming politically acceptable in a context which over the past year has seen a series of defeats in regional elections for parties that make up the federal government, and the emergence of new anti-system parties (such as the “Pirates” in the mid-September elections in Berlin). Developments in Germany's internal politics can help to understand Berlin's hesitation to lead the European Union out of the currency crisis. The worst is over. The CDU/CSU-liberal government under Angela Merkel, in power since October 2009, has survived the long-awaited “pro-Europe” ruling of the constitutional court in Karlsruhe on 7 September and the important parliamentary victory of 23 September. The victory paved the way for the aid-package to Greece and the court in Karlsruhe rejected the anti-European appeal, redefining the constitutionality of German foreign policy with regard to Europe, without excluding, but also without requesting, a constitutional reform in favour of a more pro-European Grundgesetz. But the debate surrounding the Europeanism of Germany under Merkel is far from over. On the one hand, the ongoing skirmishes which featured in the newspapers throughout the Summer of 2011 between Merkel and the fathers of Europeanism: the former chancellor Kohl, the former foreign minister Genscher, and in some cases also the current finance minister Schäuble; on the other, German European policy in recent years has suffered from the disastrous effects of the former foreign minister and leader of the liberals, Guido Westerwelle, and the liberals in general in the federal government. The FDP's evident political and cultural crisis casts an unforgiving light on the confrontation between liberals from the Genscher era and the current liberals from the Westerwelle era, who only a few years ago aspired to garnering 18% of the votes in the federal elections but recently all but disappeared from the parliaments of some Länder. The pro-European culture of the biggest Christian-democratic government party has split between a cautious line resting faith in the Europeanism of the CDU, and a line of isolationism along the extreme lines of the Bavarian CSU. The extraordinary meeting of the Christian-democratic party convened by Merkel on the European question at the end of August brought unity to the two sides, but the tension has not yet been resolved at the political level. Again and again over the past few months, the European policy of the chancellor has come under attack from its critics, and not only the former chancellor Kohl: president Wulff, the minster von der Leyen, members of the governing majority, as well as the social democratic opposition and the greens. Within the majority party in particular, Angela Merkel has had to navigate between the anti-European populism of the Bavarian CSU and the more Europeanist wing represented by Schäuble, von der Leyen and Röttgen. The CSU has accepted a truce, but feelings are divided. Compared to the internal rift between the CDU and CSU, the greater cohesion of the SPD on the question of Europe is clear. The SPD held a press-conference at the end of July in which it banished all uncertainty regarding the European project and committed to EU integration, offering Merkel support in the resolution of the crisis of the euro – tantamount to a rerun of the Great Coalition, although the polls currently indicate a preference for a red-green coalition. Rather than ideology, it is geography and national political culture which are defining the lines of division in the EU: the North against the decadent South, the conservatives against eurosceptic populism. Nowhere is this more evident than in Germany. Even the press has heavily criticised Merkel for her slow response to the crisis in the Eurozone, her coalition partners – the Bavarian Christian-socialists and the traditionally philo-European liberal party – are flirting with the populist line against the “dissolute” countries of Southern Europe. The Angela Merkel era is faced not only with a CDU/CSU-liberal coalition which is politically weakened, but also the question of what legacy to leave Europe. Adenauer gave Germany an alignment with the West, Brandt Ostpolitik and Kohl reunification and the euro. Angela Merkel, on the other hand, seems to be relying on external input to shape a German European policy, the lack of which is felt by all. One of these external influences is the court in Karlsruhe: it is at least since 2009 that German policy and chancellor Merkel feel themselves to be under the protection of the constitutional magistrates and are waiting to discover the level of tolerance of a Grundgesetz formed in 1949 as a provisional constitution with respect to Germany's European policy. Another of these external agents is Sarkozy's France, Merkel's relations with whom have been a on a roller coaster for years. Paris and Berlin's recent displays of cohesion failed to impress the markets, and made a negative impression on the other European partners. A third factor is a high level of integration of the German economic and financial system with the EU and the countries of the Eurozone, especially east of Berlin, a fact that populist and anti-European propaganda tends to ignore. The final agent is the Europeanist mood of the Germans, which all indicators show to be in free fall as a result of the fears of contagion from the super-indebted countries of Southern Europe. In view of the task facing Merkel and the CDU, namely first to save the euro, the parallelogram of the forces between the external agents is not sufficient to create a coherent European policy. A number of observers in Germany perceive this crisis in Merkel's Europeanism as a crisis in the culture of the CDU, in which government and party leadership have overlapped for too long to the detriment of the party's vitality. From the time of the Great Coalition with the SPD in 2005-2009, and then with the liberals since 2009, Merkel has developed some of the characteristics of Christian-democratic culture, without becoming the architect of a project for a new era. Despite what Germany's bishops say, the identity crisis of the CDU/CSU stretches far beyond the meaning of the letter C.

Massimo Faggioli
(University of St. Thomas – USA)