Germany’s power problem

It is a short tram ride from the massive building that houses the European Union’s Council of Ministers to the Brussels office of the German think tank Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP). On a recent morning, both provided equally revealing illustrations of Germany’s growing political clout in Europe.

The topic under discussion at the SWP was the re-elected British government’s planned “in-out” referendum on EU membership, and how to handle the run-up to it.

At the same moment, an encounter was taking place at the Council of Ministers between German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and his British counterpart, George Osborne, who will be leading the “renegotiation” of his country’s relationship with the EU.

Germany’s approach to policymaking on European affairs is often somewhat schizophrenic, by turns brutal and subtle.

Its tough, no-nonsense approach to the Greek debt crisis contrasts with its confusingly nuanced and even pacifist stance on foreign policy and security issues, or its controversial abandonment of nuclear energy.

In the recent exchange at the council of ministers, Germany’s iron fist was on display when Schäuble reportedly dismissed Osborne’s views on reform of the eurozone as “silly”.

He is understood to have used this routine monthly meeting of EU finance ministers to signal to Osborne that the United Kingdom should forget any ideas it may have about major treaty changes.

The velvet glove is in evidence at the SWP’s meeting, which is animated by the German intelligentsia’s persuasive and thoughtful approach to EU affairs.

Most of the 20 or so participants are German, yet the working language is English. An SWP specialist in UK politics analyses Prime Minister David Cameron’s likely tactics, and shows an impressive grasp of the British psyche as well as of political minutiae.

The participants also touch upon Germany’s “unavoidable” fate of finding itself reluctantly in some sort of leadership role when responding to British demands.

Long the most reticent and self-effacing of the EU’s largest countries, Germany still seems ambivalent about taking centre stage.

During the early post-war years, Germany’s voice was understandably muted. The first stirrings of Germany’s decisive influence on European policymaking came in the mid-1980s, when Chancellor Helmut Kohl linked hands with French president François Mitterrand to give the EU’s economic and political integration its strongest push to date. 

The fruit of the Franco-German partnership included the European single currency, the euro.

After its birth in 1999, the German government, by now relocated from Bonn to Berlin, contented itself once again with a lower European profile.

That modest and unassuming role belongs firmly in the past, although German power has still to be matched by imagination.

The intellectual leadership provided by Frenchmen like Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman as founding fathers of the European project is a fading memory, because Germany has yet to generate a comparably robust strategy for reviving the EU’s prospects and popularity.

Indisputably the strongest and most dependable of the 28 member countries, it lacks a vision of where beleaguered Europe should be heading.

Germany’s rising power can be measured by the roles that German nationals now play inside the EU bureaucracy and the European institutions.

German officials and elected members of the European Parliament wield many of Brussels’ levers of power, including the parliament’s presidency, currently held by Martin Schulz.

The plum post of head of Cabinet to the European Commission’s Luxembourger president, Jean-Claude Juncker, is a German, as was his predecessor when Portugal’s José Manuel Barroso ran the EU executive. Although the culture of the “eurocrats” who make up the EU’s civil service emphasises disinterested neutrality, it would be naive to think that nationality plays no part at all.

Heads of Cabinet and their staffs act as sensitive political antennae and as information filters, so the tally of German nationals in such positions attracts close attention and much speculation among Brussels insiders.

So, too, does the fact that until midyear, Germans will hold two extremely powerful jobs as secretaries general of both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.

Uwe Corsepius will hand over his post at the Council of Ministers to a senior Danish diplomat on July 1, before taking up his new job as German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s adviser on EU matters.

He is widely seen to have exerted considerable influence on the setting of inter-governmental agendas during his time in Brussels.

And his counterpart at the European Parliament, Klaus Welle, has shown no sign that he will relinquish his position or soften his ambition to win still greater powers for the parliament.

But counting heads in the EU institutions does not give the full picture of Germany’s ascendancy. Its true nature and extent are to be found in the ranks of civil society.

From think tanks and NGOs to media and business lobbying, Germans have become the EU’s foremost movers and shakers.

In the face of a possible UK referendum, the challenge for Germany is to provide Europe with the vision and creativity that effective leadership requires, along with the diplomatic skill to avoid alienating its partners.

The writer is editor of Europe’s World and heads the Brussels-based think tank Friends of Europe. ©Project Syndicate, 2015. www.project-syndicate.org