Are you sure we want strong leadership from Germany in the post-Merkel era?

With the end of the era of Angela Merkel there is a question that hangs in the air:the next chancellor will know how to actively lead the European UnionHow many times has it been asked? Perhaps there is a question that is being asked less: is that in the EU’s interest? The chancellor has been a rather passive leader, acting on many occasions when she no longer had any other option. In some Brussels circles it has always been said that the Chancellor He was doing the right thing after having exhausted all other options. That his type of leadership has been known as “muddling through style” says a lot about how he has held the reins of Germany within the European Union. Normally, it is also spoken of “a default leadership”. Would it be good if that changed?

That style of leadership does not detract from his European legacy, the dimensions of his figure or the vision he has come to acquire about Europe and the direction that the European project should have. It is one of the last European policies, perhaps the last, that they have in their head the plans of the community building. It does not mean that the next European leaders cannot have a concrete idea of ​​Europe, but for them it will already be something natural, a building already built. Merkel, however, was aware of where the beams were, where it was not possible to drill and what were its structural weaknesses, although that has not always translated into the correct decisions.

But sometimes Merkel and Germany have been harshly criticized for this passive leadership style, for this “muddling through”. They have been times of existential crisis for the West, many looked at the chancellor as the new “leader of the free world.” It has been repeated many times that, if the European Union it wants to survive in the new world that appears, it needs Berlin to lead, to be in the front line. Sure? For that, perhaps we must first understand the enormous power that Germany has been accumulating.

A hegemonic power

In Europe all countries count. Everyone negotiates, everyone has a small patch of influence. But it is undeniable that the big ones have more importance, more capacity to shape the agenda, more ‘auctoritas’. Those are, although it may be appropriate to speak in the past tense, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Out of the hard core has begun to rise Poland. And of all of them, the only country that has continued to gain weight in a systematic way within the Union in the last decade or so has been Germany: it came out of the crisis almost intact, while the austerity and adjustment policy sponsored precisely by Berlin helped the economic collapse of the southerners, and the effects of that crisis ended up blowing the foundations of the political systems of France and Italy, and leaving the Spanish badly damaged.

Yes, we are still talking about the “Franco-German engine”, but the scenario is now totally different from the one that existed decades ago: Paris today plays a role as a minority partner of Germany, with great pretensions, but clinging to a ‘grandeur’ long lost and consumed by her own internal problems. Reality rules, and what prevails is German pragmatism that translates into its preference for the ‘status quo’. The exit from the previous crisis and the potential of post-1990 Germany has irrevocably led to German hegemony in the European Union.

In addition, this is enhanced by the hypertrophy of the European Council, where European leaders sit, a forum that at its foundation was little less than a meeting to indicate a general direction for the European Union. Now it has become a machine room in which details are negotiated, fundamental decisions are made and the agreements that shape the future of Europe are forged. In the era of polycrisis, which has lasted for more than a decade, the future cannot be left in the hands of ministers, it is not a matter that can be resolved at a technical level, they are purely political problems: only leaders can negotiate hand in hand. hand. And there the weight of the flag is even more noticeable. Especially if you are a German Chancellor experienced in crisis management and negotiation, with nerves of steel and willing to rush until the last moment to make a decision. That was the case with Merkel.

Unlike Armin Laschet (CDU) or of the green candidate Annalena Baerbock, Olaf Scholz, Social Democratic candidate and the favorite to be the next chancellor, has ministerial experience: he has been Minister of Finance. He has moved behind the scenes in recent years, negotiating the recovery fund and He has experienced in his flesh what European politics is at the top. It is probably, of all the candidates that came forward, the one that is the fastest and best suited to this type of European negotiations. It will not be Merkel, but she knows perfectly well the benefits of that kind of leadership.

Towards a new leadership?

Now, with the end of the Merkel era, the possibility opens up that the next chancellor, most likely Scholz, bet on another type of leadership than that led by Merkel, perhaps thus listening to critics who want Germany to take a more prominent role in leading Europe into the future in debates such as migration policy, climate, the relationship with Russia and China, with the United States, the idea of ​​creating a common Army or some other important issues on the European agenda. But the question is: would it be good for Europe?

During the last times we have gotten used to Germany getting out of hand. Merkel’s leadership has been in crisis management. Berlin has used that hegemonic power to protect its private interests, the ‘status quo’. It has prevented the European Union from taking a particularly frontal position with China because its industry requires close ties with Beijing. You have avoided taking a hard line against Russia because it needs its gas and, far from working to reduce dependency, it has kept building the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline through thick and thin against the interest of all its eastern partners. He has avoided berating Hungary for its authoritarian drift because its industry needs Budapest too. And so many more cases can be listed.

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Merkel has not rejected the use of that power, but used it primarily to weather crises at the European level and to block ideas that they went against German interests, not to put on the table a proactive agenda, a clear leadership. Its total focus on remaining an economic powerhouse has inevitably gone hand in hand with its lack of ambition in strategic and foreign affairs. Germany has imposed its vision during these years, but always blocking new roads rather than opening new ones. Emmanuel Macron, French president, arrived at the Elysee in 2017 with a very ambitious reform agenda for Europe. Of these, very few have survived Merkel’s lack of cooperation.

What is asked of a German leadership is extremely complicated. That Merkelian passivity, that reactive leadership, has been highly criticized, but it has also freed the European agenda from being completely subordinate to the German agenda.. In Europe of the Merkel era, countries with a very active agenda may hope to push ideas forward, even if they are not ambitious, in the face of the indifferent gaze of Berlin, but they have no illusions about their possibility of putting ideas on the table. against the will of Germany.

So you just have to imagine in the future the frustration that a very active German government can generate by using that same roller, used for now to block the European agenda on some issues, to establish a clear roadmap, to impose particular objectives. The rest of the Member States will find it even more difficult to print their vision of Europe.

In a blog from the Carnegie Europe think tank, Thorsten Bennerco, who is the founder and director of the Global Public Policy Institute, reflects precisely on the unexpected direction that this request from a German leadership may take, starting from a phrase that Scholz said when he took over the reins of the SPD in Hamburg, years ago: “Those who ask me for leadership should know that in fact it they will receive. “” Those calling for German leadership in Europe should reflect on this phrase. Is your call to Berlin leadership nothing more than a way of saying that ‘Germany should do what I think is best’?It would not be convenient for them to be careful what they wish for Should the German leaders in question have different plans? ”Bennerco says.

Miguel Otero, from the Elcano Royal Institute, also points out that prefers a Germany that exercises its power as a “referee” rather than as just another actor.. “At the federal level, due to its consensus, counterweights, for having to bring together different views and opinions in the Government, Germany always feels comfortable in the center of the board, as a referee, and it is good that it continues like this,” says Otero, who adds that “Germany also generates suspicions. Although everyone asks for German leadership, when it exercises it, which it sometimes does crudely, it usually generates rejection.”

The next chancellor inherits from Merkel that hegemonic power within the European Union. And, as they say: with great power comes great responsibility. As counterproductive as it may sound, the best the next German leader with such enormous power can do for Europe is… not use it too much. Or at least know what to use it for. The best leadership Germany can exercise today is to stop using that power to block debates that go against its interests.

Europe needs German leadership on strategic matters: it needs Berlin to join the bandwagon of great debates and great decisions related to the role of Europe (and not just Germany) in the world. More than a decade of crisis, coupled with Merkel’s “default leadership” style, has left many unfinished business. It is not an easy task for a country to throw stones on its own roof, but in the long run it is even more dangerous to continue looking only at the short-term interests of the German economy. That great power that Berlin now inherits from Merkel can underpin, as in fact has happened in recent years, the idea that German interests are European interests. And that is indeed a systemic danger.

The good news is that surely the best and brightest display of proactive and positive leadership that Merkel has left after her 16 years as German Chancellor, which is the joint European debt issue to finance the recovery fund, has come from the hand of his vice chancellor and surely successor: the social democrat Scholz. He, who has had a central role in that the chancellor has agreed to do what she always said she would never do, You already have one foot in European politics, and it is the right.

This is the kind of positive, supportive and broad-minded leadership that Europe needs from Germany, in which Berlin, being aware that a Europe against Germany’s interests is impossible, also understands that a Germany that does not take German interests into account of the rest of Europeans is hopelessly doomed to failure. In that delicate balance is survival.

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