Merkel’s Small and Isolated Strategy

Guido Westerwelle has resigned as chairman of the German Liberal Party (FDP) and Deputy Chancellor, but he stays on as Foreign Minister. Many observers think he is incompetent in this job.[1] Yet, the truth is that foreign policy is made by Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her policy is not only incompetent but a violation of her oath of office, because it is harmful to the German people and their long term interests.

For more than half a century, German foreign policy used to be based on a simple and powerful principle: Einbindung, which means integration into Europe or fixation to partners or a bond of trust. As Helmut Schmidt has frequently pointed out, Germany has more neighbours than any other state in Europe and the only way it can live in peace is by firm committing to cooperation and binding obligations in the context of shared institutions. Schmidt was aware that in an increasingly inter-dependent world, strategies based on national units are anachronistic.  When he was German Chancellor, he designed a Joint Grand Strategy that conceptually unified the three fields of foreign policy, economic policy and military strategy and he insisted that the goals of any nation or group of nations must be consistent with each other over all three fields.[2] Unfortunately, Merkel’s foreign policy moves in the opposite direction: she has offended her European and American partners in Libya, she has worsened the euro crisis by imposing a financial diktat on troubled member states, and she has promoted the return to national autonomy in the European Union that shows its marks in other countries as well.

Germany’s decision to abstain alongside Russia and China in the UN Security Council over the creation of a non-fly zone on Libya was the ultimate proof of inconsistency. How could one claim attachment to values such as Freedom, Responsibility, Human Dignity, as Merkel does,[3] and then refuse to participate when the partners defend these principles in practice? Of course, the question of war and peace is the most serious issue a political leader can face. I am a European of German origin. All my life I have felt a responsibility for my parents’ and grandparents’ failure to prevent war and genocide. But assuming this inheritance cannot mean defending blind pacifism when genocide is looming on the horizon. Chamberlin’s appeasement policy in Munich did nothing to preserve peace. There are moments when military action becomes unavoidable to preserve human dignity. Yet, there is an even more burning issue. Where does Germany stand: with dictators in the Middle East and with former Communists in the Security Council or with its partners in the European Union and with American democrats? One wonders whether the German Democratic Republic has really joined the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990 or whether it is the contrary. The democratic revolution in the Arab world is of a strategic importance that equals the fall of the Wall in Berlin. It has the potential of transforming the long-lasting conflict in the Middle East that has poisoned international relations for decades. Einbindung would have meant that Germany plays its role as a reliable and trustworthy partner in an internationally legitimized operation. Choosing a path of national autonomy violates this principle.

Germany’s role in the recent financial crises has hardly been more constructive. Merkel’s irresponsible discourses and non-cooperative behavior before local elections have driven financial markets crazy and pushed interest rates on government debt for some countries to unsustainable levels. Instead of Einbindung she has threatened Greece and others with the expulsion from the Euro Area.[4] Instead of declaring that it is in the long term interest of German taxpayers to save Southern member states from debt default, she has imposed draconian austerity programs on weak economies, which fuel anti-European sentiments and may end up making the crisis worse when countries can no longer pay these high interest rates. Merkel has not understood that in a monetary union, national autonomy is economic non-sense. Money is the hard budget constraint for all, and given this constraint what one gains is the other’s loss. German wage restraint has financed Southern booms; after the bubble has burst in the South, the North inevitably excels in growth. This has little to do with German superiority. But German chauvinism believes that they have a right to dictate conditions on others. Politically this is unsustainable. Just as it was unsustainable that the Deutschmark would rule Europe, so it is now inconsistent with the European integration project that only German government bonds are the benchmark for all European government bonds. Einbindung would require setting up a genuine Economic Government for the Euro Area, democratically controlled by all European citizens and capable of designing a coherent and integrated economic and financial policy.

Following the example of Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel has given a speech in Bruges last year, where she designed a new “European Union Strategy” that stands in clear contradiction with half a century of the communitarian method of integration. What must be criticized in her approach are less the nicely worded intentions (“When all important actors – the union organs, the member states and their parliaments – act in coordination and complementary responsibility, we will succeed in tackling the great European challenges.”)[5], but the utopian ideas for achieving them. In a European Union of 27 member states, with a single market and a single currency, the system of political incentives makes it impossible to get autonomous member states to act in unison with complementary responsibility.[6] There are too many policy areas, where individual member states seek to gain advantages at the expense of others. Since the days of Aristotle, European political philosophers have emphasized that only a government can serve the long term interests of the people when their narrow desires clash. No one should have a greater interest in setting up a democratically legitimized government for the European Union but Germany.

It is time to ditch Merkel’s Isolated Small Strategy! Germany must again become a leading force in the integration of the European Union. Especially since the end of the Cold War, the Einbindung of Germany into the European Union is now more important than ever. Kaiser Wilhelm II was the loose cannon that pushed Germany into World War I. Chancellor Angela Merkel has become a risk for Europe’s integration. Her policies threaten the foundation on which peace in Europe rests. It is time to take a different path.

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