Germany has not been so powerful since 1941 when most of Europe was under her sway and her army was carving its way through the Soviet Union. Over recent days, a European cabal led by Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has effectively engineered the removal of prime ministers Silvio Berlusconi in Italy and George Papandreou in Greece, and ensured their replacements by so-called technocrats who are supposed to do what they are told.
On Tuesday, Volker Kauder, parliamentary leader of the Christian Democratic Union party, epitomized this new German swagger in a speech to the party faithful. “Now, all of a sudden, Europe is speaking German,” he declared. “Not as a language, but in its acceptance of the instruments for which Angela Merkel fought so hard.”
In other words, the rest of Europe has been forced to accept the German government’s prescriptions. And the reason it has done this, of course, is that Germany is the only country economically strong enough to address the problems of the ailing members of the Eurozone.
There is, however, one country that has so far not bowed the knee, Britain. The Common Market, as it was originally called, was intended,partly in the interests of preventing another European war, to lock in Germany and ensure she would be no more than first among equals.
The economic crisis has changed all that.
France, which has played the role of equal partner for so long, is now required to follow orders from Berlin. What is surely undeniable is that the EU has been transformed as a result of recent events, almost certainly irreversibly. And this should make us think very carefully about our role within it. We underestimate, at our peril, Mrs. Merkel’s determination to save the euro, which in her mind is indistinguishable from saving the European Union. Needless to say, a resurgent Germany sees its future not in old fashioned nationalistic terms but as the leader of a united Europe.
No doubt weak-minded Liberal Democrats such as Nick Clegg will argue that the only way to control this newly self-assertive entity is to yoke it to the European Union. However, the clear evidence of the past few months is that this is no longer possible. Germany has ended up by yoking the European Union to her own ambitions.
Whatever happens, this powerful and self-confident Germany is not going to go away.
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