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(EUEUEUEUEU) Germany "back in power" in Europe

Posted by Olog-hai on Fri Mar 2 22:54:16 2012, in response to EUEUEUEUEU Olog, posted by RockParkMan on Sat Nov 12 14:58:17 2011.

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Germany finds itself back in power in Europe

Germany is the unquestioned boss amid Europe's debt crisis and economic woes. But the turnaround has inspired discomfort among its neighbors and among Germans.

By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times
February 27, 2012, 6:45 p.m.

Reporting from Berlin — For nearly 70 years, Germany's grand national ambition has basically been not to have one.

After losing two world wars and carrying out a horrific genocide, the country set to working its way back into the European fold, content to focus on rebuilding its shattered economy while dutifully leaving continental leadership to the likes of France.

The plan has been a roaring success — so much so that, in one of history's great ironies, Germany today finds itself right back where it wasn't supposed to be: dominating Europe.

As the region's richest, most populous nation, with control over purse strings rather than panzers, Germany is the unquestioned boss amid Europe's stubborn debt crisis and deepening economic malaise. But the turnaround has inspired a fair bit of discomfort and unease, not just among some neighboring nations but also among some Germans.

"We have an ambivalent relationship with power," said senior research fellow Ulrike Guerot of the European Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. "We've never gotten it right."

Potentially the fate of the global economy now lies in Germany's hands as it heads the effort to keep heavily indebted Greece (where people mutter about a "Fourth Reich") from going under and pulling down other Eurozone countries with it. On Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel successfully steered approval for a $175-billion Greek bailout through the German Parliament, a deeply divisive measure for German taxpayers who will foot more than half the bill.

Even so, President Obama and other world leaders are urging Germany to contribute even more to a permanent European bailout fund that might stanch the debt crisis — pressure that Merkel has so far resisted.

The leadership role thrust onto Germany is turning out to be a minefield in many ways, complicated by the nation's past. Berlin is caught in a classic damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't position, its every move fodder for critics eager to spot signs either of Teutonic belligerence or a failure to exercise power responsibly.

Officials here in the German capital are keenly aware of the delicate balance they must strike.

"It's very important to weigh your words. Even if you do something with best intentions, it can resonate in another place completely differently," Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Georg Link said in an interview, adding, "We have always to be aware of our political history."

Even so, critics fault Merkel's government for mistakes of both style and substance amid what they complain is an ever-increasing German hegemony over its neighbors.

The plan that Europe is pursuing to save the euro currency bears an unmistakably German stamp, with its insistence on solemn pledges of fiscal rectitude, stiff austerity measures and punishment for countries that stray. This week, nearly all of the European Union's 27 nations are due to sign a pact on fiscal discipline that was largely written in Berlin.

Despite the growing chorus of detractors and indicators showing that austerity is strangling economic growth in ailing nations, Merkel has refused to yield, and no fellow European leader has been strong enough to overrule her.

"She's the queen of Europe," said Josef Joffe, editor of the newspaper Die Zeit.

Gone are the days when Germany was considered an economic giant but a political dwarf, as the cliche had it, Joffe said. "In an age where economic power suddenly moves to the fore, as it has in the last 18 months, the economic giant also becomes a political giant."

Still, in November, observers both inside and outside Germany were aghast when one of Merkel's closest political allies crowed that "Europe is speaking German" now, comments she quickly disavowed.

That same month, lawmakers in Ireland, one of three Eurozone countries to sign up for international bailouts, were outraged to discover that members of a German parliamentary committee saw copies of draft proposals for the Irish budget before they did. The leak hardened perceptions among other Europeans that their economic futures were no longer in their own hands.

And not just their economic futures. Both Italy and Greece now boast unelected technocratic prime ministers who meet with Germany's approval as men willing to follow its recipe of austerity cuts and structural reform. Likewise the new chief of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, whose German-style financial outlook earned him the admiring nickname the "Prussian Italian" and a photo in the bestselling tabloid Bild depicting him (approvingly) in a spiked Prussian helmet.

Last month, Berlin caused yet more consternation with a proposal that a European commissioner be appointed who would exercise veto power over parts of Greece's budget. The suggestion isn't without merit, many analysts say, given Athens' failure to fulfill all its promises so far. But its presentation was evidence of a political tin ear.

"On content, Merkel is right. On form, she's not.... We're doing this without a learning curve. We have no historical example," said Guerot of the European Council on Foreign Relations. "It's not so good to send a German budget commissioner to Greece, because it feels like a German whip. We don't want German flags to be burned in Athens."

Unfortunately, that is already happening in Greece, where anti-German rhetoric, much of it tinged with references to power-hungry Nazis, is now commonplace, to the dismay of many here.

Even Mario Monti, the Italian leader who commands the ear of Merkel in a way his predecessor, Silvio Berlusconi, never did, warned that Germany risked a backlash as the "ringleader of EU intolerance" if it failed to recognize the sacrifices being made by other countries.

Merkel recently surprised many with the startling announcement that she would cross the Rhine and actively campaign on behalf of French President Nicolas Sarkozy for re-election in April — more proof, critics say, of Germany's pan-European aspirations.

But Joffe said Berlin had neither sought nor built up much experience for its current ascendancy in European affairs, which helps explain some of its missteps.

"The leadership of Europe has really been dropped into its lap, a country with a culture that's not prepared for leadership, doesn't have the apparatus and doesn't feel comfortable in the role," he said.

Not that Germany can't grow into its newfound position.

"Appetite comes with the eating," Joffe said. "But it's still a very subdued appetite."

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