02/10/2020 The sleeping giant wakes up - Thirty years after reunification, Germany is shouldering more responsibility | Leaders | The

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Leaders Oct 3rd 2020 edition

The sleeping giant wakes up

Thirty years after reuni cation,

Germany is shouldering more
responsibility
But it has is a lot more to do

Oct 3rd 2020

M argaret thatcher feared and openly opposed the reuni cation of East and
West Germany. François Mitterrand was said to have shared her worries,
though he accepted it was inevitable. Giulio Andreotti repeated a popular quip: that
he loved Germany so much, he “preferred it when there were two of them”. Yet
despite the reservations of the British, French and Italian leaders in 1990, a new
country came into being 30 years ago on October 3rd. With 80m people, it was
immediately the most populous country and mightiest economy in a Europe that
until then had had four roughly equal principals. Ever since, statesmen and
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02/10/2020 The sleeping giant wakes up - Thirty years after reunification, Germany is shouldering more responsibility | Leaders | The Economist

scholars have grappled with the problem of how to deal with the reluctant hegemon
at the heart of Europe. How should Germany lead without dominating? Indeed, after
the enormities of Nazism, can it be trusted to lead at all?

Thirty years on, German reuni cation has been a resounding success. East Germans
were freed from the dull yoke of communism. With just three chancellors in three
decades, the new, liberated Germany has been steady and pragmatic. It has
championed the expansion of the European Union to the east and the creation of
the euro. It has powered solid if unspectacular growth across a continent—at least
until covid-19. Europe survived the economic crisis of 2007-08, the euro panic of
2010-12 and the migration surge of 2015-16. Germany has thrown its weight around
less than sceptics feared, though indebted southern Europeans are still sore about
crisis-era austerity.

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Under its next chancellors, Germany needs more ambition. The need is most acute
when it comes to security. Military spending is rising in Germany, but remains far
below the 2% of gdp that nato members are supposed to contribute. Even within
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats this is a touchy issue; it is even
more so for her coalition partners, the Social Democrats, and for the Greens, who
may help form the ruling coalition after next year’s election. More important,
Germany has been too cautious in its policy towards Russia and China, tending to
put commercial interests ahead of geopolitical ones. The construction of Nord
Stream 2, a gas pipeline connecting Russia and Germany, is a case in point. It
undermines the interests of Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states, but until now Mrs
Merkel has refused to cancel it, despite the outrageous behaviour of President
Vladimir Putin. Nor has she listened much to those in her own party who warn that
it is too risky to allow Huawei, a Chinese rm, to supply Germany with 5g telecoms
equipment.

Still, there are signs of a shift. This week it emerged that Mrs Merkel had gone to
visit the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in hospital in Berlin, where he
was recovering from being poisoned (by himself, Mr Putin claims). Huawei is to
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02/10/2020 The sleeping giant wakes up - Thirty years after reunification, Germany is shouldering more responsibility | Leaders | The Economist
g gp ( y )
face steeper bureaucratic hurdles in Germany than previously envisaged, and Mrs
Merkel is showing doubts, albeit faint, about Nord Stream 2. She increasingly
accepts Emmanuel Macron’s argument that America is becoming an uncertain ally,
and that Europe will have to do more to help itself no matter who wins November’s

presidential election. This does not yet add up to a more assertive Germany leading
a more assertive Europe, but it is a shift in the right direction.

Likewise, Germany needs to do more on the economic front. The pandemic has
accomplished what the euro crisis did not, forcing the eu’s richer countries to show
more solidarity with the poorer. The agreement over the summer to set up a €750bn
($880bn) recovery fund to be nanced by common debt has been a crucial shift that
Germany until recently would not have allowed. More than half of the fund will be
given as grants rather than adding yet more debt to the highly indebted. The fund
may yet be delayed; but it is a sign that Germany is at long last shouldering its
responsibilities. More of this will be needed in the next 30 years if Europe’s
currency union, and perhaps even the eu itself, are to survive. But the
Bundesrepublik is growing up. 7

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This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "Growing up at last"

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