38 Europe The EconomistDecember 7th 2019
21changes if “current developments” permit.
Mr Walter-Borjans and Ms Esken claim this
condition is met by Germany’s economic
slowdown (which justifies a spending
splurge) and two hot summers (which
press the case to do more on climate). A
possible compromise could involve a cdu
concession in return for a prize of its own,
such as a corporate-tax cut. Mrs Merkel,
who wants to serve out her term, is open to
talks. But a piecemeal deal will hardly satis-
fy spdmembers who thought they were
voting for rupture. Kevin Kühnert, the am-
bitious leader of Jusos, the party’s youth
wing, has been notably demanding. “If the
[cdu] won’t negotiate, I hope the new lead-
ership will take us out of coalition,” says
Ben Schneider, a Jusos deputy in Berlin.
Therefore the second challenge for the
spd’s new leaders is to hold their own party
together. Party brahmins, such as state pre-
miers and mps, overwhelmingly backed Mr
Scholz for leader and do not want to rock
the coalition boat. Leaving it could precip-
itate an early election or a cdu/csuminor-
ity government, neither of which looks at-
tractive to the spd. With the whip firmly in
her hand, Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer has
threatened to suspend the implementation
of a recent coalition compromise on state
pensions, widely seen as an spdwin, while
the party muses on its future.
All this helps explain why Mr Walter-
Borjans and Ms Esken quickly lowered the
expectations of rupture after their surprise
win. The next steps will be determined at
an spd congress in Berlin on December
6th-8th. Details were still being ironed out
as The Economistwent to press, but rather
than seek an immediate end to the co-
alition it appeared the new leadership
would seek a vague set of policy conces-
sions from the cdu/csuon climate, pay, in-
vestment and labour regulations, with no
deadline attached. Meanwhile, party unity
is the watchword. Mr Scholz will remain in
government and Klara Geywitz, his run-
ning mate, will run for the spd’s vice-chair-
manship along with Mr Kühnert. Surprises
remain possible, but for now Germany’s
government looks safe.
Optimists argue that by setting the
course for an ambitious election pro-
gramme in 2021, Mr Walter-Borjans and Ms
Esken could rejuvenate a despondent party
without blowing up the government. Yet
idealistic visions are hard to pursue along-
side the compromises of coalition—Mr
Scholz remains committed to the black
zero, for example—and the new duo does
not look ready for prime-time. As Thorsten
Benner of the Global Public Policy Institute
argues, it would be odd for the spdto vacate
the centre ground just as Mrs Merkel, the
archetypal moderate, prepares to give way,
possibly to a successor who will steer the
cdu rightward. But sometimes despair has
its own momentum. 7W
ould donald trumpdefend a nato
ally that was, as he put it, “delin-
quent” in meeting its military spending
targets? “I’ll be discussing that today,” re-
plied the president menacingly, in an in-
terview on December 3rd. “It’s a very inter-
esting question, isn’t it?” And so began a
tumultuous two days in suburban London,
where natoleaders had gathered to mark
the alliance’s 70th anniversary.
Things only got worse. In a press confer-
ence with Jens Stoltenberg, nato’s secre-
tary-general, Mr Trump remarked that he
could envisage France “breaking off” from
the alliance and observed, with something
of the air of a mafia boss, that France “needs
protection more than anybody”. At a recep-
tion at Buckingham Palace later that eve-
ning, Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime min-
ister, was overheard mocking Mr Trump to
his British, French and Dutch counter-
parts. When he heard about that, Mr Trump
cancelled a closing press conference and
left early. But although the American presi-
dent was, predictably, the butt of much
merriment among commentators, his
words did not cause as much disquiet as
those of France’s president, Emmanuel
Macron.
In an interview with The Economistpub-
lished on November 7th, the French presi-
dent said that he was not sure whetherAmerica would uphold nato’s mutual-de-
fence clause, Article 5, and that the alliance
was experiencing “brain death” for want of
co-ordinated decision-making in places
like Syria. He also urged natoto reassess
its very purpose: “The unarticulated as-
sumption is that the enemy is still Russia.”
In subsequent weeks Mr Macron has dou-
bled down on his comments. On November
28th, two days after 13 French soldiers were
killed in a helicopter crash in Mali, he in-
sisted that terrorism, not Russia, was
nato’s “common enemy”. On December
4th Mr Macron tweeted that Russia was a
“threat” but “no longer an enemy”, and
“also a partner on certain topics”.
Such talk alarms eastern European lead-
ers, who believe that Mr Macron is under-
mining a consensus that was painstakingly
forged in the years since Russia’s annex-
ation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine in- Many European officials are also un-
nerved by Mr Macron’s openness to a Rus-
sian proposal for a moratorium on medi-
um-range missiles; Russia’s deployment of
such missiles in violation of a cold-war
treaty prompted America to walk out of the
pact on August 2nd.
Although some southern European
members are privately sympathetic to the
idea of detente with Russia, they were not
willing to fall in behind Mr Macron in pub-
lic. The official declaration from the lead-
ers’ meeting included prominent men-
tions of terrorism and, in an apparent sop
to Mr Macron, promise of a “reflection pro-
cess” on nato’s “political dimension”. But
it also excoriated Russia’s “aggressive ac-
tions” and insisted that improved relations
would only occur “when Russia’s actions
make that possible.”
Mr Macron was also at the centre of a
separate quarrel. Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Turkey’s president, urged Mr Macron to
“have your own brain death checked out
first” after the French president rebuked
Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria.
That offensive targeted Kurdish militants
who, backed by America, France and Brit-
ain, were serving as foot-soldiers against
the Islamic State group.
On December 3rd Mr Macron further ac-
cused Turkey of working with is“proxies”
in Syria and castigated Mr Erdogan for his
purchase of Russia’s advanced s-400 air-
defence system. The animus is mutual: in
the weeks before the meeting, Turkey said
it was blocking natoplans for the defence
of Poland and the Baltic states until the alli-
ance recognised the ypg, a Syrian Kurdish
militia, as a terrorist group.
Yet for all the awful political optics, the
alliance is in rude military health. This year
nine countries will hit the alliance’s target
of spending 2% of gdpon defence, up from
just three a few years ago. By the end of
2020 Canada and European allies will have
collectively invested $130bn over what they
The Atlantic alliance marks its 70th
anniversary in typically chaotic fashionNATOStormy weather
Not happy