The EconomistJuly 13th 2019 Europe 51O
ne canalmost hear Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” in Brus-
sels these days. Big Mercedes cars with German plates swoosh
up and down its streets. Bigwigs from Berlin bestride the bureauc-
racy. The full might of the German political and diplomatic net-
work in Brussels is working overtime to secure the presidency of
the European Commission, the eu’s executive, for Ursula von der
Leyen, who faces a confirmation vote by the European Parliament
on July 16th or 17th. The multilingual German defence minister is,
after all, one of its daughters: she grew up nearby while her father
ran the competition directorate.
It is often claimed that Germany really runs the eu. Angela Mer-
kel has been the bloc’s dominant figure for years. The presidents of
the European Court of Auditors, the European Stability Mecha-
nism and the leaders of several of the European Parliament’s
groups, including the largest, are Germans. The secretaries-gen-
eral of the parliament and the commission are, too. The latter, Mar-
tin Selmayr, is credited with securing German backing for Jean-
Claude Juncker, the outgoing commission president.
Germany’s critics hold its pre-eminence responsible for all
manner of evils. The Trump administration spies Germany’s hand
in the European Central Bank’s (ecb) loose monetary policy, which
it says hurts American exporters. Southerners resent Germany for
austerity policies imposed in the crisis years. British politicians
fear German power: in Westminster on July 4th Bill Cash, a Brexi-
teer, described the prospect of a German president of the commis-
sion as “a grave concern” and proof that Britain should escape
“Germany’s increasing dominance”. European governments shape
their strategies around this assumption. British ministers once
claimed that German car exporters would press the rest of the eu
into doing a favourable Brexit deal. Emmanuel Macron tried to ad-
vance his plans for closer euintegration by wooing the German es-
tablishment. It is telling, however, that neither gambit succeed-
ed—because Germany does not in fact have Europe stitched up.
Take Brussels. More French, Spanish, Italian and Belgian citi-
zens work in both the commission and the parliament than do
Germans, who also hold fewer of the commission’s most powerful
“director general” roles than do Italians. The Germans in Brussels
are a mixed bunch and do not take orders from Berlin. They tend tobe more Francophile and federalist than politicians back home. Mr
Selmayr in particular is regarded with suspicion in Berlin, where
officials fret about his influence over Mrs von der Leyen’s team. It
was Mr Macron who first proposed her and German social demo-
crats and greens who are leading the opposition in the European
Parliament to her candidacy.
Germany does not always get its way on policy. The ecb’s loose
monetary stance appals many German savers. Fiscal rules de-
signed to soothe German concerns are routinely strained by euro
states like Italy and now France. On other matters, from refugee
quotas to emissions targets and from takeover rulings to energy
policy, the commission has defied Berlin’s preferences. An exam-
ple is the package of incoming candidates for the eu’s top jobs: Mrs
von der Leyen’s federalist instincts put her closer to Mr Macron
than to Mrs Merkel in some respects, and Christine Lagarde, a
Frenchwoman, will take the helm of the ecb. Charles Michel and
Josep Borrell, the incoming European Council president and eu
foreign policy supremo, are both closer to Paris than Berlin.
Why, then, is Germany less mighty than it looks? First, its size
can be a weakness. Hans Kundnani of Chatham House, a think-
tank, describes the country as a “semi-hegemon”: too small to
dominate Europe (proportionally it is about as big in population
terms as California in America) but big enough that others feel
daunted and seek to contain it. Central Europeans banded together
during the migration crisis, for example, to block what they saw as
a heavy-handed German preference for open borders. So neuralgic
is France about Mr Selmayr’s perceived influence that Mr Macron
wants the secretary general moved (perhaps to the ecb) and re-
placed by a Frenchman.
Second, Germany’s establishment is different. America has a
powerful executive, Britain has a high degree of centralisation and
France has both, but in Germany power is diffuse and plural. Opin-
ion is more diverse than the notion of a monolithic German inter-
est and outlook allows. Plenty of prominent figures in German pol-
itics and academia share French and southern European
criticisms of her government’s stances. Among them are the
Greens, who have come first in some recent polls.Many Germanies
So multilayered and multifaceted are German politics and public
life that the country can be in fact frustratingly introverted. Even at
the peak of her powers, Mrs Merkel was more a crisis manager than
a visionary leader. On European debates about the euro, technol-
ogy, defence and foreign policy, Germany does not so much block
or impose but is rather semi-engaged, caught up instead with its
own, often petty domestic squabbles. In 2011 Radek Sikorski, then
Poland’s foreign minister, admitted that he now feared German in-
action more than German action—a remarkable confession given
his country’s past.
A Germany insufficiently engaged with European matters can
hardly create the “German Europe” that its critics fear. And that
will not change if Mrs von der Leyen leads the next commission (it
might even produce a slightly more French Europe). But as a face
familiar to German voters and with influence in Berlin, where
change is in any case in the air as the Merkel era draws to a close, a
President von der Leyen might at least help confront that disen-
gagement among her sleepy compatriots by better explaining the
euand pressing the need for more reform and integration on
them. She might thus produce not a more German Europe but a
more European Germany. 7Charlemagne Wurst among equals
Contrary to popular belief, Germany does not in fact run the EU