German and French leaders’ hesitation could be fatal
Philip Stephens
© Ingram Pinn/Financial Times
History is alert to sins of commission — big choices with bad consequences that leaders come bitterly to regret. Think of the Iraq war. Sometimes, though, the mistake takes the form of a hesitation — a decision deferred, a choice put aside.
These sins of omission are harder to spot, but often every bit as wrecking in their impact.
Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel has something to think about in this respect.
This month’s Munich Security Conference, the annual gathering of international security elites, focused on the pervasive sense of drift and fragmentation in western democracies.
“Westlessness”, the organisers called it. Think of the accretion of bad news represented by US president Donald Trump’s belligerent unilateralism, European powerlessness in the face of chaos in the Middle East, Brexit and rising political extremism in Europe’s democracies.
The transatlantic divide was on full display. Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, delivered a paean to America-first nationalism. Winning for the west was all about safeguarding national sovereignty.
No one else, however, must elevate their sovereignty above taking instruction from Washington.
At least Mr Trump, I found myself thinking while listening to this shallow bombast, is honest in his bigotry.
US senators and members of the House of Representatives turned out in force — the Democrats scarcely hiding fears that their party may hand Mr Trump a second term by choosing a candidate who cannot win; internationally-minded Republicans half-apologising for US foreign policy.
Unless I misheard him, Lindsey Graham, the senator for South Carolina often seen on our television screens defending Mr Trump, heaped praise on the distinctly unTrumpian notion of multilateralism.
If Europe’s differences with the White House are routinely played out in public, the relationship that has really soured is that between Paris and Berlin. Age and temperament have always militated against the idea of Ms Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron as soulmates.
They could have been partners.Instead, the relationship has broken down. Mr Macron, taking to the stage in Munich, showed impatience and frustration with the inertia that nowadays passes as Germany’s foreign policy. Ms Merkel was at once physically absent and omnipresent — her precarious hold on power the subject of excited gossip in every conference corner.
Politically beleaguered, she exudes contempt for Mr Macron’s supposed grandstanding.
German and French leaders rarely start with the same worldview — the strength of the fabled axis has always resided in a shared effort to overcome entrenched disagreements. No longer.
The clash came to a head in November at a dinner hosted by the German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The angry exchanges, first reported by the New York Times, were, by the account of witnesses, extraordinary.
Ms Merkel complained bitterly that she spent all her time gluing back together crockery broken by the president’s pursuit of his grandiose projects. Mr Macron’s equally sharp response was that each effort he had made to raise Europe’s sights to the global challenges was met with silence or obstructionism.
They had had a precious opportunity to work together. Now, Mr Macron saw little purpose in engaging someone who had run out of political road at home.Think back to the spring of 2018.
The two leaders had political space and capital. Mr Macron was still in the first flush of his 2017 presidential victory. After a difficult period, Ms Merkel had assembled a coalition to underwrite her fourth term. She had long complained of the absence of a “serious” partner.
Now she had one. Both had seen enough of Mr Trump to know that Europe had to take charge of its own affairs. The EU needed to start building an economic union to underwrite the euro and to develop its own foreign and security policies as the US stepped back — all the while managing the combustible Mr Trump.
Nothing happened. Mr Macron launched his initiatives. Ms Merkel buried them in the sand, occasionally conceding a tiny step forward when the pressure became embarrassing. Mr Macron was dressing up French projects in European clothes, her officials would snipe. There was too much hot air, and not enough gritty policy detail. Paris was careless of smaller EU states.
German voters did not want grand schemes.
There may well have been some truth in such criticisms. French presidents have a habit of breaking crockery. Ms Merkel’s responses, though, offered nothing in the way of engagement. Instead of presenting its own plans, Berlin shuffled and stalled. Those listening carefully to Mr Steinmeier’s Munich speech would perhaps have detected a hint of sympathy for Mr Macron.
Maybe the chancellor did want to preserve EU unity. More cynically, she was anxious to avoid anything that might destabilise her domestic position. The irony is that she now looks weaker than ever, with no guarantee she will survive in office beyond this year.
Only last month Ms Merkel, in an interview in the Financial Times, described the EU as Germany’s “life insurance”. Her answer to US disengagement?
“We in Europe, and especially in Germany, need to take on more responsibility.”
This is what she could have done in 2018. The moment has passed.
The hesitation — the absence of leadership — will now define her legacy.
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