Artwork © Katinka Reinke

It all began with the lights going out in the Baltics. In the autumn of 2021, as it was getting cool in northern Europe, but not yet properly cold, the Kremlin decided to venture a small experiment. For years, Moscow had been working to restructure the old, Soviet-era electrical network in Europe’s northeast so that it would be possible to disconnect Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania without cutting off Kaliningrad in the process. In order to achieve its full effect, the operation had to go ahead before 2025, the target date for the former Soviet republics’ independence from Russian nuclear power and its supply network.

And so, in early October 2021, the power went out from Narva in Estonia’s East to Lithuania’s border with Poland in the West—and didn’t go on again for a full three weeks. Computer systems, Internet, monetary transfers, traffic control, industrial production, sewage and cooling systems, heating and telecommunications: all of society’s vital functions were brought to their knees. Emergency services were able to supply a few nooks and crannies with power, but that couldn’t prevent catastrophe.

Driven to desperation, the Baltic governments called on NATO to invoke Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, the mutual defense clause, yet the alliance had become sluggish. It took a full two weeks to reach agreement, and several western European NATO members didn’t cover themselves in glory with regard to their duty of solidarity. Of course, Russia had not dared to launch a military attack on the helplessly vulnerable Baltics, but it had demonstrated its power, divided the alliance, and laid bare the weak points of the Western alliance in terms of both political unity and its preparedness to deploy and fight. The Kremlin eventually decided, on the 21st day of the blackout, to let the three countries back into the network. The act that had cost a few thousand people their lives and caused devastating economic damage was generally described as a wonderful success by Moscow strategists.

What Moscow hadn’t counted on was the long-term impact the operation would have. If it had known which processes the operation was going to trigger, and how these would change the strategic situation, the Kremlin would presumably have kept its finger off the trigger.

The Migrant Boom

Today, in the summer of 2040, the European Union is a fully developed regional power with a small but impossible-to-ignore capability to project power globally. The catchword “Common Foreign and Security Policy” no longer leads to giggles and eye-rolling on the international stage, but is rather a factor that Washington, Beijing, Ankara, Moscow, Tehran, and Delhi have learned to take seriously.

This development became possible thanks to multiple parallel, mutually reinforcing developments. The shock of the “Baltic Blackout” unleashed unforeseen powers in the member states. Not only did defense spending race upwards, but the streamlining of military structures in the five decisive member-states—Germany, France, Italy, Poland, and Spain—and the adjustment of the outdated procurement system provided for an unexpected increase in capabilities. An agreement was reached with NATO on so-called European Redundant Battle Structures (EBRS), which made the command structures of both organizations fully compatible, limited duplication of weapon systems, and pragmatically spelled out reciprocal coordination.

It was helpful that in 2024, the recession finally came to an end and the so-called Migrant Boom began, a phase of high economic growth triggered by the extensive integration of the young, hungry people that had entered Europe in high numbers since 2015. The boom also drew power from the fact that the Chinese economy had picked up since 2025, and from the completion of the Transatlantic-Pacific Integrated Markets Program (T-PIMP) between China, ten countries in the Pacific region, the EU, and the US. Donald Trump’s successor in the White House had rapidly taken up the dormant global free trade negotiations, and fear of a major global recession had brought together a wide, previously unimaginable global coalition.

This liberal renaissance even rubbed off on the Middle East. After the peaceful revolution in Iran in 2022 and Turkish President Erdogan’s departure for exile in Sochi, Russia—where a floor in the brand new Trump MAGA hotels was specially decorated for him in neo-Ottoman style—the path was clear for an extensive integration of the region’s markets. Iran and Turkey joined the Arab Regional Mercantile Pact for Investment and Trade (ARMPIT), which had been founded by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Gulf States. This federation then joined a customs union with the EU’s now-complete internal market.

Russia’s Decline, Europe’s Opportunity

For the EU, these favorable economic conditions were like a fountain of youth. Comprehensive social programs eroded part of the basis for the populists’ criticism of elites and globalization, and Europe was able to strengthen its diplomatic, military, and development instruments without any toxic, polarizing battles.

But the decisive factor was the durable political consensus that the newly aspiring Europe had achieved after the crisis in the Baltics: it had become clear to even the most boorish de-integrationists that the self-destruction of the continent couldn’t be allowed to continue. The price was simply too high.

Moscow’s creeping departure from the biggest international stage gave Europe’s reawakened ambitions another boost. Just two years after the electricity war in the Baltics, Russia had slipped into the massive recession that economists had long predicted, which eventually led to the departure of Putin’s inner circle from power in 2024 (destination: MAGA Hotel in Sochi).

Russia had been pulled so deep into China’s tributary orbit that it was to some extent neutralized. It simply didn’t have the resources needed to continue its wastefully massive military presence on its own western border, the border that had in any case been its most secure and predictable since 1990. Chief Ideologist Dugin moved into a basement apartment in the MAGA Hotel and sulked. As China’s junior partner, the country was allowed to perform auxiliary services in Central Asia; in return China guaranteed Russia’s territorial integrity.

A New Deal With Washington

Europe’s core foreign policy actors had, then, more than just the leeway to do their own homework. In the wake of Europe’s realignment, Europe’s core also found a new way to divide up tasks in the European neighborhood between itself and the US. Washington still had no interest in Europe rising to become a true world power, let alone a nuclear one, but on that point the Americans and Europeans largely agreed. So the US stepped up its engagement in Europe in ways agreed with Brussels down to the smallest detail. The nuclear umbrella, as well as a solid presence of US troops on European soil, stayed put. Fort Trump in Poland was renamed Fort Brzezinski in 2023, which on the one hand had the advantage of making it almost impossible to pronounce, but on the other replaced the truly unspeakable with the name of one of Poland’s greatest sons.

The EU and the US also agreed on burden-sharing in Europe’s geopolitically tricky neighborhood. America took on the role of a shaping power in the Arctic, in Eastern Europe, and in the Levant, while the Europeans dedicated themselves to the Baltic Sea, the Balkans, and North Africa. NATO’s standing maritime groups in the Baltic Sea and Mediterranean could now be replaced by European operational fleets.

This doctrine (named SMURF for Stability and Mutual Reassurance for Freedom), which the EU and NATO had gotten off the ground together, had the advantage of freeing up important American forces for the actual geopolitical hotspots in Asia. For China, despite its accommodating posture in the framework of T-PIMP, had by no means given up its aggressive hegemonic claims in its backyard.

Victory Over Populism

Europe supported the new division of labor through a significantly expanded presence on the seven seas, in order to secure international trade routes and choke points and be able to react locally at any time to conflict flare-ups. One participant in these naval operations was the small German task force around the brand-new Amphibische Kampf- und Konsularschiff (AKK) “Johannes Kahrs,” the German aircraft carrier, named after a former budget politician who had once represented the pretty port city of Hamburg in the German Bundestag.

But how could Europe’s new foreign policy role be secured at home? After the “Baltic Electric Shock” (Bild, October 5, 2021), there was sufficient political capital for more than just an enhanced foreign and security policy. And the brutal, long-lasting recession that Brexit had triggered in the UK helped concentrate minds in the remaining member states. Even more important was the small euro crisis of 2022, which fueled the point of view that Europe had to put the common currency on a new foundation. With this new crisis, the new European thinking came full circle. While the crisis in the Baltics had demonstrated to the European left that one gets nowhere with breezy pacifism and “understanding” for Russia, the latest euro scare convinced European conservatives to give up their fundamental opposition to political union and a transfer union in the eurozone.

Indeed, it took until 2030, but within that decade the “inclusive turnaround” (Janning, 2026) took place. It was a movement against euroskepticism, renationalization, populism, and authoritarian temptations.

A Single Phone Number

The European republic that was meant to replace the nation states remained an illusion, as expected. But Europe’s foreign policy core, which had emerged after the crisis in the Baltics, also developed a domestic policy power center that reformed the EU’s political system in two steps. First, the single market was completed, which had a significant positive effect on growth in the EU. Apart from the European asylum compromise of 2023, it was above all this boom that raised Europe’s credibility and thereby expanded the room for maneuver of pro-European elites. The result was step two: a truly Europe-wide direct election of the president of the European Commission in 2029.

In the course of this revision of Europe, Brussels was able to abolish the European External Action Service and transform it into the European Security Council, in which the heads of state and government met monthly under the chairmanship of the directly elected Commission president and brought the foreign policy of the member states into a common whole. This did not completely prevent nations from going it alone, nor did they magically come to complete agreement on all issues. But since Europe had linked the weight of each member state’s voting rights to its voting behavior on foreign policy questions, the incentive to undermine the common foreign policy was quite low. Observers agreed that this state of affairs was the closest thing to the EU “speaking with one voice,” a goal that had been evoked for so long.

This new institutional constellation earned legitimacy when it, in a series of crisis situations, including in the Middle East and in the relationship to China, formulated a strong European position and asserted European interests in a previously unthinkable way. Not least because of this new foreign policy strength, Great Britain applied in 2038 to rejoin the EU. The outcome, though, was up in the air until 2040 because of disagreements about the recognition of British agricultural products ( “Ceci n’est pas un fromage,” Le Figaro, July 23, 2039).

“Learning through suffering,” the most cynical of all the maxims about progress, allowed the EU, within 20 years, to transform from a quarreling, internally shaky structure fearful of the changing world order into a guarantor of regional and global stability. Given the multiplicity of forks in the road where it could have taken a wrong turn, one can—without diminishing the achievement of political leaders—sigh and admit: we got lucky.

The post How Europe Got Lucky appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

Cover artwork: © Mitch Blunt

Congratulations, Madame Chancellor,

Voters have given you another term as the leader of Germany, and since no one expects you to run again in 2021, you are free now. You can do daring things without giving too much heed to the latest poll numbers. Here are my three suggestions for an agenda that will make you my hero. If that’s not motivation enough, it has the additional advantage of making a real difference for Germany, Europe, and the world.

Domestic politics first: go on a spending spree for education. A really big one. The goal is very simple: cut class sizes by half in elementary and secondary schools by 2025. Make 15 pupils the norm, not thirty. No other education reform will be nearly as effective in promoting individual learning, inclusion, and academic performance. This means, among other things, hiring a veritable army of new teachers, upgrading school buildings, and expanding teachers’ training in universities. It’s a massive undertaking, but its effect will be overwhelming 10 to 15 years down the road. Buy out the federal states and hold the Social Democrats to their education-related campaign slogans. I can’t think of any single policy item that would have a longer-lasting positive effect on Germany than this one.

Second, bury Nord Stream 2, the Russian-German pipeline project, and bury it quickly. That you have let this poisonous project sit and fester has been one of the great puzzlements of your last four years. It undermines everything the re-unified country needed to do in order to ease the lingering suspicions of its neighbors about its size, power, and geopolitical reliability. No other German foreign policy stance (including our notorious unwillingness to get serious about military affairs) is as corrosive as this economically unnecessary project that undermines European unity, smacks of strategic recklessness vis-a-vis our Central European neighbors, and rightfully worries Washington.

Finally, explain the real nature of Germany’s and Europe’s strategic situation to the strategically hapless people of Germany. Use all the credibility, respect, and stateswoman-ly weight that you have accumulated over the last twelve years to make them realize what is at stake, and why Germany will have to do very painful things in the near future.

Explain to them that without the United States, Europe will be unable to remain free and at peace. Explain to them that without military power, diplomacy cannot work in the Balkans, in the Middle East, in North Africa, or facing Russia and China. Explain to them that without allowing some sort of transfer union (in return for strict budgetary oversight), the euro will crash, causing economic mayhem. Explain to them that a technological mega-revolution is unfolding as we speak, and that it will change every aspect of human life, from work to learning, to politics, to health care, to the way we protect, pay, feed, entertain, and love each other. Few countries are better prepared to succeed in that coming world than Germany, but the journey will not be for the faint-hearted.

Preach all of this, restlessly, fearlessly, again and again. For twelve years as chancellor you relied on your aides to be honest with you and speak truth to power. Now spend the last few years of your chancellorship to do what has previously been neglected: explaining strategic realities to a country that prefers to have nothing to do with them. Among the many examples of fine leadership that you have given us, this is the one that’s missing. Sie schaffen das! Good luck and godspeed.

The post What Germany Needs to Do Next … On Three Top Priorities appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz

The French general simply could not believe it: “All of that expense, all that effort – for nothing?” The discussion in Paris regarding European security had lasted a few hours, and, as usual, the conversation had finally turned to the matter of Germany. Despairing, the non-German participants asked what it was that Berlin actually wanted. The German contingent – equally desperate – attempted to explain to the others that the debate surrounding foreign policy in Germany entailed few ambitions, especially where security policy was concerned. This was too much for the general, who began to reel off a list of Germany’s assets: the Bundeswehr had first-class defense programs in the pipeline, its restructuring effort was progressing, the reserves system was exemplary, training likewise, and the German personnel actively serving were all highly professional. It simply could not be that Germany would take all these steps without a desire to effect more ambitious change. The absence of any larger political planning felt ridiculous.

At first, there was no way of telling which element of this statement was more alarming: this leading representative of the French military misjudging his German neighbors so profoundly, or his secret mistrust of Berlin’s intentions, unwilling as he was to accept claims of passivity and restraint.

This mistrust is perhaps the greatest loss caused by Germany’s lack of foreign policy ambitions. Those who are unfamiliar with the perpetual German ambivalence concerning power and interests smell a rat: A country as successful as Germany must surely be up to something! When a little digging produces nothing substantial, however, this quickly turns to recrimination or mistrust. Those closer to the country, such as the French and the Poles, are inclined toward the latter, while those at a greater distance, such as the Americans, complain that Germany is letting others do its dirty work.

Germany is not freeloading when it comes to matters of security policy, nor is it (contrary to frequent assertions) a particularly pacifist country. Yet where issues of foreign policy are concerned, Germany has a problem with political will. The fact that it no longer participates in the race for national prestige – once a significant driver of foreign policy ambitions – represents a step forward, not backwards. Nevertheless, the fact that it has no real concept of the order it would like to foster – for its neighborhood and for the global system at large – is increasingly problematic.

It’s All Reactive

Ultimately, this is why Angela Merkel has yet to become the leader of the free world. Despite her proven strengths in leadership, be it in the Ukraine crisis, the eurozone crisis, or on the issue of refugees, her response is always reactive. During the crisis in Ukraine, Berlin was late to intervene, taking the reins once it became clear that the usual powers could not or did not want to do so and the status quo ante was unlikely to be reinstated. It then did an exemplary job reassuring its Central and Eastern European allies, and demonstrated its power to lead in crafting both sanctions against Russia and the Normandy discussion format. But why did it not act sooner? Why not as early as the negotiations surrounding the association agreement between the EU and Ukraine – which triggered the Ukraine crisis – when geopolitical tact was needed rather than bureaucracy in Brussels?

The case was similar with the euro. The German political elite had long hoped that the crisis would blow over somehow; Germany only showed up when the problem had become a catastrophe. The same is true for the issue of refugees, with Germany initially hiding behind the EU, acting as if the crisis in Italy and Greece was not happening, and only taking a pan-European position when it ultimately best served German interests. Even in those cases where Germany has wanted to be ahead of the curve, such as its Energiewende, or energy transition, it took great domestic pressure (which increased following the meltdown at Fukushima) for things to truly get started.

However, to lead one must occasionally take the first step, rather than join at the last minute.

The question is why a country that relies on global stability, on the functioning of multilateral organizations, and on free trade and open markets would be so reluctant to take a stance on these issues, choosing instead to restrict itself solely to a reactive approach. Here, the notion of taking a stance is understood to mean both advancing concepts and using diplomatic and military means to protect them.

In August 2007, Karl Heinz Bohrer and Kurt Scheel published a special edition of Merkur magazine. Bearing the title “No Will to Power. Decadence,” the issue explored Germany’s curious lack of agenda. In his still breathtakingly clear-sighted introductory essay, Bohrer described the multifaceted complex which comprises the typically German concept of a “division of law and power,” a consideration of military matters from a clear perspective of “National Socialist preoccupation” and a reluctance “to want something, to represent something, to present something.” For Bohrer and Scheel, decadence is not the dwindling of a society’s vitality, nor is it a general moral decline; for them, decadence begins with a lack of self-respect.

This is where they hit the mark concerning the “state of Germany.” It is alarming how little Germany’s fundamental problem has changed since their analysis was published ten years ago, despite a groundbreaking speech from Joachim Gauck on this issue, as if it is now enough to whistle a little louder in the darkness and hope that all will be well.

Fundamental Weakness of the Ego

Germany’s lack of ambition is first and foremost a product of its fundamentally weak ego. A deeply traumatized country does not trust itself and its aims, because it cannot forgive itself the transgressions of the past. It favors the moralistic flash in the pan that an absence of self-confidence presents over the cold wind of obligations to its interests and responsibilities, and is surprised to find this leaves nobody feeling any warmer. It recoils at the hard work required of moral compromise, something entirely unavoidable in international politics – not, however, because risky actions may harm others, but because Germany itself would feel the pain should something go wrong. The pragmatic and moral compromise of realpolitik falls more lightly on nations which can tolerate a mistake or two, but strains Germany’s image of itself as the good guy – built so painstakingly after 1945 – to the brink of collapse. Germany’s top national interest is not freedom, nor is it peace, nor wellbeing; it is rather to remain morally spotless.

Perhaps some explanation for Germany’s passivity, beyond the trauma of Nazism, lies in the country’s postwar success. No other middle power was as successful in achieving its strategic aims after 1945 as Germany, writes Stephan De Spiegeleire, security policy analyst at the Hague Center for Strategic Studies. And he’s right: the country has been rehabilitated, has regained its sovereignty, and has reunified; it is an economic giant, integrated in all relevant alliances, has avoided a war on its own territory, and is, geographically speaking, surrounded exclusively by friendly nations. And it has achieved all of this without needing to practice brutal power politics or pay the price with the lives of its citizens. Who could read this summary and conclude that any other way was possible?

The problem with this view is that all of this was indeed achieved by the Germans, but only with the aid of a crucial strategic subsidy: the American security guarantee, which protected the country, trained it in military assistance, and kept it as far as possible from the heavy lifting and the moral abyss of international governance during the Cold War.

Now Germany is paying for its success. For one thing, Germans are now being credited with an almost sinister skill for achieving their hegemonic aims in secret, something they do not actually possess (neither the skill nor the aims). The French general quoted at the start of this article exemplifies this attitude.

At the same time, Germany’s partners and neighbors have noticed the country’s performance and now promote its involvement in all the things from which it has kept its distance for so long. The country has become a victim of its own success: it is now required to gradually give up precisely that which was the original source of its strength. Thus, Germany participates, but only as far as is required, grumbling to itself all the while.

“A lack of ambition is normal,” says German scholar Ulrich Speck, one of the most vocal critics of Germany’s passivity for many years. “What’s more is the fact that Germany is not a project state, in contrast to France and the United States, with an understanding of itself that is strongly shaped by a normative idea.” But the normality ends, says Speck, when a lack of ambition clashes with the realities of a globalized world.

The aforementioned clash has hardly ever been as dramatic and as sudden as in the past three or four years. The euro requires a form of political integration which will far exceed anything that has gone before. The strategic inexperience of the American president means Europeans have a new task concerning security policy, which they will have to go to great pains to achieve. The strategic positions of the EU’s neighbors (Russia, Ukraine, the Balkans, Turkey, the Middle East, the Gulf region, Egypt, Libya, sub-Saharan Africa) are more dramatic than they have ever been since the end of the Cold War.

Fortunately, the topic of Europe is once again in vogue after a long period of malaise, thanks in part to the election victory of the talented Emmanuel Macron. In light of the present challenges, a cry has gone up, quite rightly, for more European intervention, even in foreign policy. Yet is it clear to these enthusiastic pro-Europeans, especially those in Germany, that a stronger Europe must include a will to power? The time for integrating more deeply while neglecting to ask questions about the continent’s basic interests and the means for implementing them is over. A strong, independent Europe will not be achieved by dreams of apolitical, uncontaminated integration, and not without hard realpolitik riddled with compromise. And it will be obliged to fall back on German resources as the means for this power.

No Megalomania, No Denial of Reality

Germany needs healthy ambitions where foreign policy is concerned – ambitions based on neither megalomania or a denial of reality. The former is not necessarily anything to worry about, but the latter is the national consensus. Where, then, will these ambitions emerge from? How can Germans know what it is they are permitted to want and what they must be capable of?

Two elements must come together. The first is an insight into the realities of international operations, where classic power-political rules apply. The rules are easy and eternal: interests are what fuels international politics. They arise from necessities of the will to survive, from the need for material and physical security. And they arise from ideology, from questions of meaning and identity. Interests, therefore, are unavoidable and lead – equally unavoidably – to conflicts with the interests of others. Conflicts are not always resolved with violence, but they often are. In order to curb violence as far as possible, to secure peace, it is as necessary to establish incentives for good behavior as it is to be ready, in case of emergency, for violence. If a fundamental understanding of this were to be restored in Germany, much could be achieved as regards the development of healthy ambitions.

The second element is the recovery of the country’s self-respect and the confidence of the German people in themselves. The country must forgive itself, just as others have forgiven it already. It sounds transcendental, as if it has very little to do with politics, and that is true to a certain extent. This form of self-granted absolution – which is not a clean break, but something which, in contrast, feeds off the triumph of coming to terms with the past successfully – requires faith, primarily a faith in oneself. The other step Germany must take is recovering its trust in its own positive aims. This only succeeds if the limits of one’s comfort zone – where foreign policy is concerned – are gradually shifted toward reality. Germany has recently been doing more of this: the arming and training of the Peshmerga in Iraqi Kurdistan in the fight against the so-called Islamic State is testament to this, as is the open confrontation with Russia following the annexation of Crimea. Germany can and must trust itself more on such matters. Small, baby steps can develop into an upright, confident stride. The danger of backsliding into disgrace is practically zero. Germany and its neighbors attend to one another much too well, and their democracies and institutions are much too stable, for this to be a genuine risk.

And then there is a third, secret element. Germany’s ambitions must ultimately be a little different from those of other countries. This has to do in part with the past, but much less than one would assume. It is due primarily to the country’s strength and its economic power, its central geographical location, the fact that all of its neighbors are smaller than itself, and it is also due to the fact that the country needs to be embedded in a circle of other countries in order to be able to live in peace with itself.

For all these reasons, German ambitions are not simply a matter of leadership, but one of “servant leadership,” a concept which Germany can employ to square the circle between its own trauma and the external pressure to act. Servant leadership enables Germans to fulfill their fateful task of leading in Europe without constantly fearing their leader. The same can be said for others: the Servant Leader builds trust by always yielding a little sooner in the knowledge of their strength and responsibility and always paying a little more than the others, aware that this investment will ultimately yield a larger profit than insisting on a small, short-term benefit. As a mighty servant, the Servant Leader retreats behind their partners but, when the occasion arises, stands before them and protects them. Forcefully, they develop, advertise, and take a stand for the ideas that serve the common cause. This gives rise to a true greatness, one which considers ambition worthwhile and which grants inner – and outer – peace.

The post Greater Ambition, Please! appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

While “Breversal” – a reversal of Britain’s June 23 referendum – is not impossible, the likeliest outcome is that the United Kingdom will exit the EU one way or other. What does this mean for Berlin, Paris, and Warsaw?

© Artwork: Katinka Reinke

The Servant Leader

A European Union without Britain demands a new kind of balancing act from Germany.

The United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union has catapulted Germany to the next stage of its post-World War II existence: that of the neo-Bismarckian balancer. With the departure of Britain, the traditional outside balancer of continental affairs, much of the balancing within the EU will be left to the big country in the middle: balancing between northern and southern mentalities in economics; balancing between free traders and protectionists; balancing between East and West; and balancing between those who are tough on security and those who don’t feel threatened.

Germany is roughly in the middle on all of these issues, but balancing means more than just finding reasonable middle ground. It means building alliances and accommodating those whose worldview does not prevail in the compromises of the day. The balancing act Berlin will have to perform without the help of the open-market, free-trade, militarily robust, naturally globalist Anglo-Saxons will be a daunting task. It will be more than the country has had to face since it became fully sovereign in 1990 – or since the beginning of the European integration process, for that matter. What does this mean in concrete terms?

Over the next five to ten years, the EU will need at least three decisive reforms. First, and most crucially, it needs to create some sort of fiscal (read: political) union in the eurozone if the common currency is to survive. Secondly, as this will almost inevitably lead to two-speed (read: two-class) Europe, a politically acceptable and practically workable arrangement for an EU divided into euro countries and non-euro countries needs to be found. Thirdly, the EU, or at least the refurbished eurozone, will need to democratize so that citizens feel that they have a say in decision-making at the most integrated level. All of these are long-term reforms, but clear signals need to be sent soon. In addition, an urgent short-term issue looms large on the horizon: finding a workable compromise on refugees that includes improved EU border controls, a shared asylum system among Schengen countries, a system that allows unwilling countries to buy themselves out of their quota, and beefed-up relations with the countries of origin.

Unfortunately, Chancellor Angela Merkel has been wavering on the eurozone. Shortly before the British referendum she said it was “unavoidable” that the eurozone would develop into some sort of political union. Shortly after the Brexit vote she announced that it was not the right time to deepen the eurozone. While this is not exactly contradictory, it is confused messaging – the opposite of the finely tuned EU diplomacy that will now be in demand.

Just as important as action on the euro will be an urgently needed shift in German mentality. Germany will need to become the EU’s “servant leader”, creating acceptance for its outsize influence by visibly defending the common good of the EU, sacrificing some of its own immediate diplomatic gains if necessary. Germany needs to become Europe’s integrationist reserve power again, willing to compromise just a little earlier and pay just a little more than everyone else so that the whole thing can thrive.

Since the late Kohl era, and increasingly so under Chancellors Gerhard Schröder and Merkel herself, Germany had abandoned this position. This needs to be reversed. Naturally, there is no way back to the good old days. Being Europe’s reserve power today means something different from thirty years ago; it is far more demanding. But being the servant leader of Europe is a natural outflow of Germany’s size, geography, history – and own national interest. Bismarck would have understood.
– BY JAN TECHAU

Putting Down a Marker

France will push Britain for a quick exit, hoping to regain greater parity with Germany.

French President François Hollande’s reaction to the news that the British had opted for Brexit was swift: Immediately after the official result was known, Hollande declared that now was the time to act – and act fast. The view from Paris is clear: A quick departure from the European Union is meant to create a warning – pour encourager les autres, as they say in England.

This message is addressed not only to EU member states eyeing an exit themselves or those mulling the idea of threating to leave in order to secure preferential treatment. It is also – and in particular – aimed at Hollande’s domestic audience: there will be presidential elections in France in less than ten months. The election campaign will start right after the summer break, and the Socialist, who is likely to run for a second term, knows how dangerous “Europe” can become as a topic. His Socialist Party (PS) is deeply divided on the issue, still reeling from the trauma of the lost referendum of 2005. In the run-up to that vote, the French political parties tore into each other and themselves; the PS has since been unable to agree on a European line. Hollande will do everything to keep this Pandora’s box tightly shut this time.

One way or another, however, European policy will pop up in the election campaign – directly and through issues like the economy, security, counter-terrorism, identity, and migration. And Brexit will hang over all the debates. Politicians from the right are already demanding a referendum on the future of the EU, among them former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who wants to rebuild the European project and hold a EU-wide referendum to validate this.

Then there are radical parties of the left and right which denounce the “German Europe” of today and demand and “end to austerity.” The leader of the Front National (FN), Marine Le Pen, is wellplaced to enter the final round of elections and has been dreaming of a referendum along the lines of the UK vote. According to several polls, about a third of the French – and three quarters of FN voters – agree with her. Those numbers are too low to lead to “Frexit”, but they are also too high to be ignored. This will likely mean that criticism of the EU will grow, even among politicians in “mainstream” parties.

To win over some of the malcontents, Hollande is trying to use Brexit to put the EU on a different course. His promise of “a different Europe,” on which he campaigned in 2012, was left unrealized. Now he senses another chance – and he is already demanding closer cooperation in security and defense policy, and, as in 2012, increased investment to promote growth and job creation, along with a harmonization of Europe’s fiscal policy regime. This is not least to strengthen France’s role in Europe – and regain greater parity in the German-French tandem power relationship. And Berlin might not mind: Brexit has weakened the traditional “motor” of European integration, removing London as an impetus for greater German-French cooperation. With London out, it is hard to see how the Franco-German axis could facilitate a change of course for the EU without at least some realignment given the differences in their interests and priorities. – BY CLAIRE DEMESMAY

Loss of an Ally

Poland sees its position strengthened in that the European Union needs “adaptation”.

With the United Kingdom gone, Poland and its Law and Justice (PiS) government will lose its favorite ally within the EU. After all, the UK is a country that shares the PiS’ opposition toward further integration, wants to defend its national sovereignty, and rejects the EU common currency.

When the UK leaves, Poland will become the largest country of the non-euro bloc in the EU – though the entire bloc combined will make up just 14 percent of the EU’s economic output, something that will further weaken Warsaw’s bargaining position when it comes to relations between eurozone outs and ins.

But as far as Warsaw is concerned, the most immediate issue to be addressed in the upcoming exit negotiations with the UK will be the status of around 700,000 Polish citizens living and working in the UK. According to current regulations, around half of them would lose their right to stay in the UK once Brexit becomes a reality. Large numbers of Polish migrants returning to Poland would aggravate the domestic labor market and become a source of social and political tension. When the referendum results were announced, Polish officials maintained that securing the rights of these Polish citizens would be the Polish governmentʼs most important goal.

Given the political capital and emotion that have been invested into the Polish-British relationship in recent months, Poland will belong to the group of countries striving for a compromise-oriented approach to the exit negotiations as it seeks to “restore an as-close-as-possible relationship” with the UK, as the government put it. It remains unclear whether this indicates an openness towards a “special deal” with the UK (outside of the obvious options of EEA or WTO membership, or an European Free Trade Association), but Warsaw would be unlikely to make the UK’s Brexit wounds any more painful than necessary and would seek to be flexible in the negotiations on all issues but migration.

Most importantly, however, Brexit serves as a confirmation of the Polish government’s assessment of the EU as a project in need of a substantial “adaptation”. Speaking after the referendum, Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of PiS, stressed the necessity of a “reform of the EU, which would be also an offer for the UK.”

Such a reform – based on treaty change – should include, according to Kaczyński, a clarification of EU competencies, a strengthening of the subsidiarity principle, and the “widening of unanimity voting.” After the results were announced, Polish President Andrzej Duda wondered aloud whether “the EU does not impose too much on the member states.” In other words: the vote for Brexit is seen as one against the idea of a federalist Europe and an “ever closer union,” rather than an outcome brought about by domestic developments in the UK. This narrative reinforces the Polish government’s approach to the EU.

In the past weeks and months, Warsaw promoted its reform ideas on the back of David Cameron’s February 2016 “deal” – Deputy Foreign Minister Konrad Szymański, in charge of European affairs, called it a “pilot project” that might push the EU “in the right direction and to the right issues.” Cameron’s deal is no longer valid, but its philosophy corresponds with mainstream thinking in Warsaw. In Warsaw’s opinion, a new political contract for Europe would be based on the ideas of flexibility, differentiation, and equal treatment of all EU member states, regardless of their individual levels of integration. Each EU member state should be allowed to define its own integration path – it would be a “multipolar union,” as opposed to a Kerneuropa or European federation.

It remains to be seen how much energy and political capital Warsaw will be ready to invest into translating these ideas into a political initiative. But however much Brexit poses a strategic challenge for the Polish government, it may also create momentum for the Europe á la carte favored today by Warsaw. – BY PIOTR BURAS

Read more in the Berlin Policy Journal App – July/August 2016 issue.

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Right or wrong on the specifics of the Greek crisis, Merkel’s broader positions on the euro, on Greece, and on Europe suffer from a very fundamental contradiction, a contradiction big enough to get us all into deep trouble. Her position is this: the euro must be saved by all means, because Europe’s fate depends on the common currency. “If the euro fails, Europe fails,” as she has said more than once. Merkel wants to preserve deep economic integration, with the euro as its pinnacle, because she fears that if the economic heart of the EU unravels, the entire European construct will follow.

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Read the complete article in the Berlin Policy Journal App – July/August 2015 issue.

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