Source: YouGov/”Who is handling the European refugee crisis well?”

Now her fortunes have reversed. Since deciding to open Germany’s borders to refugees entering Europe through Hungary, Merkel has found herself embroiled in fights with local leaders and members of her own party – developing a particularly contentious relationship with Horst Seehofer, Minister President of Bavaria and chairman of the CSU, sister party to Merkel’s CDU – and under fire from other European governments, who accuse her of exacerbating the crisis by encouraging more refugees to come.

Her popularity has suffered as well: the October ARD-Deutschlandtrend showed satisfaction with Merkel dropping to 54 percent, with Steinmeier down to 65 percent and Schäuble at 64 percent. Satisfaction with Horst Seehofer, meanwhile, stands at 39 percent – by no means a majority, but an 11 percent gain over September.

Germans are becoming increasingly worried about their country’s ability to handle so many arrivals. While 45 percent said in early September that the consequences of this new wave of migration would be largely positive for Germany (compared to 33 percent who disagreed), the numbers were reversed in early October, when 44 percent said  that the consequences would be mostly negative (compared to 35% who disagreed).  And while a clear majority said in early September, immediately after Merkel announced that Germany would accept refugees from Hungary, that they were not worried about Germany taking in so many refugees (61 vs. 38 percent), that confidence has slowly eroded; as of early October, a slim majority (51 percent) said they were concerned. According to a YouGov poll completed in late September, when asked to choose one word to describe their feelings about the refugee crisis, 57 percent of Germans said “afraid”.

However, other countries are hardly happier. A plurality in Norway (45 percent) said they were mostly “sad”, while the Swedes were split between “pity” (38 percent), “empathetic” (36 percent), and “disgusted” (36 percent). In France, meanwhile, a slim plurality said “angry” (36 percent), while 32 percent said “sad” and 31 percent said “afraid”. In Britain, the core European Union member state most reluctant to accept refugees at all, a 35 percent plurality said the crisis made them “sad” – followed by 26 percent who were simply “annoyed”.

In fact, while no one is particularly happy about the steps being taken, it seems most Europeans agree on one thing: Germany is not doing that badly.  According to the same YouGov poll, pluralities in France (35 percent), Denmark (52 percent), Sweden (59 percent), Finland (48 percent), and Norway (50 percent) said Germany has handled the refugee crisis well; 54 percent of Germans themselves say the same, and even a 44 percent plurality of Britons agree. Meanwhile, pluralities in nearly every country surveyed give poor marks to many of the other countries at the epicenter of the crisis, with Greece and Hungary faring particularly poorly. Europeans generally endorse the measures undertaken by Sweden, which has accepted more refugees per capita than nearly any other country, and Austria earns tepid approval.

The Germans and Swedes expressed particularly strong disapproval of Britain, with 52 percent and a 35 percent plurality, respectively, saying that Britain has handled the crisis badly – and in Germany, 26 percent said Britain had handled the crisis “very badly”. But even the Britons themselves are none too pleased with the job their government has done, with only 27 percent saying the government has handled the crisis well compared to 35 percent who said the government has handled it badly. Meanwhile, the French are particularly frustrated with their own government, with 50 percent of French respondents saying their government has handled the crisis badly compared to only 15 percent who believe their government has done a good job. While it is impossible to infer what British and French respondents would prefer, the fact that both countries express favorable views of Germany, Austria, and Sweden would seem to imply a desire for greater acceptance of refugees – in Europe overall, if not necessarily in their own countries.

Read more articles in the Berlin Policy Journal App – November/December 2015 issue.

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Over the past five years, the German government has gathered relevant experience in leading EU policy responses. However, the factors that made Berlin effective on previous occasions only partially apply to the current challenge of managing the refugee crisis and solving the underlying deficiencies of the EU’s functioning in Justice and Home Affairs. From partners to power resources and leverage, the conditions for Berlin’s leadership differ significantly between the three crises – and, so far, there seems to be little carryover from one to another. As a result, Germany’s ability to move things forward in Europe with any sustainability looks uncertain.

Leading with Weakened Partners

If there is a unifying theme across the three cases of German leadership, it is that the German government’s strength reflects the weakness of others. At other times and under different domestic circumstances, some of Germany’s partners would probably have acted earlier and more ambitiously to help tackle the problems confronting Europe. France, for example, has traditionally been more active on migration issues and the shaping of euro area governance than it has been over the past five years. The same is true for the UK, which is traditionally very forward-leaning on foreign policy and defense issues. Since 2014, however, it has been largely absent from the EU’s approach to the Middle East and Russia, including the management of the relationship with the United States.

In both cases, the inward-looking policy-making of the governments stems mainly from the rise of euroskeptical, anti-establishment parties that make it harder for the governments to strengthen joint European approaches and decision-making. In addition, the negative experience of the UK’s intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan has led to a more cautious British foreign policy. As far as European policy making is concerned, the rise of UKIP and its attraction to both Tory and Labour voters puts substantial pressure on the British government to accommodate euroskeptical positions, which Prime Minister David Cameron has translated into a pledge to renegotiate British EU membership before a referendum on this matter.

Meanwhile, in France, the Front National (FN) has established itself as a political force. Having adopted slightly more moderate rhetoric while maintaining its traditional right-wing populist positions, FN managed to come in first in the European elections in 2014 with almost 25 percent of the vote. And it is not just the big two that are struggling to drive policy in Brussels. Southern European member states such as Spain, Italy, and Portugal have been focused on dealing with the domestic aspects of the crises in the euro area, while some smaller states that have traditionally been stable and reliable partners of Germany and the Franco-German tandem at the EU level are dealing with more political fragmentation and volatility at home.

The political situation in Germany has been remarkably stable for the past decade. Angela Merkel has enjoyed uncontested political leadership since 2005, while extreme left- and right-wing parties have failed to get a foothold in national government. Of course, domestic constraints, both political and constitutional, have shaped Germany’s approach e.g. to the sovereign debt crisis, but have not turned the government or the vast majority of Parliamentarians into euroskeptics. The country’s relative economic strength and financial solidity is underpinned by socio-economic stability and the trade unions’ readiness to accept labor and wage policies which today still sustain Germany’s global competitiveness and low unemployment.

And yet Germany’s capacity to move things forward in Europe looks anything but certain, and in order to assess it, it is helpful to take a look at the conditions for leadership in each of the crises, in a broader European context and in terms of German power resources.

Veto Power in the Euro Crisis

In the eurozone, Berlin’s position as the largest guarantor of the rescue mechanisms, along with its powerful domestic veto players (in particular the German Constitutional Court), granted the German government an unparalleled degree of influence over EU policy decisions and thus domestic policy choices in debtor countries. The perception that the single currency faced an existential threat compelled Berlin take on financial and political risks that had seemed inconceivable just a few months earlier. But in exchange, Germany was able to set the pace and conditionality of financial aid. Though some governments, at least in certain phases of the crisis, were highly critical of European policy choices with obvious German fingerprints, the gravity of the situation left them with little alternative. Berlin was thus able to push for euro area governance reforms that, from its perspective, encourage member states to adjust budgetary and economic policies and bring the euro area back to the model of a currency union which Germany thought was enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty. At the same time, Germany had to accept higher risk sharing and financial solidarity, which has substantively changed the political economy of the euro area.

In the initial phase of the sovereign debt crisis, the German government worked with a coalition of northern and northeastern EU members, and a growing North-South divide seemed to be emerging. But as policies converged in countries struck by the crises and agreement widened that substantive reforms were indeed necessary, Rome, Madrid, and Paris lost their desire to oppose Berlin, not least because of the potential pressure of financial markets.

However, the absence of vocal and engaged political competition over policies and visions for a deepened EU has not proven to be a blessing for Berlin or Brussels. For instance, the continued absence of a strong French voice in European discussions about the future of the euro area has hampered the duo’s traditional ability to forge consensus and compromise between other EU member states. Certain essential policies over the past five years have displayed a French touch, including the creation of the European Stability Mechanism in 2010 and the increased focus on investment and growth under the Juncker Plan; however, there is little evidence of a broader Franco-German vision for the future of the euro area, and the EU institutions’ desperate efforts to push the debate on the euro area have not led to any substantive progress beyond the creation of Banking Union.

Tandem Still Functioning, Partly

In contrast, in the Russia-Ukraine crisis, Berlin is working closely with Paris in negotiations with the Ukrainian and Russian governments, with strong explicit or implicit backing of other member states, in particular Central and eastern European countries. In the so-called Normandy format France became Berlin’s key partner (replacing the initial Weimar Triangle approach that included Poland), despite Paris’s reputation of being traditionally less interested in Europe’s East. In recent weeks, France’s role has increased as its strategy towards Europe’s South and Southeast has taken on more importance vis-à-vis Russia. So, although initially conceived of as a tool to handle Ukraine-Russia, this format may turn into the EU’s most important format for developing a broader EU-Russia agenda, which must now include Syria and the wider Middle East.

In this regard, the traditional power of Franco-German cooperation, which finds its strength in their complementary perspectives and preferences, is playing out well. In most policy areas, a deal between Paris and Berlin alone no longer works as a suitable compromise for other member states’ interests; but on foreign policy issues, the countries’ approaches are still rather complementary. The test for the sustainability of this approach will be whether both Paris and Berlin manage to engage the other EU governments to maintain broader internal cohesion and strengthen the EU institutions.

This cooperation on the Ukraine/Russia crisis has been essential, as Berlin has nearly had its hands full just managing the relationship with Moscow and Kiev without the added burden of holding EU and transatlantic partners together. While the direct costs of the crisis have been comparatively low, the German economy has taken a considerable hit. German exports to Russia are estimated to plummet to €20 billion by the end of 2015, half the level recorded in 2012. This sacrifice bolstered Berlin’s credibility when asking European partners to maintain European unity on sanctions against Russia; however, the active role played by France was just as essential in reassuring allies, including Washington, that avoiding a hard power escalation was not tantamount to a betrayal of the West.

Missing Incentives

The leading role Germany has taken on in the refugee crisis, meanwhile, differs substantively from the roles it played in both the Russia and euro crises. When Berlin pushed other EU member states, in particular the eastern states, to subscribe to a quota system in response to the refugee crisis, the limits of Berlin’s power became obvious. With the refugee question, the German government does not have a veto to play, and non-action does not endanger the achievements of European integration as obviously. Germany could threaten to erect fences as other EU countries transport refugees to its borders, but this would mean that Germany would surrender its traditional preferences for open borders and free movement of people within the European Union. This leaves the government in Berlin with little leverage to coerce cooperation, in contrast to the euro-area crisis, when the risks attached to German non-action and non-commitment to financial assurance gave it powerful leverage over domestic politics in other crisis countries and the EU in general.

In handling the refuges crisis, Germany also lacks powerful, supranational allies. In various phases of the crisis in the euro area, the ECB and the European Commission pursued interests similar to those of Germany, paving the way for Germany to pursue its own policy approach. In the current crisis, however, there is no such international body to lay the groundwork beforehand.
There are also important differences between the three crises with regards to financial burden and risk sharing. While in the euro crises Germany took on financial risk and agreed to subscribe to a mutual insurance mechanism, the European Stability Mechanism, Germany’s willingness to take in a large number of refugees (up to one percent of its population in the year 2015 alone) is not seen as being an act of inner-EU solidarity, but rather as an attempt to exert moral leadership in the EU. And while they might admire Merkel’s liberal position, it puts some governments with little experience with immigration, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, in a difficult political situation. As a result, there is a rift between Berlin and the some of the countries that have been its closest allies in both eurozone policies and the Russia sanctions. The challenges Berlin has had to face to move other member states to share the refugee burden may grow even larger if Germany at some point starts asking for financial support from Brussels to help pay for the refugees in Germany.

Meanwhile, Germany’s approach to the migration crisis, which is domestically seen as very open and pro-European, has been viewed differently elsewhere in Europe. The government’s back and forth on the migration issue – initially taking a very liberal position and inviting Syrian asylum seekers from other EU member states, then re-introducing border controls when too many came – puzzled onlookers. First Berlin seemed to have abandoned the Dublin convention, which requires that refugees only apply for asylum in the first EU country they enter, with its invitation. Then it seemed to be violating the Schengen Agreement of open borders by reintroducing controls. This led a number of political leaders and journalists to question Germany’s commitment to European integration and agreed norms and rules. This is a tricky point: in the euro crisis, and particularly with regards to Greece, Berlin seemed to hold rigidly to a “rule-based approach” for fellow member states struggling with debt and recession – and this even after Berlin had previously bent these same financial rules, such as when it pushed for a non-application of the Stability and Growth Pact in 2002/03, and then its eventual reform. It is thus not hard to see how smaller and medium-sized EU member governments could get the impression that Berlin can pick and choose when the rules matter, and that a large country’s power overruns the rules and laws of EU governance.

Germany’s leadership in the refugee crisis is still young. And it is still very unclear where Merkel’s policies will lead, both domestically and on the EU level. In its early stages though, this newest crisis reveals cracks in Berlin’s leadership position in the Union since its moral authority has yet to translate into much substantive movement on the European level and left Berlin struggling to find powerful allies.

Complex Search for a Role

At a time when the European Union is facing unprecedented internal challenges and controversy, external aggression, and global change, Germany is still adapting to being the most powerful and ambitious country in the EU, and to the criticism and reactions that such a position brings. And domestically, Berlin is also still in the process of defining what leadership can and should mean. Germany’s old habits are being challenged, as are its assumptions on close cooperation with allies and friends. It is becoming increasingly clear that the United States, at least for the near future, cannot and will not help as it used to when Europe was faced with serious security challenges, while Germany’s European allies, in particular large member states like France, the UK, and Italy, are mostly preoccupied with domestic challenges. It is still unclear whether we are currently witnessing a learning phase, in which Germany will discover how to use its power resources in a complex setting of insecurity and competing objectives and stabilize the EU as a framework for rules-based action, or whether Berlin is doomed to failure given the difficulties of systemic and domestic conditions.

The complexity of Germany’s search for a role in the EU is illustrated by the fact that, in the three crises, its leadership has not followed a consistent pattern, neither in terms of partners nor with regard to power resources and impact. While for decades the starting point of European initiatives was generally a powerful Franco-German approach, Berlin is now working with different coalitions of member states depending on the policy areas. This requires agility, as well as intense and diverse investments in bi- and multilateral relationships in the EU, particularly as coalitions forged in certain policy areas do not work in others; countries that were with Germany on austerity in the eurozone and a hard line on Greece, for example, were fiercely against Germany on accepting refugee quotas. Despite the indisputable achievements of the recent years, the accumulation of crises and the patchwork of interest coalitions across issue areas indicate how potentially limited German leadership in the EU might be if it cannot partner with large countries or a stable group of smaller member states across policy areas.

In 2010 the German chancellor questioned the role and impact of supranational institutions in crisis management and the big issues of EU policy making in her speech in Bruges, pointing to a future “Union method” based on intergovernmental cooperation over a “community method” led by EU institutions. However, deliberate coordination with the EU institutions may prove the method of choice for the future. Germany’s suggestion to strengthen the European Commission’s role in the surveillance and coordination of member states’ economic and budgetary policies is one example of this. The German foreign minister has also been explicit in lending support to EU High Representative Federica Mogherini, who has just completed her first year in office. To make progress in addressing the refugee crisis and improving the EU’s governance in Justice and Home Affairs, large countries like Germany will need to work closely with the supranational EU institutions, in particular the European Commission and the European Parliament. Both institutions are important as venues for secondary law making. In addition, the European Parliament can play an important political role, leveraging its role as a forum for trans-European debate with trans-European party structures, which can be used to further trans-European consensus building.

Investing in Power

In terms of power resources, Germany’s ability to impact EU decisions has proven strongest when others need it to act to protect core achievements of integration (such as the euro) and it has a credible narrative about domestic veto players that limit its flexibility. Where it lacks a credible threat, such as on refugee quotas, it has not been very effective. An alternative to coercing through threats would be persuasion through incentives; but to date, Germany has not successfully implemented incentive structures in the EU that would improve its leadership capacity.

In order to build and maintain leadership capacity in other policy areas, Germany will need to invest in EU capacities in two ways. First, it will not be able to drive EU efforts forward unless it continues to take on a large share of the burden of joint solutions, in particular as a number of member states, including Greece, Spain, and Portugal, as well as Italy and France, are still recovering slowly from the financial and economic crises of the past years. This does not mean that the German government cannot also help build European solidarity mechanisms from which it may eventually benefit itself – for instance for sharing the costs of handling the refugee crisis, or for strengthening crisis resilience in the euro area. In fact, as the influx of refugees continues to put stress on Merkel, Berlin may need to make the case at home that the EU also helps Germany cope in order to maintain public support.

Secondly, the German government will have to invest in building trust, consensus, and coalitions. As the back-and-forth in the refugee crisis or Germany’s pressuring of Greece have shown, any surprise move from the German government risks being interpreted as a manifestation of self-interest and a misuse of its power position. Building and maintaining partnerships and coalitions will require more time and consistent political effort than Berlin has been investing. Germany, as the most powerful country, will likely also need to resort to issue-linkages and cross-policy deals, for instance to keep closed ranks on Russia or to find compromises on the migration issue.

Meanwhile, German policy-makers and the German public will need to learn how to deal with criticism without dismissing it as a natural side effect of a leadership role. Since the financial and economic crises hit the eurozone eight years ago, Germany’s role in Europe has been vehemently criticized; Germany has been accused of shirking responsibility, obstructing progress, and leading in the wrong direction as it suits national preferences. Policy-makers in Berlin need to get better at engaging with their critics, and even learn from them when trying to tackle European challenges.

Since 1946, and in particular since regaining full sovereignty as a nation state, Germany has always defined its European and international role as part of a European and international order that is bound by treaties, secondary law, and EU decision-making procedures. But for German citizens and next-generation leaders, Europe has become a matter of choice, not an obligation grounded on historical memory and shame. This is where the largest domestic leadership challenge for the government emerges. Voters today need more convincing.

This is an especially important task in the face of the refugee crisis, which, for Germany, is a huge socal and political challenge with the potential to destabilize Germany politically. The government will need to balance its liberalism on asylum policy, which is enshrined in the German constitution, and the capacity of its administration, civil society, and policy-makers to actually handle the practical, political and security challenges that come with the current inflow of refugees. In order to maintain Germany’s pro-European stance and its openness to globalization and internationalization, the refugee crisis must not lead to the perception of a loss of control, rising insecurity, or the return of identity issues.

A domestic political crisis leading to further polarization and possible political instability would endanger Germany’s support for European integration. The effects of this would be enormous – not only for Germany, but for Europe as a whole.

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Thus, autumn 2015 represents the start of German foreign policy’s next emancipatory phase: In early 2014 the Munich Security Conference marked the beginning of the public debate about the greater degree of responsibility the EU’s largest economy should assume in foreign affairs. The defensive position held at the time has now by necessity given way to an offensive one. The German government is not only ready to assume greater responsibility, it is now actively pushing for this responsibility itself: from Ukraine to Iran, from Libya to Syria, Berlin’s leaders have made clear that they want and will have a seat at the table.

Insistence upon permanent membership in the highest UN body is only one element of this strategy. Berlin has made the decision to assume an active role immediately, at the very least for the stabilization of the entire crisis zone surrounding the EU – stretching from the Maghreb at its westernmost edge across Egypt and the Middle East to Belarus. There are two reasons for this. The first is the overwhelming shock and resultant domestic pressure in the face of the singular wave of refugees currently expected to deliver over one million asylum seekers to the country this year alone. The second is the increasing sense that Berlin can no longer rely on its European and international partners to step up as needed.

Berlin’s Answer to the Refugee Crisis

Merkel’s sober – and for many, too matter-of-fact – analysis of the refugee crisis has been that this problem cannot be solved in Germany, on the German-Austrian border, nor even at the EU’s external borders alone. Despite domestic demands for speedy solutions, Merkel, together with Social Democrat Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Minister for Economic Affairs Sigmar Gabriel (the SPD party leader) as well as her Christian Union (CDU/CSU) party colleagues Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, and Development Minister Gerd Müller, has stressed that relief can only come through cooperation with non-European countries and a common fight against the very conditions which have led to the exodus. In Germany’s view, therefore, the EU must take a vast number of actions in order to restore functioning governmental structures in countries like Libya, to reach a cooperation agreement with Turkey on refugee issues, to halt the civil war in Syria, and to ensure proper care and support for Syrian refugees in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon.

This will require, according to German government leaders, both considerable rethinking as well as addressing nationalistic reflexes which have been exposed across a number of EU states, including Germany. In response to these, Merkel has underlined more than once that “fences around Germany will not help.” The same applies to the Hungarian wall, a structure relieving no one but that country alone of its duties. A general policy of returning the refugees to Austria is also impossible, because the German government can see this would unleash a fatal chain reaction: every smaller European country along the so-called Balkan route could fall into chaos. Attempts at a common European solution and the preservation of passport-free travel within the Schengen zone would be completely destroyed by such a singularly nationally-focused action. For this reason, an alternative set of rules addressing everything from improved EU external border protections, to common asylum procedures, to a binding quota for union-wide refugee distribution are being negotiated with great haste. Germany self-critically recognizes that it was long a country which not only did not support, but in fact actively prevented the EU Commission from moving forward with exactly these changes.

Unfortunately, from the German government’s point-of-view, these necessary European policy changes no longer go far enough: Over the past two decades, the German credo has focused on the continued coalescence of domestic and European policy. At the moment, however, Merkel’s rhetoric and train of thought resemble those of an international development aid organization: Even domestic and world politics are bound ever more tightly. On public television’s political talk show “Anne Will”, the chancellor admitted that she had long believed countries like Syria, Iraq, or Afghanistan to be far, far away. She elaborated her new One World-thinking thusly: “And suddenly we see that there are people running for their lives to such a degree that long distances like these are suddenly shrunk down to nothing, and they come to us in the EU, making us part of these conflicts and unable to differentiate between domestic and foreign policy.” She further pointed to the ways in which tools and methods of communication and information-sharing like smartphones have caused the world to grow together. Merkel also commented that the high number of EU citizens who are fighting alongside the radical Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq alone would have qualified Europe as an actor in this Middle Eastern conflict.

No More Looking Away

Her conclusion: Rather than looking away, as we have done before, we must engage even more strongly in the future “so that people can stay in their homeland, and perhaps we will not face so much integration work.” In other words, every euro spent in a crisis country helps us spare many more that would have to be spent to clean up the mess of failures in other parts of the world. Every current foreign policy attempt can assist in the prevention of domestic problems later. Berlin is beginning to sing the holy anthem of diplomacy. “We have a joint responsibility for the unstable regions surrounding us,” German EU Commissioner Günther Oettinger stressed on October 18.

Thus countries like Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt are moving into the forefront of German foreign policy – and no longer simply for export promotion. On October 18, Merkel flew to Istanbul to sound out the degree to which Turkey will let itself be drawn into joint efforts to contain the flood of refugees – despite the fact that the country found itself in the middle of an election campaign. At the same time, Steinmeier visited Iran and Saudi Arabia. Just in the past year, the German government’s delivery of weapons to the Iraqi Kurds eliminated two old German taboos simultaneously: for the first time, Germany both supported a militia group and delivered weapons directly into a war zone. The German Foreign Office further heavily supported the UN special envoys to both Libya and Syria in their attempts to get every conflict actor to the negotiating table. New realpolitik thinking is seeping into the otherwise strongly morals-focused German debate. “Finding something wrong and negotiating at the same time are not mutually exclusive,” Merkel said on October 8. In a TV interview, Merkel rebuffed criticism of her talks with highly polarizing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan by noting that it was her “damn duty” to coordinate with Turkey.

Suddenly, the argumentation in an entire line of policy fields is shifting. In New York in late September, Merkel explicitly acknowledged the goal of spending 0.7 percent of GDP on development goals – which, given the current spending level of just 0.4 percent, will result in considerable spending increases and a necessary reorganization of Germany’s annual budget. Defense Minister von der Leyen further explained that foreign military missions are a direct contribution to efforts to keep people in their homelands – at least in Afghanistan, Mali, and Iraq. This too will lead to additional governmental spending. Both Merkel and Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks have argued that an ambitious international climate strategy is an important contribution to the prevention of the next wave of refugees, because people will increasingly be forced to flee their homes due to environmental degradation. Germany is thusly fortifying not only classic developmental strategies, but also its own commitment to climate protection: the country has promised to pay one-tenth of the $100 million contribution promised annually from 2020 by industrial nations to developing countries for their climate protection efforts.

If Berlin Doesn’t Do It, Then Who Will?

The other motive for Germany’s rising diplomacy efforts is an incipient sobriety with regard to the competencies and the political will of the country’s European and international partners. In the EU, the European Council president and the Commission have in Berlin’s view long failed to recognize the immediacy of the refugee crisis. And the 28 member countries have not shown adequate decisiveness in undertaking realistic burden-sharing measures, neither in terms of the refugees themselves nor in external border protection. Despite Merkel and Steinmeier’s attempts to form a common EU foreign policy, they both share the opinion that Berlin must once again negotiate alone and bring its weight as the EU’s largest economy and current haven of political stability to the table – as it did in the Ukraine crisis. Thus, the government increasingly focused its energy on sparking activity through, in the words of one top diplomat, its hand-holding and “cheerleading” of the others. At the EU summit on October 16, Merkel complimented the EU Commission on finally recognizing the seriousness of the situation and putting together over just a few days an action plan for closer coordination with Turkey.

This disillusionment applies even to the five veto powers of the UN Security Council. Expectations of China, a country which has long abstained from involvement in international crises, are the lowest of the bunch. That said, the country had still been part of the successful nuclear negotiations with Iran. At the same time, the Chinese leadership made clear through its actions in the South and East China Seas that it is now prepared to flex its military muscles when it comes to defending its own national interests.

In Berlin’s view, UN veto-holder Russia, under President Vladimir Putin, has proven that it sees itself as more of an opponent to the post-1989 European peace framework than the partner all had once hoped it would become, especially since the dawn of the Ukraine crisis and above all its annexation of Crimea. “If any proof is still needed that the Kremlin exercises massive influence over the hybrid warfare methods of eastern Ukraine’s separatists, then consider the fact that at the very moment when Russia engaged in Syria, the [Ukrainian] conflict stopped virtually overnight,” said von der Leyen on October 17. Following Russia’s attacks on Syria, therefore, the German government has pushed for Moscow’s inclusion in finding solutions, despite the fact that Russia’s support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and its bombings of non-Islamic State opposition groups has made it, much like in Ukraine, ultimately part of the problem.

Berlin’s opinion of the three Western UN veto powers is currently little better, though. Every demonstration of transatlantic and European partnership in the past few months has been met with the same criticism by leading German politicians of all stripes, namely: Our Western partners either cannot or do not want to make a decisive contribution to the stabilization of the crisis zone surrounding the EU. On October 18 Chancellery Chief of Staff Peter Altmaier pointed out that it was the Middle Eastern order wrought by France, the UK, and the US that was presently collapsing.

The UK no longer plays the same decisive role in Europe’s foreign policy that it once did, even if London contributes heavily in specific cases, such as the recent financing of refugee camps in Syria’s neighboring states. In Germany’s view, the UK and France contributed to the fall of the Libyan government with their military intervention without so much as a concept for the necessary stabilization of the country in its aftermath. These countries thereby created an unintended hole through which smuggling bands transport refugees to Europe – refugees that neither country is prepared to assume responsibility for in any reasonable quantity.

French President François Hollande may be Merkel’s close partner when it comes to European policy, but he allegedly has the tendency of using foreign military deployments as a short-term means of raising his domestic political profile. A public German-French spat over the unannounced French air attacks in Syria outside of the US-led alliance did not break out only because Merkel needs Hollande’s support in many other areas. With great effort Berlin concealed its anger that Hollande had delivered Putin a perfect set-up and apology for Russia’s unilateral action in Syria just a few days later.

Disillusioned with Obama

The disillusionment with US President Barack Obama also looms large. The German government has acknowledged that given China’s increasing strength, the US is bound to give greater focus to the Asia-Pacific region. Merkel and Steinmeier therefore cautioned in 2014 that the EU must play a greater role in resolving conflicts in its own neighborhood. At the same time, members of all parties accused Washington of lacking vision and rigor in the very areas of foreign policy most important for Europe. In their decisive response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Obama and Merkel were still united. But as the US president insulted Russia by calling the country a “regional power”, Berlin, alarmed, could only shake its head: Such a move demanded even stronger actions from Putin to amplify Russia’s attempts to raise its own profile – attempts which play out on Europe’s, not Washington’s doorstep. Merkel and Steinmeier repeatedly pushed their American counterparts over the past few months to get over their own superpower pride and at the very least to negotiate with their Russian counterparts over how to de-escalate those crises Putin plays an active role in.

And in his attempts to avoid making or even to correct the mistakes of his predecessor George W. Bush, Obama’s promise to withdraw troops helped tip Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan into even greater chaos and created a vacuum which strengthened the radical IS, an opinion held not just by many Republicans in Washington. Only after pressure from his NATO partners, including Germany, did Obama correct his Afghanistan decision in mid-October. Merkel and Steinmeier today openly warn that the collapse of the Iraqi and Libyan states paved the way for the rise of IS and other terrorist organizations and that the international community should not be allowed to make the same mistake again in Syria.

The German government had largely been removed from international efforts in Syria. Berlin first pushed the regime-change rhetoric of its Western allies with regard to President Assad as hard as it has the resulting disavowal of the very same maxim over the past few months as the fight against IS has grown in importance. Steinmeier welcomed US coordination of Western and Arab air attacks against IS forces in Syria. Germany’s military campaign against IS, however, will remain limited to deliveries of arms to Kurdish Peshmerga in Iraq.

In October, Berlin followed with alarm as new battles in Syria triggered another wave of refugees from the war-torn country – and without anyone beyond UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura even attempting to reconceptualize political deescalation. Nuclear powers Russia and the US appeared ever more strongly as if they would gamble on such a proxy war turning into a direct conflict.

Germany as Mediator – Also in Syria?

For this reason, German diplomacy has ramped up its engagement in Syria since September as well, making Germany 2015’s unrecognized international negotiations champion. Berlin played a central role in every significant negotiation of the year, from the Ukrainian Minsk Agreement to the long-standing Iranian atomic conflict and even the Greek euro debate. Applying its typical soft diplomacy strategies, the German Foreign Office even made it possible for every party in Libya’s civil war to sit together around a Berlin table. This new decisiveness is illustrated by the fact that a German diplomat, Martin Kobler, will next take on the role of UN special envoy to Libya – despite the fact that Mediterranean countries such as France or Italy have traditionally viewed northern Africa as their domain.

In the face of over 250,000 dead and millions of refugees, Berlin is now begging every regional and international political actor to forget their disparate and particular interests and finally come together for talks – including even Russia, Iran, and representatives of the Syrian government. IS represents a common and dangerous enemy. Berlin sees its own role as facilitator of this “mediation process” – especially as Germany has yet to involve itself militarily. That such a process will require shaking hands with leaders one would under normal circumstances avoid is seen as the lesser evil, considering the degree to which the EU and Germany have been overwhelmed by refugees. As Merkel explained on October 8 at a CDU event in Wuppertal, “Foreign policy will always expose conflict between the values we are bound to and our own interests.”

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Two of them, in the United Stares and in the Federal Republic of Germany, illustrate varying structures and styles of democracy, each with advantages and disadvantages. The measure of both is their capacity for leadership and their ability to govern effectively; but the two systems operate differently, with different arrangements of power, institutions, and processes reflecting their origins and experiences. Understanding these differences helps to illuminate policy-making priorities, processes, and outcomes – which is important when two countries are finding common ground, and even more so when they are not.

Both President Barack Obama and Chancellor Angela Merkel are skilled politicians who are confronted with political, social, and economic forces when making policy and interacting with the institutions of their respective systems of government. Both need to shape the narratives around their policy choices to secure domestic political support and leverage in dealing with other national governments. German and American leaders share this challenge, even though they operate in very different environments. …

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Artwork: Dominik Herrmann

Merkel scored well in all three despite having to share power with the Social Democrats, whose foreign policy legacy she inherited. She worked hard to regain some equilibrium between Berlin and Washington. The German public was not necessarily delighted with her courting a Republican president, but it was necessary: NATO had almost been torn asunder by America’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the ensuing German, French, and Russian axis against the war. I recall the shouting matches between then-US ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns and his French counterpart, Benoit d’Aboville. They were something else. Merkel, who had little interest in NATO, knew full well what the Alliance stood for: America’s security guarantee to Germany and the rest of Europe.

Merkel was no pushover when it came to dealing with President George W. Bush. She did not agree with him on his botched invasion of Iraq, the use of torture, or the opening of the Guantanamo Bay detention center.  And she told him so. This was not about endearing herself to the German public, which had no truck with that administration – for Merkel, torture, especially practiced in a country that preached human rights to others, was unacceptable.

With Poland, Merkel managed stoically to put relations with Warsaw and Berlin on an even keel during a time when the nationalist, conservative Kaczynski twins were in power – Lech in the President’s office in Nowy Swiat and Jaroslaw in the Chancellery on Aleje Ujazdowskie.  Both held strong anti-German views that were exacerbated by Schröder’s decision to build the Nord Stream pipeline, which would allow Russia send its gas to Europe via the Baltic Sea. The idea was that Russia would reduce its dependence on Ukraine as its main transit route for Russian gas exports.  The Poles thought the deal was a stich-up between Berlin and Moscow, done behind Warsaw’s back.

Merkel persevered with her Polish counterparts, winning respect for supporting Poland against Russia when the Kremlin imposed a ban on some Polish meat products. Putin had his own agenda for the embargo: he wanted to test EU solidarity. Poland, which had joined the EU in 2004, was a test case. But Merkel was not going to get involved in any kind of contest. She stuck up for Poland, even though several of the old EU member states had little time for what they regarded as a new upstart member.

Taking Flak

Merkel had a different view. She was not prepared to have Russia perform its usual act, playing one EU member state against the other.  Merkel’s stance meant that plans to update the EU-Russia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, which Russia really wanted, were put on hold.  Merkel took a lot of flak for that, not least from the economic and political elites in Germany. But she took the risk. The principle of EU solidarity was at stake; she was not going to sacrifice that to Putin’s divide-and-conquer policies.

Once Donald Tusk, leader of the center-right Civil Platform, became Polish prime minister in 2007, relations between Warsaw and Berlin blossomed. It is hard to believe, but trade between Germany and Poland is more significant today than trade between Germany and Russia, and  opinion polls  show that a trust between the two countries has risen.

Merkel also made the defense of human rights in Russia and China a hallmark of her first term.  Her first visit to Moscow as Chancellor in January 2006 was remarkable. She met human rights activists in the German embassy, something that Schröder never dared to do. That encounter with civil society activists took place only hours after her talks with Putin in the Kremlin. There, Putin had given Merkel a present: a black-and-white toy dog.  Some show of statesmanship, given that Merkel does not like dogs.  She also became the first German leader to meet the Dalai Lama, and in the Chancellery at that. Beijing threatened all sorts of retaliatory measures, including canceling trade and business contracts; not one contract was cancelled.

All in all, Merkel’s first term was about Germany finding its way back into the transatlantic relationship again, and about taking a critical assessment of Russia, which shouldn’t be underestimated. Merkel is probably one of the few – in fact, probably the only German chancellor – who took a more ambivalent view of Russia’s leaders. This carried risks: most notably, it meant questioning the value of Ostpolitik in the post-Cold War era.

Merkel’s first term was also about establishing her position within   the European Union and building relationships with her EU counterparts. Her stint in the chair of the EU’s rotating presidency, which coincided with Germany heading the G8 in 2007, showed a politician enjoying the limelight.

Toward the end of her first term, Merkel was confronted with the global financial crisis. Germany weathered it, but the global crisis showed the new face of globalization – and  a Merkel who was willing to take risks during her second term just as she did during her first term.

And what a term it turned out to be!

In coalition with the Free Democrats (FDP), who were supposedly pro-market, pro-tax reform, and pro-reducing the role of the state, Merkel’s second coalition missed many chances to push Germany toward a more flexible country. The Free Democrats were impossible partners, always bickering, always insecure, always looking to score points.

While the coalition squabbled, two events demonstrated that Merkel was prepared to take big risks. One was her reaction to the Fukushima nuclear disaster that happened on March 11, 2011. The other was NATO’s bombing campaign in Libya, which began on March 19, 2011.

I will not forget Merkel’s reaction to the Fukushima catastrophe.  “Everything has changed,” she said on March 14. She announced a moratorium, suspending plans to prolong the life of the country’s nuclear power stations. “During the moratorium, we will examine how we can accelerate the road to the age of renewable energy,” Merkel added. Nuclear power was then supplying 23 percent of Germany’s electricity.

On May 23, the government agreed to shut down all nuclear power plans by 2022. What a change of heart; just the previous year, Merkel had overturned a decision by Schröder’s government, which was in coalition with the Greens, to end all nuclear power that same year. Now she got firmly behind that goal too.

Merkel’s decision was the first of her two huge tactical and strategic mistakes that has had a huge impact on Germany and Europe.

It was a tactical mistake because of the voters in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, who were about to go to the polls in a regional election in which the Greens were poised to dethrone the Christian Democrats, the party that had ruled Germany’s economic engine for over three decades. The voters were not going to be fobbed off with Merkel’s about-face on nuclear power. The Greens were swept into power.

Strategically it was a mistake because Merkel had made no plans for the day after. She had not consulted her own party. She had not discussed the issue with German industry.  She had not informed Brussels. And she did not inform her neighbors, particularly nuclear-dependent France. This was Merkel the unilateralist. Her party was furious. German industry was furious. Merkel held her own.

Her decision carried enormous risks. Merkel alienated the heavy-industry and energy lobbies. She alienated her Christian Democratic party, which was generally pro-nuclear. She alienated the opposition Social Democrats, which had close connections with this branch of industry.

In short, Merkel’s risky decision was the beginning of the end of the big industrial elites that had emerged after 1945.  Those elites were grouped around energy – gas, nuclear power, and coal. Yes, those sectors were slowly adapting to EU competition legislation that demanded they open their grids to third-party access. But these big energy companies – RWE, E-ON, or Ruhrgas (the shadow of which E-ON recently guzzled) – had developed an umbilical relationship with successive German governments. In one sweep, Merkel’s decision to end nuclear power was the catalyst that was to change German industry. Some critics accused the chancellor of de-industrializing Germany; Germany’s export profile puts paid to that argument. Merkel ended nuclear power because of Fukushima.  The catastrophe shook her. The trained physicist and former environment minister no longer believed in nuclear power as a safe source of energy.

She put Norbert Röttgen, her environment minister, in charge of overseeing the Energiewende. The enormity of the challenge was completely underestimated. It did not help that Röttgen was too focused on his own constituency in North-Rhine Westphalia to take the Energiewende seriously. In 2012 Merkel put Peter Altmaier, one of her highly trusted colleagues, in charge to make the Energiewende happen. It was not to be the first or last time he’d be called upon by Merkel to take over a mess.

Possibly Right, But in the Wrong Company

Days after Fukushima, Merkel was confronted with a major geo-strategic decision: Libya. Should Germany support a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a no-flight zone over Libya and authorizing military support for the protection of Libyan civilians?

It coincided with a diplomatic coup for Berlin. After an intense lobbying effort, Germany had taken one of the temporary seats on the UN Security Council.  But that did not stop Merkel from abstaining from the no-fly zone. At the time, some commentators said it was then-FDP foreign minister Guido Westerwelle who persuaded her to abstain. At the end of the day, however, it was Merkel who made the decision. It is hard to believe that she did not consider the fall-out, since Russia and China also abstained.

Merkel took a lot of criticism for her decision – from the Americans, from her own party, from the opposition Social Democrats, and from some of her European allies, as if they had all rushed to join the NATO mission (whose mandate was stretched, to say the least; R2P – the responsibility to protect – mutated into regime change, something Putin has not forgotten that).

What drove Merkel to make this decision? Opportunism (the mood in Germany was ambiguous on Libya)? Conviction?  A sense that  the NATO mission was not going to succeed? She only had to look at how the US coalition failed to follow up their invasion of Iraq (and Afghanistan) with a systematic state-building effort, one thing that the EU and the US are very, very bad at doing. Iraq, Afghanistan, and nearer to home, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Kosovo, are bad examples of the West’s ability to rebuild states. The only two successful examples are Germany and Japan after 1945.

Merkel’s third term has been dominated by the euro crisis, Greece’s deep financial woes, Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and its subsequent invasion of Eastern Ukraine, and the refugee crisis.

Each of these crises was a great opportunity for the EU to demonstrate its ability to respond. It failed to do so. It was instead left up to Merkel.  Germany is shouldering a big responsibility for problems that should have been the remit of the EU’s foreign, security, and defense policy, which is almost in tatters – paradoxically at a time when Germany needs more Europe, and certainly no thanks to Germany.

Not in the Mood For a Fudge

Greece would not have introduced such stringent reforms had it not been for Merkel and finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble. The European Commission should have been the institution that led these reforms. But Berlin had little confidence in Brussels to do just that. Being Europe’s paymaster, the German government was in no mood for fudging over Greece, even if its policies have been criticized by those who believe such tough measures would not lead to growth. (Ireland has proved otherwise.) Berlin’s agenda was not only about cutting back on a bloated and inefficient public sector: its strategy was to introduce good governance, to build strong state institutions, to create a climate of transparency instead of perpetuating a culture of corruption and clientelism. This saga is far from over.

Merkel also had to take on the Ukraine crisis.

The EU would have failed to deliver on imposing sanctions on Russia had it not been for Merkel.  Recall that several of the member states believed that Germany was the weak link in pushing for sanctions because of its very close political, economic, and personal ties with Russian elites, particularly Putin and his circle

Merkel proved them wrong. It was she who stiffened the EU’s backbone when it came to introducing sanctions. It was she who ignored suggestions from those German diplomats who still belong to the Ostpolitik school that it would be better to have Russia invited to the G8 meetings instead excluded as she preferred. Merkel stood her ground. One veteran and former German diplomat tried to advise Merkel to change her mind: “If we go to Sochi [the venue for the G8 summit] we can all agree to speak our minds and tell Putin what we really think,” the diplomat told me. Merkel had her own views:  canceling the G8 meeting in Sochi would hurt Russian pride.

It is hard to underestimate the immense pressure poured on Merkel by Germany’s eastern trade lobby (the Ost-Ausschuss), by Schröder, by Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (who was Schröder’s chief of staff when the former was Chancellor), by those who have a hankering for the old days of Ostpolitik, and by a wave of pro-Russian German politicians, consultants, and advisors.  But Merkel has stuck to her policy: no lifting of sanctions until the Minsk II agreement is fully implemented.

With no respite to the troubles besetting Europe, Merkel has now taken on the refugee crisis.

Because the EU has been so abysmal at anticipating crises – worse, at allowing them to deepen – it has fallen to Merkel to prevent the implosion of the EU.  That is what is at stake.  As she said during a press conference, “if Europe fails on the question of refugees, its close connection with universal civil rights will be destroyed.”

Merkel’s decision to open the borders was not based on tactics. Look at the criticism from within her conservative bloc, not to mention the threats from Horst Seehofer, leader of the CDU’s Bavarian-based sister-party Christian Social Union (CSU).  Seeking to shore up his party’s popularity, Seehofer threatened Merkel with leaving the coalition. Dream on, Horst! Merkel can survive without the CSU. The Social Democrats are not going to jump ship.  There is as yet no Merkel successor looming in their ranks, nor in the CDU’s. And whatever the commentators say, the Merkel era is not over. If anyone thinks that her conservative bloc’s falling ratings – from over 41 percent to about 38 percent – present a threat to her leadership, get real.

However, to give her critics some credit, Merkel’s open-door policy was ill thought out. There was no strategy in place. Germany was not prepared for such an influx, and had no answer to the question of how so many tens of thousands could be integrated. Once again, the German chancellor did not inform her EU partners. It was as unilateral a decision as her phasing out nuclear power. Why?

“Compassion,” said Elmar Brok, a prominent Christian Democrat and chairman of the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee. “And there was also the legal imperative to provide refuge.”
Merkel’s response has thrust Germany into an ambiguous leadership role. Having welcomed refugees, Berlin now has no option but to take the lead inside the EU in establishing a sustainable policy.

But the stakes are much higher: it is about the future of the European Union. In her ten years in office, Merkel continued a trend first started by Schröder. It was a gradual but perceptible shift away from the communitaire policy so long pursued and defended by Helmut Kohl, a shift to an inter-governmental approach toward EU decision-making. This re-nationalization of policies have weakened the institutions in Brussels, whose legitimacy has often been questioned.  But then personalities play such a big role in the Commission and the Council. When was the last time the Commission had a charismatic, visionary president?

For some time Merkel was relaxed about her inter-governmental approach. She knew Brussels was not going to be tough with Putin, but she could rally enough support from Poland, the Baltic States, the Nordic countries, and some others to push through the sanctions policy. She used the same method to insist on Greece tackling its intrinsic problems,  something  the Commission was not prepared to do.

But in the refugee crisis the inter-governmental approach has not worked. The member states rebelled against Merkel’s open-door policy. They balked at the idea of taking in large numbers of refugees. They threw away any notion of solidarity, this convenient slogan that any member state can invoke (as Poland did during the Russian meat embargo), expecting the Commission and the member states to respond. They have not understood that the refugee crisis represents the failure of Europe’s crisis management policies, its development aid policies, and its overall foreign policy toward its neighborhoods. All 28 members states are culpable.

Merkel’s pleas for solidarity, needless to say, did not find traction. The little support that there was for Europe’s most important leader, who put EU values and its sense of solidarity to the test, exposed the shallowness of the EU.

Merkel has room to maneuver, despite what her critics say. She has Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the EU Commission, on her side. He understands the dismal state Europe is in; just read his “State of the European Union” address. Merkel, too, knows what is happening.  Both leaders have a chance to bully the member states into realizing that the comfort zone has evaporated. That the refugee crisis is about globalization. That the digital age is coming with an assault that will shake us. That the power of  social media will only increase. That climate change will lead to more displacement and more refuges. That the need to understand that “fortress Europe” is a contradiction in terms in the 21st century, and that it would run counter to Europe’s ambitions – if indeed it has any – to get onto the global stage.

Merkel’s eleventh year in power is about to begin.

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© REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

But before we get to the conclusion, we have to begin at the beginning.

Act One: A New Actor Debuts

For years, Germany was more or less absent on migration policy at the EU level. Berlin repeatedly blocked any meaningful reform of the Dublin system, which requires that asylum seekers make their claims in the first EU country they enter, placing most of the burden on border states. Shielded by a ring of buffer states, Germany quietly relaxed backstage while others, like Italy and Greece, were front and center, asking for support in managing increasing numbers of migrants and asylum seekers.

Then last year, the number of people making their way north from Italy and Greece – mostly undocumented – began to surge. While other countries were receiving more migrants and asylum seekers per capita, the increased number of people arriving in Germany put a considerable strain on unprepared German cities and communities. This strain ultimately pushed Merkel to step out of the background and onto the European stage as she realized that Germany could not manage the increasing numbers on its own and needed European and international actors to help. It was not solidarity with Italy or Greece, nor a historic obligation to offset the atrocities of World War II, nor any other higher motive that compelled the shift; it was simple self-interest, combined with the inconveniently late realization that the Dublin system really was in need of reform, and that the war in Syria was no closer to ending.

Thus it was Berlin’s turn to call for European solidarity, backing the Commission’s relocation plans, and pushing for a permanent quota among member states. At the same time, Germany was applauded internationally for taking up to 800,000 migrants and asylum seekers. Never mind that Germany did not want to take up all these people, and had simply corrected its estimates to pragmatically prepare for the increase – an image of Germany’s openness was born.

…

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©REUTERS/Marcin Stepien/Agencja Gazeta

And yet, in one respect the refugee crisis has hit Poland just as much as the countries already coping with the influx of migrants: it set off a heated public debate touching upon the most sensitive aspects of Polish political life. Not surprisingly, Polish refugee policy was a controversial and divisive issue in the campaign before the general elections on October 25, an election which brought about – after eight years of the liberal Civic Platform party being at the helm – a change of government, with the national-conservative opposition Law and Justice party receiving its best-ever result of 39 percent of votes. But the election does not fully account for the depth and magnitude of the challenges posed by the still virtual migration problem in Poland.

In fact, the question of if and how Poland should take responsibility in the EU for dealing with refugees is forcing Polish society to confront long overdue questions about identity, community, and foreign policy. The refugee crisis has arguably started changing Poland even before the first migrants arrive in the country.

“They are not refugees, they are aggressors,” screams the front page of the leading conservative weekly Do Rzeczy, calling upon the government to “close Poland’s borders.” The new Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło during the campaign was quoted saying that “instead of Arabs and Negros, Poland should first invite Poles from the East [Polish emigrants to Kazakhstan and other post-Soviet republics].” On the other hand, the liberal media, most notably the largest daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, have been instrumental in pushing the public debate in another direction entirely. That said, its call to support a demonstration at the end of September in Warsaw called “Refugees are welcome” attracted under 2000 people. The opposing nationalist demonstration was at least four times larger.

Deep-Rooted Concerns

Concerns about immigration and, more generally, encountering the “other” are deeply rooted in Poland, as they are in other Central and Eastern European countries. In a striking contrast to Western Europe, this region’s experience with multiculturalism (understood not as a policy but a social reality) is very limited, maybe even non-existent. The memory of Poland between the 16th and 18th century as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire has waned, and fails today to act as a source of identity for the modern nation-state. Prewar Poland was not an immigrant society, and its multicultural character was in no small part to do with the large Jewish (as well as Ukrainian and German) populations, which were long-established minorities in the territories that made up the Polish state at the time.

Today immigrants constitute just 0.3 percent of the country’s population. Accordingly, integration and refugee policies have ranked low on the political agenda for the last 25 years. Poland’s acceptance of around 80,000 Chechen refugees in the 1990s (who either assimilated quickly or left the country soon after) has not changed public perception of immigration or made it a matter of public concern. The refugee crisis and pressure from European partners to accept a fair share of responsibility found Polish society and the state wrong-footed, both mentally and politically. …

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©REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol

President François Hollande has insistently reminded his people that offering asylum is an ancient French custom. At his semiannual press conference held in early September in the Elysée Palace, Hollande said, “The right of asylum is part of our soul.” Indeed, France has a long tradition of accepting refugees and threatened peoples. The Socialist president mentioned the Armenians who found safe harbor in France following the genocide in their homeland; the defenders of republican Spain during the Spanish Civil War who were welcomed with open arms; the defamed intellectuals and artists forced to leave Hitler’s Germany shortly thereafter; followed by the Jews who (albeit oft briefly) found reprieve from their persecution.

Yet the remembrance of this leftist tradition has not prevented the ruling Socialists from advancing a more restrictive interpretation of asylum law. More than ever, members of the government have repeated the words of former Prime Minister Michel Rocard, who warned before France’s National Assembly on June 6, 1989, of a banalization of asylum. “In the world today, drama, poverty, and hunger are too great for Europe and France to absorb everyone whose misery would drive them to us,” he said in his speech. “We cannot absorb all of the world’s misery,” a saying attributed to Rocard, has since become a political platitude. Rocard’s 1989 speech recalled the need “to withstand the constant refugee pressure.” …

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Artwork: Dominik Herrmann

I was reminded of this over the last few weeks. The mood in this country has darkened. The can-do attitude of the late summer has increasingly been replaced by an autumnal skepticism – can we really cope with the refugee crisis?

The sentimental courage of our Willkommenskultur is making way for an atmosphere of concern in which an old phenotype of German political discourse has re-appeared: the Bedenkenträger – the bearer of reservations. He poses questions such as: how many more are coming? Can we integrate them all into the labor market? Will we be able to organize enough winter accommodation for them?

The questions are justified. But the change in mood cannot be explained by logical reservations. The swing back is as extreme as was the summer’s positivity.

The scenes at Munich train station of Germans welcoming refugees as if applauding marathoners at the finish line, now seem oddly surreal. Talking to politicians in Berlin nowadays about these scenes, one senses irritation. Something about those days was odd, suspect, overblown, they say.

Were we in fact applauding ourselves rather than the refugees? And did these potential immigrants misunderstand us? Are they all on the way here now? Has our explicit openness turned into a curse? There he is again, the German Bedenkenträger.

The word is often laconically translated into “skeptic” in English. But that’s not quite right. Skepticism marks a rational distance from overly ambitious ideas. The skeptic pulls expectations and possibilities into a reasonable balance, to maintain the ability to act and prevent too much disappointment.

A Bedenkenträger is not interested in the ability to act. He issues constant warnings and reminders of danger. His mind creates rows of hurdles and he anticipates failure, in order to avoid having to do anything at all. He is not a singular phenomenon; thousands of Bedenkenträger can be heard not only in response to the refugee crisis, but also in German debates about TTIP, gene technology, and other new developments he finds risky – if not too risky.

The Bedenkenträger finds his thoughts burdensome, and because he wants people to see the efforts he makes, he is happy to carry them in public. He is uniquely proud of his fears. While the Bedenkenträger represents a very particular form of German conservatism, he is completely independent of political direction. He comes in all party colors.

There are many warnings and reminders in this autumn’s discussion of the refugee crisis. It begins with pragmatic concerns over whether enough beds, shipping containers, and clothing can be made available. But these concerns quickly turn to the fundamentals: If this crisis cannot be solved, the Bedenkenträger warns, then, no less, “politics has abdicated responsibility,” “Europe is approaching collapse,” or “the coalition is going to break apart.” Politicians from the ruling coalition even go so far (at least in private conversations) as to say that “democracy in Germany” is in danger.

The actual situation is not that apocalyptic. Certainly it is appropriate to take a more sober look than was the case in the summer. For we face huge challenges: Tens of thousands of additional teachers will be needed, hundreds of thousands of apartments, and training programs for the most varied of qualifications.

But the truth is that the Germany that is supposedly scared and fixated with following the rules, is currently showing a magnificent talent for improvization. A very un-German flexibility is enabling the country to stoically keep on through the biggest crisis it has faced since reunification – without having the perfect solution to all problems. After all: Germany’s mayors and local politicians, police officers, and civil servants  taking care of thousands of new arrivals every day have no time for the concerns of the Bedenkenträger.

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Hybrid Warfare, Not Full-Scale War

The central element of Russia’s current strategy is an attempt to force the United States and the European Union onto Russia’s playing field. Through a combination of military, political, and economic tools – including cyberattacks and enhanced intelligence measures – Russia is pursuing an asymmetrical strategy that antagonizes the West without provoking a full-scale confrontation with NATO. As Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov has argued, “The role of non-military means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and, in many cases, they have exceeded the power of weapons in their effectiveness.”

The Russian approach originates in a predominantly defensive mind-set that interprets self-determination of states at Russia’s periphery, as well as Western support of civil society movements in those states, as part of an “encroachment strategy”. Moscow translates this mind-set into aggressive efforts to undermine state sovereignty, as well as attempts to sow disagreement among Western audiences. The dissemination of falsified information is a central part of Russia’s hybrid warfare strategy. In fact, Dmitry Kiselyov, the head of Russia’s government-owned international news agency Rossiya Segodnya, has called information wars “the main type of warfare” of the 21st century.

Russia’s dissemination of state-controlled information has resulted in a highly successful attempt to frame its national narrative with little interference from foreign media channels. Propaganda inside Russia works in two ways: the Kremlin creates a story in which Russia appears “encircled” by the West, while journalists cooperate with the Kremlin to advance their careers. Today, the legitimacy of the ruling elite derives from its anti-Westernism, and the majority of Russians believe that Moscow’s national media coverage of events abroad – particularly in Ukraine – is correct.

At the same time, the Kremlin has pursued an international strategy to disseminate its viewpoints throughout Europe. In 2014 Russia consolidated media outlets into one state-owned conglomerate, the aforementioned Rossiya Segodnya, to enhance the effectiveness of its international broadcasting, upgrading its status to a “strategic enterprise”. Russia also significantly invested in its broadcast program abroad, in particular in its television network Russia Today (RT), for which Moscow spent $2 billion between 2005 and 2013. Moreover, state-financed media outlets such as Sputnik News which operate on air and online publish multilingual news stories in Western countries. Various US and European newspapers have in turn spread the stories of both platforms, thereby indirectly helping to distribute content produced by Russian journalists closely linked to the Russian government. Social media then serves as a multiplier of Russian propaganda. …

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