The distance between them Hollande's France and Merkel's Germany are growing apart economically and politically
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The Limits of Patience
It's déjà vu all over again. In the 1980s, when West Germany's economy was going from strength to strength while others struggled, Washington, Paris and London regularly implored it to do more to stimulate the world economy by boosting consumption and lowering interest rates. West Germany politely declined, arguing that its economy was a machine that didn't work well if overheated.
Then the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, and Chancellor Helmut Kohl went out of his way to calm nerves about a resurgent, strong Germany by insisting that it would be firmly anchored in the heart of Europe. The E.U.'s 1992 Maastricht Treaty provided new substance for that German commitment to Europe: it paved the way for the creation of the single European currency, which was designed to bind Germany irrevocably to its partners.
Two decades later, the E.U. has grown from a barely manageable 16 members to an unwieldy 27, and Germany has moved on. Kohl was Merkel's political mentor, and echoes of his Germany-anchored-in-Europe discourse are still to be found in her position statements. Yet she's a lot blunter about stating German interests. At the family-business conference, evidently irritated by continuing criticism from French President François Hollande and his new government, she remarked that Germany had caught up and overtaken France in the past decade in terms of competitiveness and that "these are circumstances that need to be discussed in Europe." In Paris, Arnaud Montebourg, France's new Industrial Renewal Minister, who once compared Merkel to Otto von Bismarck (for the French, the father of German unification is a historical bogeyman because he led the Prussians to victory in the 1870-to-1871 war with France), shot back by accusing the German Chancellor of "ideological blindness."
This is more than just an ill-tempered spat. In Paris and Berlin, government officials acknowledge serious differences in approach to the current crisis that may be unbridgeable: Merkel sees the way forward as a new push toward a truly federal system in Germany's image, including with a Europe-wide banking union. In highly centralized France, where suspicion of European federalism has grown rapidly in the past decade, that goes over about as well as suggestions to restore the monarchy.
Before the euro was introduced, Germany had to worry about rival producers in Italy, Spain and elsewhere gaining an edge through devaluations of their currencies, which happened with regularity. Merkel says that without the euro and the exchange-rate stability that it has brought, Germany would have had a much harder time weathering the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009.
Many German businesses agree, but polls show that Germans have never warmed to the single currency in the same way as they loved their deutsche mark. In a survey conducted for German TV in May, 49% of Germans said switching was a mistake. As for German industry, it has shown time and again that it can continue to outperform its international rivals regardless of exchange-rate fluctuations.
Germany needs Europe far less than Europe needs Germany, and Merkel certainly can do without her daily vilification. The German government "is fully committed to doing everything it can to strengthen the economic and currency union together with our European partners," she reiterated recently.
But the fact that Germans are asking tough questions about their role in Europe is a sign of just how times have changed. If Germany's European partners — and Washington — want Merkel to maintain the careful balance that keeps her country committed, perhaps it's time for them to stop throwing insults and show a little respect.