British Eurosceptics have never understood the Germans. David Cameron and the Conservative Eurosceptics are deluding themselves if they think Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, will help them in Europe.
There will be warm words today as the two leaders meet in London, and reports say the government is going to treat her like the Queen, which I suppose is better than being taken down the pub à la François Hollande.
But to believe Germany is really coming round to Tory Britain’s point of view on the European Union, and would support a radical renegotiation of the treaties, would be a total misunderstanding of what is going on.
It is true that Germany is becoming impatient with the Brussels command and control style. It is wrangling with the commission at the moment over competition law in particular.
Merkel, who announced that Germany was dumping nuclear power after the Japanese Fukushima disaster, has passed a law (the German Renewable Energy Act) to protect energy-intensive industry in Germany from higher taxes on renewables. She has run into trouble with the commission, which is challenging this law on competition grounds. The commission has also raised questions about Deutsche Bahn’s monopoly of the German rail network and the prices charged to private train companies.
Horst Seehofer, the leader of the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, gave a speech the other day about Brussels’ interference in everyday life. The Germans were particularly aggrieved about the commission’s proposals, hastily withdrawn, that olive oil jugs on restaurant tables should be sealed and non-refillable: most Germans’ favourite restaurants are Italian and Tuscany is a favourite holiday destination. Seehofer’s speech was in part inspired by pressure in Bavaria from the new anti-euro party AfD which wants Germany to leave the euro. The AfD yesterday, with other fringe parties, won a victory in the German constitutional court, which ruled that there should be no threshold a party has clear to gain seats in the European elections (the threshold was previously three per cent).
It is also true that power is moving towards Berlin economically. In the euro crisis it has been the German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble who has been calling the shots and not Brussels. In December last year, he won a row about banking union and a system for winding down failing banks. This gave the 28 member states more collective power than the commission – though the deal is now being challenged in the European parliament.
You only have to look at foreign policy to see that it is the powerful member states of the EU who are brokering deals. In Ukraine last week, it was the German, French and Polish foreign ministers who played the leading role in forcing the government and opposition there to form a deal for early presidential elections which brought calm to the streets.
Yet, despite this flexing of national muscle, the idea that Germany and Merkel are anti-European is a mistake. To make the euro work – and German mainstream parties are determined to do that – Germany needs to be more integrationist. They also need the strength of other European governments to deal with crises like Ukraine.
Merkel’s Social Democrat partners would not allow any German government to support social policy opt-outs which the Tories might be looking for, particularly as they are fighting the CDU at home on the minimum wage. The SPD is also keen to make common cause with France. The two countries agreed last week to seek a deal on a financial transaction tax by May, a move which George Osborne had previously vowed to challenge through the courts.
It might look all smiles later – and there may be some vague promises by Merkel to be tougher on the commission. But in the end Germany’s interests today lie firmly within a more integrated Europe – not necessarily the kind of Brussels-led Europe of the past, but one which is nevertheless anathema to any British Eurosceptic.
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Sally Gimson is a journalist, a Labour councillor, and reviews PMQs on Progress. She is a former news producer at Deutsche Welle TV in Berlin and she tweets @SallyGimson
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