Europe: two steps forward one step back

European engagement: rebalancing the power structures of the EU. Photo credit: 360b/Shutterstock.com

A slightly diminished Merkel could not have wished for anything better in her changed circumstances than an ambitious, reform-minded and determined French partner, Geoff Kitney writes.

Europe is a hard story to cover. It is hard because there are so many strands to it that the story at the centre of it is too easily missed.

Take recent events.

Over the weekend, there were wild scenes in Barcelona as the Spanish government attempted to prevent Catalonians getting to polling stations to vote for Catalonian independence. One commentator said it was another sign of Europe reliving the 1930s, with echoes of the Spanish civil war adding to the noise of revived Nazism in Germany.

A week earlier, and the shock of the German election result suddenly made it seem as though the recent stirrings of optimism about Europe having turned the corner towards a more optimistic, more united and more prosperous future had been premature.

The site of far-right MPs filling a substantial proportion of the seats in the German parliament understandably gives many Europeans cold shivers of concern.

Germany emerged from its election with a more difficult political order to deal with and a Chancellor with diminished authority to determine its future course.

In Britain, Brexit politics became even more chaotic. Prime Minister Theresa May’s well received speech in Florence outlining for the first time a reasonably sensible approach to the Brexit-EU negotiating process was quickly overshadowed by a backlash among the Conservative Party’s Europhobic rebels.

Brexit seems destined to be an ongoing, chaotic battle for power within the British political establishment, which will continue to have reverberations through Europe.

A few weeks ago, the President of the European Council, Jean-Claude Juncker, in his state of the union address to the European Parliament, painted the rosiest picture for years of the prospects for the European Union. He effectively claimed victory over populist revolts and economic malaise.  Now it seems he spoke too soon and, in the eyes of some, of a Europe that was in his dreams rather than reality.

It is certainly true that populism and nationalism have hit back.

The Catalonian revolt is classically populist, driven by egoistic leaders stirring nationalist passions using perceived but, mostly, exaggerated grievances with the Spanish state (and helped by the Spanish government’s misjudged response).

The German election and the support that drifted to the far-right AfD was undoubtedly based on nasty, anti-Islam populism as well as ill-informed fear of immigrants, fears to which the German government paid too little attention.

The site of far-right MPs filling a substantial proportion of the seats in the German parliament understandably gives many Europeans cold shivers of concern.

But do these strands add up to the story that the British conservative press continues to describe, of European chaos and ineptitude, on an inevitable course to destruction?

That Merkel won and will form the next government is actually an extraordinary political story, if you choose to look for it.

If you are a European realist and you look a bit deeper into recent events, you can actually find encouraging signs.

The big thing that has happened in Europe is, in part, a result of the German election.

It is true that the outcome has diminished Chancellor Angela Merkel, although too many commentators have forgotten that she was seen not long ago as a political dead-duck, heading for a humiliating exit, driven out by her angry fellow citizens over her handling of the refugee crisis.

That Merkel won and will form the next government is actually an extraordinary political story, if you choose to look for it.

It’s important also to make the point that, while 12.7 per cent of German voters chose to vote for the AfD, 87.3 per cent did not.

But, even accepting that this was a less than desirable outcome – that the presence of a far-right party in the German parliament is not a pretty sight – it could also be argued that it is better for the ugly fringe of German politics to be visible and, by being visible, exposed to scrutiny.

How the AfD performs when it is put under pressure in parliament will be the next test of Angela Merkel’s leadership skills. But it will surely be easier for her to engage in this contest with the AfD under the public spotlight in the Bundestag rather than in the political shadows.

That Merkel is damaged by the election result is clearly a negative for Germany but there is another side to the story that goes beyond Germany’s borders.

Just as Merkel has slipped, the new star of European affairs – French president Emmanuel Macron – has risen. Or at least, he has moved to take a substantial part of the burden of European leadership which, for most of her time in office, Angela Merkel has had to reluctantly carry.

Macron’s speech last week outlining his European agenda was a timely declaration of his determination to put France back at the centre of the European project with a bold reform agenda both for France and for Europe.

Macron was, in effect, offering a revival of the French-German partnership that was the foundation on which the EU was established. A big part of the EU’s problems in the past decade or so has been that it has had a strong Germany and a weak France.

A slightly diminished Merkel could not have wished for anything better in her changed circumstances than an ambitious, reform-minded and determined French partner.

Although there will be dangers that Merkel will be distracted by the domestic political pressures that have increased with the election outcome, it seems that she is ready and willing to use her final term in office to work with Macron towards a reinvigorated European Union.

And, despite the political disruption of the German result, of the problems in Catalonia and the mess of Brexit, there appears to be a real prospect of the European economy continuing to gain momentum, providing a favourable climate for the implementation of reforms.

The German and French elections have produced results that have rebalanced the power structures of the EU, in a way that appears to offer a real chance for progress.

The European story at its centre has actually become more positive as a result of these recent events, if you are prepared to look for it.

 


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