Does Germany still believe in Europe?

John Kampfner is a British author, broadcaster and commentator. His latest book is “In Search of Berlin,” published by Atlantic. He is a regular POLITICO columnist.
Nobody in Europe showers German Chancellor Olaf Scholz with compliments.
So, when Joe Biden turned to the German leader during his first and last presidential visit to Berlin earlier this month, and said “thank you, thank you, thank you,” the chancellor couldn’t help but flash a broad grin.
With Germany’s economy stuttering in a second year of recession and his coalition government teetering on the brink, Scholz is in need of friends wherever he can find them. Very soon he may have former U.S. President Donald Trump — who’s no friend of Germany — to grapple with. And due to several disputes, some of which it has deliberately engineered, Berlin now has precious few allies in Europe.
One political figure who might have smiled at Scholz would be former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who spent years picking fights with Brussels to make a point, even if she knew she wouldn’t prevail. Win or fail, what mattered most for Thatcher in her political fights with Europe was the political standing it brought back home — and that seems to be Scholz’s tactic too.
The leader of the Continent’s most powerful economy and of the country once regarded as the most collaborative in Europe, Scholz now seems to view the bloc as a problem to be managed. Meanwhile, European institutions and member countries seem to regard him, in their turn, as a problem to be managed too.
Of course, some might argue that Germany’s actions were never quite as generous as its words. For this, they’d point to the 2008 financial crash and subsequent debt crisis, and suggest that Berlin saw its EU partners as export fodder required to toe its strict fiscal line.
Indeed, halcyon moments where individual nations relegated their interests in favor of a common good are mythical. Mercantilism has always played a major part in these relationships. But the difference between then and now is that Germany is no longer trying to minimize the differences.
Take these recent examples: Germany was one of only five EU members to reject the imposition of tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Scholz came under sustained pressure from German carmakers — which rely on China for sales — and yet he decided to vote alongside the likes of serial rebels Hungary and Slovakia, knowing the European Commission would press ahead regardless.
But why go against the European mainstream, even when you know you’re going to lose?
Then, in March, the EU backed a law that would require companies to audit their supply chains despite an abstention from the German government — or rather, from the smallest of its three coalition partners, the Free Democrats.
And finally, while Germany has long argued for greater fiscal and monetary unity within the EU, as well as for free market principles to be more rigorously embedded, Scholz voiced opposition to Italian bank UniCredit’s plan to merge with Commerzbank — a move that perplexed EU and corporate leaders alike.
This isn’t the German behavior of yesteryear. And there have been other iterations of it as well.
Scholz is different to his predecessors in both tone and substance. For one, he doesn’t work the room. On entering summit meetings, he sits down, puts on his translation headphones and speaks only to deliver his position.
Then, there’s the most visible — and symbolically important — demonstration of what’s been coming across as a “Germany First” approach: The government’s unilateral decision to impose checks on its remaining open borders. While controls had been operating on Germany’s eastern frontiers with the Czech Republic, Poland and Austria for some time now, in the middle of September, these checks were also applied to the country’s borders with France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark at short notice.
And although the government insisted these changes were limited to six months, the expectation is that they’ll be renewed. Schengen RIP, or so it seems.
With that, it looks as though everyone’s doing their own thing on migration now. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — regarded in Brussels as one of Europe’s most powerful figures — has set the tone with her Albania deal. The right-wing coalition in the Netherlands is seeking to opt out from EU-wide migration rules. Meanwhile, Finland and Poland, both facing Kremlin-coordinated immigration waves along their borders with Russia and Belarus, are striking out on their own too.
Germany thus isn’t going out on a limb per se. But what is so different from a decade or two ago is that it isn’t trying to lead either.
The EU has traveled far since its optimistic, federalist era of old. Each country is now fighting for scraps and pursuing its own agenda, compounding the many challenges facing Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as she begins her second term and is increasingly at odds with national governments.
But even if there’s little goodwill or vision, there’s still an acute need for the big players to come together. Not just to fight fires, but to address Europe’s structural problems — both present and future.
And that was the message from former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi in his recent blueprint on competitiveness, which was commissioned by von der Leyen. “We have reached the point where, without action, we will have to either compromise our welfare, our environment or our freedom,” Draghi declared.
The message is a familiar one coming from Brussels: Either integrate, or die as a global force. It seems, however, we’re headed in the opposite direction — and Germany is part of the reason for that.