ANALYSIS: Infighting in Germany annoys Europeans

by Jan Strupczewski

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Considered until recently as the driving force of the European Union, Germany is causing growing dismay and even certain annoyance among its partners, with dissensions within the government coalition increasingly affecting the functioning and the objectives of the Twenty-Seven.

The inability of the ruling parties in Berlin to speak with one voice is seen in Brussels as a symptom of a deeper evil: Germany’s indecision as to the new economic model to adopt due to the war in Ukraine, which has turned off the tap of cheap Russian gas and commercial outlets essential to its export economy for decades.

Germany is plunged into “a phase of existential anxiety”, believes a European diplomat. “The Germans fear that the software itself is flawed – and on top of that, coalition members have different logic.”

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When Social Democrat Olaf Scholz reached a coalition deal with the Greens and the FDP liberals at the end of 2021, all experts predicted that the path would be strewn with pitfalls, but few predicted that their differences would spill over to the European level.

Since the formation of the government, only the Greens have managed to approximately maintain their popularity. Scholz’s Social Democrats fell to 14-15% voting intentions, compared to nearly 26% in the last elections, and the FDP lost half of its support, falling below the 5% mark necessary to have elected to the Bundestag.

“There is a causal link,” points out another European diplomat. “As the FDP is in decline at the national level, it seeks to increase its visibility on certain European issues carefully selected to satisfy its electorate.”

German officials point to Berlin’s constructive role in recent EU decisions to ensure continued aid to Ukraine or reform the bloc’s budgetary rules. But in other areas, differences within the German government have made it more difficult to implement the EU agenda, including the European Green Deal.

The tipping point was reached last March, when the German Minister of Transport, Volker Wissing, from the FDP, returned at the last minute to an agreement concluded in 2022 by the Twenty-Seven to reduce CO2 emissions from cars .

THE EUROPEAN ELECTIONS IN THE BACKGROUND

This unusual about-face seriously shook the confidence of Berlin’s partners. “Why would we want to conclude an agreement with the Germans if we are not sure that they will stick to it?” asks the European diplomat.

To complicate matters further, Germany’s Constitutional Court in November blocked Berlin’s reallocation of unused EU funds, creating a 60 billion euro hole in the German budget, and embarrassing the finance minister and head of the FDP candidate, Christian Lindner.

For the second European diplomat, this decision “marked a turning point”. “Since then, it has become extremely difficult to negotiate on all measures that have an economic impact.”

The German Transport Ministry once again imposed last-minute changes to a European law on reducing CO2 emissions from trucks, while objections from the Labor Ministry contributed to the failure of a European law that would have strengthened rights. employees of the entertainment industry.

“If the result is bad, you have to be able to say no,” German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann, a close friend of Christian Lindner, told Der Spiegel magazine this week. “It is not because an idea has been negotiated for a long time at European level that it is good,” he argued.

Berlin has so far not publicly responded to the concerns expressed by its partners. Questioned by Reuters, a government source noted that Germany is far from being the only country to block certain European initiatives, evoking in particular the rejection by several countries including France of the free trade agreement with the countries South American countries of Mercosur.

In Brussels, we recognize that not all the blockages come from Berlin, but diplomats emphasize that Germany’s attitude has opened the door to other countries and above all called into question compliance with the agreements concluded.

Germany’s weight at the European level also makes it almost impossible to reach an agreement without it.

“The situation is getting worse and worse. We are paying the price for the fact that they are not capable of managing their own coalition,” complains a third European diplomat.

The political calendar, with elections to the European Parliament in June, does not make things easy, with leaders on all sides fearing a push from far-right populist parties, particularly if they want to move too quickly on environmental matters.

The calculation is not unrelated to tensions within the German coalition, underlines the government source in Berlin. “We hope things will improve after the elections,” she says.

(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski, with Giselda Vagnoni in Rome, Michel Rose in Paris, Christian Kraemer and Andreas Rinke in Berlin, Kate Abnett and Julia Payne in Brussels; French version Tangi Salaün, edited by Blandine Hénault)