Tand while in Ukraine the din of Russian missiles intensifies, another uproar, closer to us, threatens to be heard in the coming months. This time it is a double roar from the other side of the Rhine, the “Doppel Wumms” (literally double vroom), as Olaf Scholz baptized it. The Chancellor compares the German economy to a big engine, which must be roared again by pressing the accelerator pedal.
The first impetus had been given in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic with the injection of 130 billion euros. As Germany prepares to enter recession in 2023, a second roar is in preparation, to the tune of 200 billion euros. This sum is intended to cushion the effects of the energy crisis, in particular by alleviating the burden of the crazy surge in gas and electricity prices which weighs on household budgets and business costs.
That Germany has it under the hood, no one doubted it. But the idea of revving its engine solo is not to the liking of its European partners. Berlin is accused of wanting to use its comfortable budgetary leeway to protect its competitiveness to the detriment of its neighbours. Another version of The grasshopper and the ant would be writing itself. Thanks to a rigorous management of its public finances and an accumulation of budgetary and commercial surpluses, the German ant has disproportionate means compared to the French or Italian cicadas, which, in these times of energy wind, find themselves very deprived.
Launch window
But another wind is rising. That of a certain anti-Germanism. The Germans are suspected of sacrificing European interests on the altar of their selfishness. While the risks posed by this emergency fund should not be underestimated, its scope should be put into perspective and, above all, it should be based on this initiative to accelerate the construction of a European energy policy.
The risks, first. They were mentioned by two European Commissioners, Thierry Breton and Paolo Gentiloni, who warn against “a race for subsidies” susceptible to “challenging the principles of solidarity and unity that underpin our European project”.
But before crying wolf, we must look at what this plan covers. Firstly, it is above all a question of taking advantage of a window of opportunity before the German budgetary rules, suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic, are reactivated from January 2023. The idea is therefore to release preventive borrowing capacity in view of an imminent return to financial orthodoxy. This is the legitimate right of Germany.
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