AS the smoked salmon and roast duck were served at the Chancellery, overlooking the Reichstag, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron reassured each other that the headlines in Friday's papers screaming of war over Europe were mere sound and fury. Unfortunately the effect was undone at the press conference when the Lutheran pastor's daughter, usually the soul of tact, shoved her guest out of the way to get in front of a German flag. Deutschland uber alles. It wasn't supposed to be like this. The EU was the triumph of never again. After World War II, never again would the continent be torn apart by conflict. The politics of never again have brought the continent to the brink of disaster. It was mistaken idealism that created a single currency unsuited to vastly different economies and cultures. Never-again sentiment dictated that a united Germany, armed with the deutschmark, was too powerful for its neighbours. But the French attempt to bind it with the euro has stirred up old hatreds, not put them to sleep. As the last man standing in the bond markets, Berlin has no choice but to take charge of the eurozone, which teeters on the edge of disaster. The Americans, the British, even the Chinese, have said their piece. They want Merkel to subsidise her bankrupt euro brethren via the European Central Bank. Merkel, though, wants political union on the cheap, saving her taxpayers the expense of a huge bailout of the Club Med countries. Cameron is in a tight spot. Defiance and isolation in Europe will win him the approval of his eurosceptic backbenchers. However, it is classic British foreign policy to allow no great power to dominate the continent. There have been threats by the eurozone countries, led by Nicolas Sarkozy, to go it alone if Britain proves obstructive. But accommodation with Berlin can be stretched only so far. A European levy on financial transactions would undermine the City of London and make the case for Britain's withdrawal from the EU; a similar tax in Sweden wiped out share trading. Yet Cameron still has options if he can hold his nerve. "We need Britain in Europe," confessed Merkel, I am told, to Cameron on Friday. However much Britain may irritate the Germans with demands for them to subsidise the Club Med, they don't want to be left alone with the French. Without Britain the balance in the EU would shift to dirigiste southern Europe; Sarkozy is their representative. The Berlin Wall fell almost a quarter of a century ago, yet in Britain some papers and politicians talk as if Germany had emerged only recently from the Nazi era. "Never again" is alive and well. Since 1989 there have been too many headlines of "Is this the beginning of the Fourth Reich?". And yet, there never is a German militarist around when you want one. Its troops are away from the front line in Afghanistan, and Berlin refused to join the campaign to bring down Muammar Gaddafi. Merkel would not have dreamed of sending the rebels arms. Just as well. You can imagine the headline: "German panzers retake Tobruk." Across the North Sea, too, realism is in short supply. Bild, the mass-circulation daily, moaned on Friday: "Why are the English still in the EU?" The word "English" is always employed when the Germans don't like Britain. Volker Kauder, the parliamentary leader of Merkel's ruling Christian Democratic Union party, also frothed: "Britain is just looking to its own advantage." One supposes Germany and the rest of Europe are full of selfless idealists. In fact, much of the technocratic business class that runs Germany has been trained in American and English universities and sneers at cant about never again. A majority of the population regrets the loss of the deutschmark, a trusted repository of value that symbolised the hard work Germans put into making their postwar economic miracle. True, an even larger majority cannot bear the thought of bailing out Greek tax dodgers who retire at 55 on full state pension. Who can blame them? Until recently Merkel's position was equivocal. A moral East German among slippery western CDU politicians, she has a more pragmatic view of Europe. But economics and rapid decision-making are not her strongest suits. This year, she has been a rabbit in the headlights, advancing lame solutions to the euro crisis long after their efficacy has been overtaken by events. She has gained more public approval for pushing away Greek and Italian begging bowls. Germany has but one solution for Europe's ills: pay down your debts and cut your spending in the bad years of recession as we did during the good times. Her reward has been the substitution of technocratic governments in Athens and Rome for discredited but democratically elected politicians. Spain has passed a constitutional amendment to limit debt while the French are embracing austerity. "Suddenly Europe is speaking German," said the boastful Kauder. Merkel too has lapsed into the language of never again. Europe faces "its darkest hour since World War II", she told her CDU party last week. She added that no euro would mean the collapse of the EU. She's wrong: it's more likely to be the other way round. Perhaps she should be thinking of breaking up the euro to save the EU. Merkel fears the inflationary effect of bailing out the eurozone. Britain is in no position to carp. It has the highest inflation in Europe. Cameron's battle to save the European economy and save Britain's bacon will have to continue. German diplomacy, minus Herr Kauder, realises Britain is more useful in than out. Berlin, it is to be hoped, may rescue its partners at the very last, once it has forced them to reform. So much for never again. THE SUNDAY TIMESEU faces limits of 'never again'
Sunday, 20 November 2011
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