Nick Timothy
Only by understanding the aims of Europe’s leading nation will Theresa May make progress on a deal
In 1862, Otto von Bismarck told Disraeli of his plans to provoke a war and unify Germany’s independent states under Prussian leadership. Shocked by Bismarck’s frankness, the British prime minister warned Austria: “Take care of that man; he means what he says.” Disraeli’s warning foretold Germany’s unification, but it is also historic because it might be the last time a British prime minister immediately and accurately understood a German leader’s intentions.
To the British, Germany is deceptively familiar. It is a trading nation, whose people work hard, play football and drink beer – even if, sometimes, we find their directness rude, and they find our avoidance of confrontation dishonest. But it also remains a place of many paradoxes. As our politicians and diplomats negotiate Brexit, we need to understand them better, because Germany remains the EU’S most important decision-maker.
The first thing we must get our heads around is that the EU is not, as Nicholas Ridley put it, a German plot to “take over the whole of Europe”. The mundane truth is that Germany has no grand vision for the EU’S future. Instead, Berlin’s European policy tends to be reactive and, although many Germans deny this, it is always driven by Germany’s national interest. As a result it often ends up dictating policy to other member states.
It was not Germany that wanted the euro, for example, but France: it was a condition of President Mitterrand’s support for German reunification in 1990. Yet during the eurozone crisis it was Germany that refused to cancel Greece’s debts and imposed brutal austerity policies on Athens. The bailouts agreed – for Greece, Portugal and Ireland – covered the liabilities of German banks in those countries.
When eurozone countries plead for fiscal transfers to support their economies, Berlin’s response is always that solidarity must be earned: these countries must live, as Germany does, within their means. The Catch-22, however, is that if eurozone countries did so, there would be no need for fiscal transfers in the first place. In fact it is doubtful that Berlin really wants others to become like Germany, because its export model relies on their high spending.
This belief that others should pull themselves up by their bootstraps is connected to Germany’s post-war story. But the Wirtschaftswunder, or economic miracle, was down to more than hard work. It was made possible by the exchange rate set as the Deutsche Mark was introduced: savers lost almost everything, but businesses and investors were protected. More importantly, the Wirtschaftswunder would not have happened without the Marshall Plan, debt relief, and incentives agreed at the 1952 London Debt Conference for the Allies to import German goods.
What is true with economics is true of defence and foreign policy. Germany has no desire to develop a military capability that it can project around the world. In 2001, Gerhard Schröder almost lost a confidence vote for sending troops to Afghanistan even though they were engaged only in reconstruction projects in peaceful parts of the country.
Berlin realises that it must do more to contribute to Europe’s security, and its defence budget is increasing. It is inconceivable that Germany will build up, and deploy, a significant military capability without doing so under the auspices of an EU project. Yet as the eurozone experience shows, he who pays the piper calls the tune: a European army could see German ministers taking decisions about the deployment of forces more powerful than Germany itself could muster.
The paradoxes continue. Germany has, for example, the most ethnic definition of nationality in Europe: it is determined by ancestry, not birthplace. Yet, against the wishes of the rest of the EU, it exacerbated the migration crisis by inviting hundreds of thousands of refugees to Germany. Perhaps this is because many German families have their own refugee story: after the war more than 12 million Germans were expelled from East Prussia, Poland, Czechoslovakia and elsewhere, and made to move westward.
All this proves that Germany’s reputation as Europe’s “reluctant hegemon” is well deserved. Its recent history has caused it to bury its national identity within the EU project. Yet inside the EU, Berlin pursues its national interest more aggressively and more effectively than any other member state.
Theresa May will know this as she sits down for dinner with Angela Merkel at the European Council tonight. She also knows she needs a plan to negotiate Brexit in a way that does not undermine German interests. Those are, in order: to protect the eurozone, maintain the integrity of the EU, defend Europe from security threats, and improve trade. Instead of letting Brexit jeopardise these aims, Britain must find ways of helping Germany to achieve them. In the Europe of today, the key to getting anything done is simple but difficult to achieve: align your aims with the interests of the EU’S complicated and reluctant hegemon.