[ad_1]
German Chancellor
Olaf Scholz
promised in February to overhaul his country in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Six months after this Zeitenwende—turning point—it’s going better than many expected even if worse than some hoped.
Mr. Scholz announced three transformations in his startling speech to lawmakers on Feb. 27, three days after
Vladimir Putin’s
Ukraine invasion started. First, Berlin would reinvest in its military to meet the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s goal of spending 2% of gross domestic product on defense, and specifically would use it to upgrade equipment such as fighter jets. Second, Germany would treat energy policy as a national-security matter and wean itself off Russian natural gas. Third, Berlin no longer would pursue mindless diplomacy for diplomacy’s sake, especially with the world’s autocrats.
As substantial as those pledges were, enacting them would require much larger shifts in German public, business and political culture. Building voter support for such radical changes necessitates a wholesale reappraisal of Germany’s interests and its role in the world. Surprisingly, Germany has begun to undertake it.
The most important development is something that hasn’t occurred. Skyrocketing energy prices as a result of Russian energy blackmail and the prospect of a cold, dark winter aren’t inducing Germans to ask if the fuss over Ukraine is worth the misery. Some 70% of respondents to a poll last month for public broadcaster ZDF said Germany should continue supporting Ukraine. This support could wane when winter hits, but credit Mr. Putin for making this less likely.
The catalyzing moment was the release in early April of stomach-turning photographs depicting Russian atrocities in the town of Bucha. The arrival of war on European soil, followed by graphic evidence of the conflict’s brutality, appears to have stirred German voters to make new cost-benefit calculations about their role in the world.
As part of that, Germany seems to be seriously re-evaluating how it weighs its commercial interests. Energy dependence on Russia isn’t the half of it. Fuel aside, Germany’s commercial relationship with Russia isn’t substantial. Imposing sanctions on Moscow still hurt Germany economically, but at a mere €26.6 billion last year, German exports to Russia equaled its shipments to Sweden.
The bigger question involves China, which accounts for €104 billion in annual exports and €142 billion of imports. Here it’s starting to look as if the Ukraine invasion has flipped a conceptual switch in Germany about bargaining with autocrats.
For decades, Germany viewed trade as a diplomatic tool under the rubric Wandel durch Handel—“change through trade.” Increasingly, however, there’s an awareness that trade can become a strategic vulnerability if companies and politicians are careless. There is no appetite to withdraw immediately from China, nor should there be. But Germans are beginning to understand that they have to prepare now to walk away, rather than be surprised later, in case events demand it—such as a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
As for the politics, a conspicuous feature of Mr. Scholz’s turning point is how absent the chancellor has been. He wasn’t elected last year to be a wartime leader, and he hasn’t grown into one. His consensus-driven lead-from-behind style has left a vacuum where a chancellor should be. He’s missing from major policy debates, especially on energy and the future of the country’s controversial remaining nuclear power plants, leaving Berlin without a helmsman.
Then again, so strong is the cultural and economic wind sweeping Germany that a political transformation is under way even without leadership. The two most popular politicians in Mr. Scholz’s unwieldy coalition government also happen to be the most hawkish on Russia, China and other foreign matters—Foreign Minister
Annalena Baerbock
and Economic Affairs and Climate Action Minister
Robert Habeck,
both of the Green Party. Mr. Habeck’s enduring approval rating is a remarkable feat given that to him falls the wretched task of explaining to voters how a shortage of Russian energy will immiserate everyone this winter.
It helps that voters have been treated to a series of enlightening scandals involving Russian influence in Germany’s politics. This includes renewed palaver over former Chancellor
Gerhard Schröder’s
business ties to the Kremlin and a funding scandal concerning alleged links between the Russian owners of the Nord Stream 2 natural-gas pipeline and the government of the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. New policy questions are up for debate, too, such as whether Germany should frack its own shale gas at long last.
Meanwhile, the opposition Christian Democratic Union has decided there’s political profit in ditching the legacy of former Chancellor
Angela Merkel,
who was responsible for many of the disastrous economic, energy and foreign policies that are now falling apart. Under its new leader,
Friedrich Merz,
the CDU has reverted to its traditional hawkishness. Mr. Merz was particularly aggressive in insisting that Mr. Scholz’s stepped-up military budget be spent on military equipment rather than soft-power follies such as foreign aid. Voters are responding favorably. The CDU now frequently leads Mr. Scholz’s Social Democrats in opinion polls, and by expanding margins.
Mr. Scholz almost certainly didn’t anticipate the forces he set in motion on Feb. 27—many of which may now be irreversible, and some of which endanger his political future. No matter. He promised a turning point, and that’s what Germany is getting, even if it will take years to know exactly what form the turn has finally taken.
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
[ad_2]
Source link
(This article is generated through the syndicated feeds, Financetin doesn’t own any part of this article)
