Since the euro crisis erupted, many European governments have been overthrown. But as far as German Chancellor Angela Merkel is concerned, quite the opposite, her victory seems like a triumph.
Why is this behavior contrary to that of other European nations?
The Germans adore her because she practices a new kind of power politics in Europe: Merkiavelism—a combination of Machiavelli and Merkel.
“Is it better to be loved or feared?” Machiavelli pondered in The Prince. His answer is that “both would be ideal, but as it is difficult to reconcile the two, it is much safer to be feared than loved.”
Merkiavel applies this principle innovatively. Abroad, she must be feared, in Germany she wants to be loved—perhaps because she has taught some foreign countries to dread her.
Brutal neoliberalism outside the borders, consensus tinged with social democracy in Germany itself—this is the winning formula that has continually strengthened Merkiavel’s own position as well as Germany’s.
In all European countries, there are powerful eurosceptic or anti-European movements that echo the growing dissatisfaction of citizens. In their eyes, the austerity policies imposed on them by their governments are monstrous injustices. They cause them to lose their last glimmer of hope and trust in national and European political systems.
In this respect too, Germany is different: a rare consensus prevails there. The two opposition parties, the Social Democrats and the Greens, have undoubtedly contested certain points of Merkel’s austerity programs, but they have always voted with her in Parliament.
On the other hand, two of the parties that make up Merkel’s government, the Bavarian CSU (right) and the liberal FDP, are remarkably distant from their own government’s positions and much less enthusiastic about European engagement in rescuing Greece.
The result is that the German debate on the euro crisis has not sparked opposition in Parliament, thanks to the Chancellor’s middle-ground position.
But the euro crisis is reaching a critical stage, and Germany will have to make a historic decision. It must choose either to rekindle in the imagination of peoples the dream and poetry of a political Europe, or to adhere to a confused policy, using hesitation as a means of coercion.
Germany has become too powerful to afford the luxury of indecision and inactivity. Yet Germany proceeds like a sleepwalker. Or, as Jürgen Habermas puts it: “Germany does not dance, it slumbers.”
Angela Merkel remains in the chancellery for a third term, and even though there is no discussion of the timing of the decision, the context resulting from the elections will most likely favor moving to the next stage towards a European political union. It is more than likely indeed that we will witness a quiet shift towards a more European policy.
All things considered, position changes are the key element of Merkiavel’s policy. And saving the euro and Europe will score her a good point in the history books.
In various governments and in the corridors of Brussels, everyone is waiting to see in which direction Berlin will engage.
Let us hope it will be “ein anderes Europa” (another Europe), cosmopolitan, capable of defending its position in a world surrounded by perils, and not “eine Deutsche Bundesrepublik Europa — a Federal Republic of Germany in Europe.”
