Germany
Why the Franco-German engine that powered the EU is now almost kaput
As they confront a marauding Trump, trade tensions with China and their own upheavals, the bloc’s two biggest countries are at a crossroads
“When France and Germany advance, all Europe advances. When they don’t, it grinds to a halt” was how former French president Jacques Chirac put it almost a quarter of a century ago at one of the periodic love-ins between the EU’s two biggest member states.
So what would Chirac, who died in 2019, make of the current condition of the famed Franco-German engine which, since the bloc’s inception, has powered so much of the postwar European project? It looks not so much faltering as comprehensively bust.
Emmanuel Macron on Friday appointed a new prime minister, his loyal centrist ally François Bayrou, who becomes France’s fourth premier this year and will have the daunting task of trying to assemble a stable government after the collapse last week of the country’s shortest-lived administration since 1958.
Meanwhile France’s public-sector deficit is on track to exceed 6.1% of GDP this year, more than double the eurozone limit; public debt is 110% of GDP and rising; and the bond markets this month rated France as marginally less creditworthy than Greece.
In Germany, the fractious centre left-led coalition in power for the past three years collapsed last month under the weight of its own ideological contradictions and the pressure of multiple crises triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Whoever becomes chancellor after the 23 February elections will have to tackle the world’s worst-performing big economy beset by high energy and labour costs as well as bureaucracy, crumbling infrastructure and plodding digital expansion.
The slowdown with key trade partner China has also dealt a blow to German exports, a traditional strength, while the all-important car industry has been slow to develop attractive electric vehicles (EVs) and now faces the threat of swingeing US tariffs under Donald Trump.
With France unable to hold fresh parliamentary elections until July and Germany possibly without a new government until June, the political febrility at the top of the EU’s two most influential countries will inevitably hobble EU decision-making.
Paris and Berlin are seen as the EU’s core power axis, driving policy and defining the main contours of its agenda. With both capitals unable to make big policy decisions for want of strong, stable governments, the bloc faces potentially months in the mire.
The two powerhouses’ parallel economic and fiscal woes will also weigh heavily on the EU. Some analysts believe the bloc’s two largest economies – accounting for 41% of the 27-member EU’s entire GDP – would both contract economically in 2025.
The timing could not be worse, with Europe facing the return of America-first policies under Trump’s second presidency.
German industry (in particular) in crisis.
Quite how it came to this is not too hard to understand. Figuring out how France and Germany might be able to pull themselves out of their ongoing political and economic doom spirals, however, is not so easy.
To get young people interested in the arts, Germany is giving the gift of Culture to its 18 year olds.
World Economic Forum -Un exemple à suivre pour le bien de toute société…
Germany still a ‘teenager’ in leading foreign security policy, says Scholz aide
Wolfgang Schmidt asks for patience from allies urging his country to head efforts to support Ukraine.
Germany is still a “teenager” when it comes to foreign security policy, its chancellor Olaf Scholz’s chief of staff has said, asking for patience from western allies urging Europe’s largest economy to take a more proactive leadership in its support of Ukraine.
“We are getting into a situation that Americans have known for decades: people want us to lead,” said Wolfgang Schmidt, a longstanding ally of Scholz who also serves as the political point of contact for the country’s intelligence agencies.
“We are in the teenager years in that role,” he said, responding to criticism that Berlin has been slow to live up to the Zeitenwende or “epochal turn” on military and foreign policy Scholz had declared in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
US sanctions against Germany: How dangerous is Nord Stream 2?
The US is threatening Germany with crushing sanctions if it continues with the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. How bad are relations between the two sides?
Confederations Cup: Germany reach semi-final after video replay confusion
The world champions, Germany, reached the Confederations Cup semi-final on Sunday with a 3-1 victory over a Cameroon side reduced to 10 men after further confusion with experimental video replays.
Germany were leading through Kerem Demirbay’s strike when a case of mistaken identity halfway through the second half – which replays were meant to eradicate – left Cameroon bemused and irritated.
Sebastien Siani was dismissed for a foul on Emre Can after referee Wilmar Roldan inspected a pitch-side monitor. It then took furious protests from the Cameroon players, including Siani sarcastically applauding Roldan, for the Colombian to check the monitor again and discover he had sent off the wrong player. Siani was called back and Ernest Mabouka was correctly sent off.
Causes of World War II: History of Germany & German Militarism
This film (originally titled as ‘Here is Germany’) is a 1945 American propaganda documentary film directed by Frank Capra and produced by the U.S. Office of War Information. It was made to prepare soldiers who had not seen combat to go to Germany for the U.S. occupation after the May 8, 1945 unconditional German surrender. It explains why the Germans started World War 2 and what had to be done to keep them from « doing it again ».
The film gives us a brief history of Germany and German militarism till 1939. It traces the rise of Prussia from Frederick the Great through Bismarck, telling the audience that the Prussian state was organized as an instrument of conquest, dominated first by aristocratic landowners, militarists and state officials, later joined by those big industrialists with ties to the militarists and their Imperial Government. The development of a military-industrial dominated state in the founding of the Prussian-dominated German Empire in 1870 climaxes in the catastrophe of World War 1. The film depicts the Third Reich from this perspective, seeing Nazism as simply a continuation of the aggressive German tradition, promoted by the businesses dependent on government contracts for arms. Lire la suite »
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