Berlin is justifiably wary of this regime, as France and Italy have long planned to put their spending on Germany’s credit card. However, Mr Macron is also right that the euro cannot survive in the long term without fiscal integration. There is nothing new about German unilateralism in EU affairs. The violation of EU energy law (with the connivance of Brussels) is what allowed Gazprom to gain a lock on the continent. The Eurozone’s Lost Decade was actually a story of northern creditor powers seizing EU institutions to serve as debt collectors, all camouflaged by a false moral tale about rogue Greeks and Latins. It is not Brexit that poses the biggest threat to EU cohesion, nor far-right populist parties. The threat that matters is the eternal temptation of the German Sonderweg, this time expressed in twinning with dictatorships bent on destroying the West. In geopolitics, as in life, you have to choose where you stand. Chancellor Merkel tried to have her cake and eat it over Russian energy, figuring Germany could secure Putin’s gas at sweet prices and undercut industrial rivals in Europe, even as it enjoyed its advantages market of the EU and the US military shield. She got away with it but left the ticking time bomb to her successor. Chancellor Scholz now reckons that Germany can secure Chinese markets and economic cooperation on preferential terms – bowing to every political demand – while still reaping all the benefits of the Western democratic club. One can understand why some in Germany believe that their country is under existential economic threat as the 20th century industrial model suddenly unravels, and therefore that compromises must be made. But a Faustian deal with Xi Jinping is no solution. A third German way that mocks the cowboy’s “detachment” is an illusion. There is no stable middle ground as America and Communist China battle for cultural supremacy. Mr Scholz might be interested to read the 60 page report by his own very well informed ministers, officials and intelligence agents. Germany is either with the West or with the anti-West. He cannot cross the two for long.
