Merkel's Stubborn March of Folly

Short of a head guillotined into a basket, change puts no letter of official confirmation in the mail. All the same, this assertion:

Last week, when Angela Merkel’s government was preparing position papers on how to insert prospects of growth into Germany’s bleak covenant for resolving the European Union’s debt crisis via massive economic and financial constraints, it signaled the dilution of Europe’s strongest swig of unchallenged German leadership since World War II.

A single, inflexible and fairly unpalatable German idea that the European Union’s salvation lay alone in making Lisbon function like Ludwigshafen has had its day. In February, Merkel rejected joining 12 of Germany’s E.U. partners — among them, the Netherlands and Finland, two of Berlin’s most ascetic allies — in calling for immediate steps to bring growth and hope into to Europe’s plan for the future.

Now, a Germany that since 2009 either ignored or dismissed admonitions to change its template for prosperity and spread the wealth by increasing domestic demand has started to make conciliatory noises about wage increases and accepting higher inflation.

In the process, the country will remain Europe’s incontrovertible, essential player. But the un-saleable realities of German leadership that offered only its diminished political and economic example became liabilities to most of its partners. Think of Merkel’s succession of major regional election defeats and the dim projections of future German economic growth. (No eagle in flight, it will run at 1.5 percent or less over the next decade, according to the O.E.C.D.)

Europe’s voters to Europe’s leaders over the past two months: Psst, you won’t win elections or stay in power with only austerity on offer.

In the Netherlands, the conservative government exploded in April. In spite of its affinities for the German method, the government could not persuade a parliamentary ally to make the plan’s required spending cuts. The Dutch found they could swallow the notion of German hegemony, but not its stipulations.

In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy hewed to the German line, saying its rigor was the only way France could regain competitiveness, an argument that never took hold with voters. François Hollande’s election victory not only represented the rejection of Sarkozy’s personality, but also a refusal of any notion of German infallibility, as well as a condemnation of German unwillingness to consider stimulus measures, or to share the E.U.’s debt dilemma through the creation of euro bonds.

More: Greece’s relapse into deepening fragility underscored the absence of — and current need for — what former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt had called Germany’s obligation to show “some heart.”

A staff report in February for Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle caught gusts of resistance to Germany’s approach. It said of its E.U. neighbors: “We must deal with their fears of hegemonic Germany acting only in its own interests. We must ensure that our solidarity goes out to those who are most severely affected by the crisis.”

But that didn’t happen. While Hollande himself has avoided any plan for a painful structural reform of his country’s labor market, the new French leader has gained stature in Europe as an austerity-resister and growth-advocate.

John Kornblum, a U.S. ambassador to Germany under Bill Clinton, marked this change away from the German Moment. “Germany is not the automatic European leader any more,” he said. “Ms. Merkel’s Germany chose its own stability and rules over a generosity of spirit.”

I think she also made a series of great mistakes in judgment that have coalesced into a mosaic reflecting Europe’s ongoing grief. If leadership involves bits of bravery, vision, empathy and reliability, her image now is not of Wonder Woman but a garble of politics and inadequate instincts concerning her country’s new responsibilities.

Last year, Merkel announced that Germany was abandoning nuclear power, apparently because she thought it would win an ultimately lost regional election. Her decision came to the amazement of her European partners and the rage of the German industrial world.

Now, while Germany is increasingly dependent on Russia for energy supply, a planned domestic energy reconstruction program of vast size is shapeless and disorganized to the point that friends of the chancellor call it her Achilles’ heel for re-election in 2013.

This week, Merkel is to receive President Vladimir Putin in Berlin. With full military honors? Maybe.

Will she deplore the fact that Russia is now warning that it could attack U.S. and NATO missile defense systems if they are stationed in Europe? No.

Extrapolated on to her nonvision of the world, you get a chancellor who seems to take a stand on nothing further than what will keep her in office next year. In the process, she has failed to create enough confidence to make believable a European future that somehow combines consolidation and growth.

Weak on generosity or getting things done, and without a hint of new self-awareness, Merkel has marked her country’s first shot at 21st century leadership with less competence and solid instinct than good history allows.