germany

We had almost given up waiting for them, but then they came in a quasi-clandestine form. German Chancellor Angela Merkel did not announce her ideas for eurozone reform in a formal speech or in a statement before her peers. Rather, she allowed a quickly cobbled-together and telegraphic Franco-German non-paper to leak ahead of the recent meeting of European heads of state and government.

Germany used to be at the heart of European integration. Its statesmen used to assert that Germany had no independent foreign policy, only a European policy. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, its leaders realized that German reunification was possible only in the context of a united Europe, and they were willing to make some sacrifices to secure European acceptance. Germans would contribute a little more and take a little less than others, thereby facilitating agreement.