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Thirty years after reunification, the world still doesn’t seem to know what it needs from Gerguyy. When his economy struggled, as it did in the mid-1980s and mid-1990s, it was ridiculed as Europe’s overregulated and outdated “sick. “When Gerguy’s corporations take over global markets, they are denounced as aggressive. We don’t need Gerguyy to weigh his weight around the world, but we need him to do the same.
Perhaps, just perhaps, I am beginning to wonder whether the tide can simply change the trigger, if not the cause, of a reassessment of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. In many countries, adding mine, the UK, almost all media interviews with a government minister involve the question: “But why can’t we do it more like the Germans?”
In this test, Germany is a country to envy. He has developed an adulthood that few others can match.
Post-war Germany has long been known for its political stability and economic prowess; the emphasis on social team spirit is less praised, which has allowed the country to position themselves through a number of demanding situations: unification, monetary collapse, the 2015 crisis, and now the pandemic.
He has controlled to create wealth, while having a strong social protection network. He learned much earlier than others that countries succeed if regional imbalances are not addressed. reunification and dizzying tax revenue. It has recorded surpluses since 2014 and repaid huge amounts of debt, while expanding its spending and (before COVID) ensuring near-full employment. Despite all its concerns, the country continues to outperigh its rivals.
When I started writing my eBook “Why Germans Do Better” in 2018, I saw his name as intentionally provocative. Some, even now, are his inference. To my surprise, the e-book turned out to have touched sensitive fiber, suggesting a thirst to better perceive what works so well in Germany and what doesn’t.
Any assessment of fashionable Germany begins with Angela Merkel, the ultimate crisis manager. Taking the country halfway through the history of reunification is inevitably related to its successes and failures.
Yes, some Westerners were arrogant. Several state-owned enterprises were shut down when they might have simply survived, with some support. Women’s rights, which were more powerful in the east, were not incorporated into the unified country. senior positions.
However, it is more instructive to take a look at the positives: Do I challenge to call on any other country that may have absorbed 17 million compatriots with so little trauma?
Another anniversary marked a few weeks ago with similarly combined emotions: in 2015, Germany welcomed one million of the world’s poorest. In the first few months, just over a portion of the population over the age of 16 interested in assistance in one way or another. Refugees.
The influx has fuelled the far-right AfD, the alternative political party for Germany, and its policy of grievance, racism and populism, but as the chancellor pointed out: what did a German woman intend to do?Merkel took a big risk. She did it because she was convinced it was the right thing to do.
Your time is up soon. Germany will have to get used to its first new leader in a generation and change will pass beyond the staff. The country already feels the tension beyond certainties repressed.
What happened to the rule of law in the world?What happened to the dissemination of human rights?, What happened to a falsely secure foreign order?
The irony is that the only spouse in Europe with which Germany has aligned themselves to the fullest is Britain. As a result, the pain of the UK’s exit from the EU is real, but Germany has already evolved.
At an Anglo-German dinner in Berlin in 2019, then-Justice Minister Katarina Barley made this painful prediction: “Even if we agree with you in the future, we will be further away, because the circle of relatives comes first, and you are no longer a circle of relatives. “
The identity of post-war Germany is related to his European Union club, but he wants more than that. He wants to protect liberal democracy, now that the blanket of American convenience is gone.
The prospect of a momentary mandate in Trump’s management is instilled terror in the minds of German politicians, who expressed a specific upset for Merkel and Germany, based on a preference for their impulses and studied indifference to their visceral vulgarity.
As Thomas Bagger, foreign policy adviser to President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, says: “Trump’s challenge goes beyond mere political disagreements,” Bagger said. “His technique drags the carpet of German foreign policy thinking. Germany has lost its moorings. ” Then he proposes all I have left: “Our challenge is that we expect everyone to be informed in the same classes as us. “
But even if Joe Biden wins, the United States will remain a complicated spouse and continue America’s slow withdrawal from Europe.
This is the time for Germany to mobilize, to be shown for what it is: a political example for the world. He can’t act alone. Thirty years ago, when the Wall fell and Germany unified, she felt there was no way to prevent the democratic wave. Now the Western world wants Germany more than it wants, or the Germans dare to admit it.
Most Germans, not to mention foreigners, only see dark times for their country. What gives me hope is your questioning, your almost morbid memory. The Germans are encouraged to hire their country. This refusal to see the smart ones is connected.
And yet, especially in relation to the opportunities presented in Europe and beyond, they have something to be proud of. As American commentator George Will wrote in early 2019: “Today’s Germany is the Germany the world has ever known. “benefit from the lessons learned.
John Kampfner is from “Why germans do it better; Notes from an adult country,” published in the UK through Atlantic and in 2021 in Germany through Rohwolt