The European Council on Foreign Relations

Euroland elections

Date: 10th May 2012  |  Author: Ulrike Guérot,

Categories: Germany in Europe, Reinventing Europe,

The interesting thing about living in the US is to experience a change in perspective. Here, Europe is often perceived as a united entity. In the Huffington Post for example there were several articles which reported last weeks’ elections in Europe – in France, Greece, Armenia, Serbia, Schleswig-Holstein, Italy - as if they were more or less all in the same “country” -  a country called 'Euroland'. Moreover, the differences between countries or the sort of elections – local, regional or national – seemed only minor details.

The New York Times focused more on the elections in France and Greece, but it also featured a piece on ‘elections in the Eurozone’. As always, the NYT also had a slightly ironical take on the elections, referring to the lusty nature of French politics.

Last week I had the chance to talk to an investment banker in New York City. We not only talked about the

Read more…

Did Merkel ever love Sarkozy? I don’t think so….

Date: 2nd May 2012  |  Author: Ulrike Guérot,

Categories: Germany in Europe,

The key debate among journalists these days is what will happen to ‘Merkozy’ if Hollande wins on Sunday - and most seem to agree that it would indeed be a drama for Europe. The Economist even thinks that Hollande would be dangerous for Europe.

I think the Economist got it wrong for the following reasons: Firstly, they tend to overlook how poor the reform balance of Nicholas Sarkozy actually is. Sarkozy wanted to shake things up in 2007 but ran out of steam after fiddling with the 35-hour work week and raising the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62.  His most recent move has been to reduce labour costs by cutting social insurance charges on payrolls and raising value-added tax on goods and services instead, as Paul Taylor pointed out a couple days ago.

But did Sarkozy reform the French economy in a convincing way? No he didn’t - if he did there wouldn’t be so much talk about it

1 commentsRead more…

Should Merkel be scared of Hollande?

Date: 19th April 2012  |  Author: Ulrike Guérot,

Categories: Germany in Europe,

Looking at some of the most radical notions in some speeches of François Hollande, who is now actively fishing in the basin of the French left, one could have a clear flash of ‘déjà-vu’, as it resembles pretty much François Mitterrands ideas back in 1981. Six weeks of vacation and retirement at 60 were already in vogue back then.

The nervousness seems to grow in Berlin because the French elections and their likely outcome – a French president called Hollande – would heavily impact German plans with respect to the next steps in the euro-crisis management, especially the vote and implementation of the fiscal compact and the ESM. The possibility of Sarkozy u-turning the devastating trend that has been unfolding against him in recent days is highly unlikely. Hence, Berlin is busy preparing a combined vote of the fiscal compact and the ESM in the Bundestag by the end of May. The aim is

2 commentsRead more…

Brits - why can’t you fly the European flag?

Date: 21st March 2012  |  Author: Ulrike Guérot,

Categories: Germany in Europe,

Last week, I attended the fantastic 62nd Königswinter Konferenz, the oldest and most distinguished German-British Forum for debate. Having been to many conferences I think the the best conferences always convey a message. This time the German participants had a clear message to the Brits – which can roughly be described with ‘more Europe now’ – but most British participants, not really knowing what they want, were sure that they didn’t want this one.

Large parts of the conference felt as if the UK-participants were mostly stuck in last years’ arguments, repeatedly stating that EMU was a mistake in the first place, that the Germans got the crisis management wrong and that there is still no ‘right’ bazooka-policy in place. Fixing the EMU - so some Brits with much excitement - would also require a European super-state and Germans would not want this, nor would they want a ‘transfer

1 commentsRead more…

How the battle for Europe is lost in Germany

Date: 20th March 2012  |  Author: Sebastian Dullien,

Categories: € View, Germany in Europe,

Over the past months, my ECFR colleague Ulrike Guérot and I had a lot of discussions on whether the euro could still be saved or not. However, many of our discussions focused not on economics, but on the question whether it was still possible to convince the German public that the euro is worth saving. In general, I have been more optimistic than Ulrike. I believe in the power of the intellectual argument - and in the benefits of the euro for Germany. It was clear to me that ultimately  the argument for the euro could and would be won.

This weekend, I had an experience which makes me wonder whether my optimism might not have been misplaced. For reasons beyond this blog, I had the opportunity to spend the past weekend with my wife and a couple of friends from Frankfurt in the Spanish town of Cádiz, where exactly 200 years ago the first Spanish constitution was promulgated (side

2 commentsRead more…