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Germany, as the current EU president, doesn’t seem to really care about the rule of law issues in Hungary and Poland, the first half of a dozen major political and economic issues that the German leadership has to deal with, Brexit alone. came to last place.
On the face of it, perhaps the biggest issue for the European Union is dealing with Brexit, but Germany, which holds the union’s rotating presidency, is far from number one, says Gideon Rachman, a publicist for the Financial Times. According to him, this is only the fourth most important issue for Berlin’s leaders to tackle, but a German diplomat believes it will only fit into the first half dozen.
This also means that the rule of law issue of greatest concern to Polish and Hungarian leaders, which links the transfer of EU aid to the rule of law, is not among the important issues. Of course, this is not safe either.
At the top of the files on Angela Merkel’s desk is a conflict with Russia over the Navalny affair. It covers the treatment of the coronavirus epidemic, followed by a dispute in the Mediterranean between Turkey and Greece (in which other countries have also been involved). The US presidential election, which is at stake whether or not the friendship between the EU and the United States will be restored with the possible defeat of Donald Trump, has slipped from the podium. The fifth major concern is the hostility of the China-EU relationship and the sixth is Brexit, which, from the German point of view, is at stake to protect the Union’s single market from slack.
Navalny in Germany
Alexei Navalny, the leader of the Russian opposition, is admitted to a hospital in Germany less than two kilometers from the chancellery after being poisoned by a poison called Novics according to German, Swedish and French investigations. The transfer of the politician from Russia was a humanitarian gesture on the part of the Germans, but it provoked an angry reaction in Moscow: German diplomats believe that the Russians did not expect him to survive the poisoning.
Merkel tried to leave open the possibility of keeping in touch with President Vladimir Putin, but now she was not trying to soften the edge of the conflict, since he himself had announced that Navalny had been poisoned according to an investigation by German scientists. It is easy to imagine that the case will lead to the postponement of the commissioning of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, despite the fact that it supported this project despite increased pressure to the contrary, from the United States, Poland and Slovakia. Furthermore, the Germans and the EU are sensitive to the Kremlin’s response to the anti-regime insurgency in Belarus.
Hostile superpowers
Beyond the borders of Europe, German diplomacy sees hostile great powers. As one Berlin official put it: Moscow, Beijing and Washington agree on one thing: they want to divide Europe. While China-Germany relations have deteriorated, the latter is Asia’s largest trading partner. In addition, Beijing’s cooperation in climate protection must be won, as while the EU declares war on coal-fired power generation, coal-fired power plants are still opening in China. Furthermore, the problem of serious human rights abuses against the Muslim minority in China must be addressed in some way, and the British-Chinese agreement guaranteeing Hong Kong’s independence has been de facto suspended.
Germany has the highest turnout in US presidential elections in Europe. If Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden wins, the Western federal system that has guaranteed the country’s security for 70 years can be rebuilt. If Donald Trump, the Republican incumbent, remains, relations between Washington and Brussels and Berlin are expected to become even more hostile.
Angela Merkel is particularly concerned about the German-Turkish relationship, as the reception of Syrian refugees from Turkey eroded her authority in 2015, which she was only able to regain with good management of the crown crisis. Berlin mediates between Athens and Ankara the geopolitical tensions in the eastern Mediterranean basin, the direct cause of which is the controversy surrounding the ownership of the subsea gas fields located there.
European unity
The fact that the Polish-Hungarian issue is perhaps more significant than it appears suggests that German diplomacy in this hostile environment has repeatedly opened a gap in the importance of European unity. In a world where European countries are threatened by the horrors of disputed superpowers, health crises and environmental disasters, Berlin leaders say they can only defend their interests together. The protection of the European single market is not simply an economic issue, but also a security issue.
This provides a background for your relationship with Brexit. From the German point of view, trade talks between the UK and the EU must not put a hole in the single market. The British cannot get duty and quota waivers if they do not adhere to EU state aid rules and controls on cross-border goods. It is also a question of trust: if British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is ready to put the Brexit deal in motion, which he himself signed at the end of last year, what can the EU expect from a deal with his government? – The poetic question is asked by the FT publicist.
Yet this message is carried silently, silently, to London. Instead of the legendary cold-blooded Englishman, we see hysteria and shortsighted behavior in British domestic politics, while now Germans are witnessing the ability to think globally and remain calm in debates. Regarding the launch of the EU-UK deal, the loudest expression heard by the author of the FT article in the German capital was that it caused confusion in relations.
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