Angela Merkel's chances of carving out EU future

In mid-March, when the coronary virus was rapidly spreading to Europe, Angela Merkel insisted that this was the biggest challenge the EU has ever faced. Now that member states are opening borders and removing restrictions, everything has focused on economic recovery. If there is a suitable place to launch fiscal co-operation, much needed for stabilising Europe, this is Chancellor Angela Merkel's Germany.

It may sound paradoxical, for Berlin has so far rejected any proposal to unify debts and dangers between the wild north and the member states that cannot cope with the crisis itself.

Germany has managed the crisis well so far

Europe's largest economy has turned out relatively well, but with losses in its first battle with COVID-19: economists estimate Germany's Brto Interior Production will be reduced by 6.6 per cent, while Italy and Spain estimate more than 11 per cent. Why, then, associate her wealth with these places?

Germany has to do this because these assets are now inseparably linked to Europe's unfinished Union. What makes this country so appropriate to reach a comprehensive reform agreement, not prosperity, but opening: Germany's economy depends on exports, and nearly 70 per cent of trade does so with the rest of Europe. When Spain or Italy cough, Germany trembles.

A Crisis Presidency

In May, Germany brought down its initial goals and realised that a “expectations in time of Corleone” is essential.

And since, for years, she kept French President Emmanuel Macron away, Merkel is now working with him to restore the rusty Franco-German engine. When the two announced the 500 billion-euro rescue fund plan, she acknowledged that this was an unusual <x0-step” and said: “We must act as Europeans to get well and strengthen by this” crisis.

Proposal of the two politicians to finance the fund by allowing the EU Commission to enter into debt in financial markets is not only unusual, but a previous step by then unimaginable towards communitarian debt. German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz recalled the progress that brought fiscal integration to the US in 1790, following US Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton's initiative, where he allowed the government in Washington to take over debts that the states had entered due to Revolutionary War.

The EU Commission later announced its economic programme based on the Macron-Merkel plan. There have been many discussions since then whether all of this can really lead to a “monian hammonian thermox1>. Skeptics from both sides say the initiative is far from a real financial union.

Why is it now the right time?

Merkel says the right things, but can we really expect a bold move by this politician who has been so reluctant so far?

The answer is yes, for three reasons. First, the gap between the northern and south member states is deepening to the point that it is putting the European Union at risk.

Second, circumstances are promising. The German Chancellor's political capital has never been higher. Germany's management of the coronary crisis has increased trust in the government in general and in Merkel in particular. As the president of the Council, the Chancellor will work with her confidence for years, Commission Chairman Ursula von der Leyeen.

Third, this is the most important point: time is appropriate. While she is preparing to withdraw from politics, Merkel has a last chance to form her heritage and rewrite the previous EU environment balance. 70 years after French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman entered history proposing that he jointly manage the production of French and German coals and steel, the Chancellor may continue Schuman's vision at the next level. “Europe will not be created all at once or under a single plan,” said Schuman in May 1950. “It will be built through concrete achievements”.