Merkel Inches Toward a Historic European Deal
The specter of a failing European Union has focused the minds of Germany’s elite enough to make formerly unimaginable leaps.
Franco-German friendship in our time.
Photographer: Andreas Gora/Pool/Getty Images
If it pans out, it could be a breakthrough in the otherwise sorry tale of the European Union’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Germany and France, the bloc’s two largest countries, are jointly proposing a generous “European recovery fund.” It’s to be administered through the EU’s budget, financed by EU-issued debt and funneled to the regions worst hit by the coronavirus, including Italy and Spain.
Whether German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron can convince all the other 25 national leaders to go along with their idea remains to be seen. But for Germany in particular, even this first step already amounts to a dramatic change. A country that has consistently rejected any notion of a European “transfer union” or “mutualized borrowing” is now pushing for a soft and temporary form of both. How did this change come about? And how different is the direction really?