FT.com / Comment & analysis / Editorial comment - Germany’s chancellor is showing a sure touch in Europe

FT.com / Comment & analysis / Editorial comment - Germany’s chancellor is showing a sure touch in Europe


Germany’s chancellor is showing a sure touch in Europe

Published: March 6 2007 22:04 Last updated: March 6 2007 22:04

When Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, took over the chair of the European Council on January 1, she was anxious not to raise any exaggerated expectations about what she could achieve in the six-month presidency of the European Union. She was also determined to give some sense of purpose back to the EU, after nearly two years of “pausing for reflection” following the Dutch and French No votes to the EU constitutional treaty.

It is still early days to reach a judgment, but partly through luck and partly through sensible pragmatism, the chancellor seems to be getting her way, and presiding over a distinct lightening of Europe’s recent gloom.

This week’s EU spring summit in Brussels looks like being a more productive occasion than in previous years. In addition to taking the temperature of the European economy, and its progress with structural reform, the meeting is likely to make some brave decisions about reducing greenhouse gases, to slow down the pace of global warming. If Mrs Merkel can persuade her fellow leaders to do that, she will have made a very good start on the process of getting global agreement on a post-Kyoto accord in the Group of Eight industrialised nations, whose summit she also chairs in the summer.

One essential element in the improved European atmosphere is the pick-up in economic performance, with Germany itself making a vital contribution. Growth of gross domestic product in the eurozone last year topped 3 per cent, and unemployment declined to an average 7.5 per cent. Germany’s own growth rate of 2.7 per cent may not be stellar in global terms, but it was the most improved member of the zone, and it is once again performing its essential role of locomotive for the rest of the European economy.

Some tough bargaining remains to be done to persuade all 27 EU members to agree on binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, backed up by a firm commitment to raise renewable energy production to 20 per cent of the total by the same date. Other difficult decisions, including energy market liberalisation, are being postponed. There are deep differences between EU members on the future role of nuclear energy: Mrs Merkel’s own government is split down the middle on that score. But a clear decision on climate change will be an important signal.

Will it help the chancellor to crack the other tough nut of her EU presidency – to get the constitutional reform process back on track? She wants to save as much of the becalmed constitutional treaty as possible. Others, including Britain’s Tony Blair and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, front­runner in the French presidential election, want something much more modest.

Mrs Merkel has already shown that she can be pragmatic. She wants an outcome, not a trainwreck. She is demonstrating the power of quiet persuasion; a vital European quality.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007