Merkel’s tough tactics prompt criticism in Germany and abroad

July 15, 2015 4:51 pm / http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d533aa6e-2afe-11e5-8613-e7aedbb7bdb7.html#axzz3g1Ax7qnW

Merkel’s tough tactics prompt criticism in Germany and abroad

Stefan Wagstyl in Berlin

While the chancellor enjoys the strong support of her conservative CDU/CSU party — and much of the public — her tough behaviour at a marathon eurozone Brussels summit that ran through the night into Monday morning has provoked critics at home and abroad to accuse her of intimidating Greece and humiliating its leader.

To some, she has even committed the ultimate crime in postwar German foreign policy: jeopardising the country’s commitment to European unity.

“Germany has made a historic mistake. For the first time in 60 years Germany has demanded less Europe rather than more,” says Sven-Christian Kindler, the opposition Green party’s budget spokesman.

Such accusations are not new to the 62-year-old chancellor, who has long tried to run Europe out of Berlin, sometimes sidelining allies and European institutions. But the intensity of the attacks on her position as Europe’s dominant leader has reached unprecedented levels.

Spiegel, a centre-left magazine often critical of Ms Merkel, said in an online comment: “The German government destroyed seven decades of postwar diplomacy on a single weekend.”

The liberal Süddeutsche newspaper headlined a report about Ms Merkel: “Europe’s new enemy.”

German media have also reported the extensive foreign criticism of Berlin, notably the Italian prime minister’s call for an end to humiliating Greece: “Germany I say to you: enough is enough.”

In Berlin, the view is that far from undermining eurozone unity, Germany is defending it by upholding the rules and assisting a recalcitrant member with a rescue package of more than €86bn. The government takes comfort from the fact that in the finance ministers’ meeting before the leaders’ summit, 15 of Greece’s 18 eurozone partners stood together in demanding tougher terms than those proposed last week by Greece. Only France, Italy and Cyprus said the Greek plan was sufficient for starting formal negotiations.

The chancellor will also be pleased with the public support shown in opinion polls this week. In an ARD television poll, 57 per cent backed the rescue plan. Only 13 per cent said it went too far in squeezing concessions out of Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras; a full 22 per cent said it should have gone further.

Ms Merkel is certain to win Friday’s vote, with the backing of the bulk of her own bloc and other parties. But she may not escape unscathed. She faces a rare revolt of sceptical CDU/CSU MPs who see the Greek programme as a waste of money.

Bild, the conservative top-selling tabloid, agrees, saying on Wednesday that the cost of preventing Grexit — a Greek exit from the eurozone — was “far too high”.

MPs estimate there could be 50-70 CDU/CSU rebels, about double the 29 who opposed the government in the last Greece rescue vote in February. Without the tough terms Ms Merkel secured, they say it could have been 100 out of the 311 bloc members.

While the protesters pose no threat to the result in the 630-member chamber, they could dent the chancellor’s Teflon-coated reputation. They could also influence Berlin’s stance in the forthcoming negotiations: Friday’s vote is only on authorising talks. The fear of an even bigger rebellion, when MPs later vote on the package itself, could toughen the chancellor’s position.

Wolfgang Schäuble, her hawkish finance minister, still seems to favour the temporary Grexit he proposed in Brussels. “There are many people, including in the federal government, who are quite convinced that in the interests of Greece and the Greek people what we wrote down would have been much the better solution,” he said on Tuesday.

In depth

Even politically neutral German analysts are concerned about the damage that Berlin’s unaccustomed toughness has done to its reputation in Europe.

“I am quite appalled at the intensity of the anger,” said Constanze Stelzenmueller, a fellow at Brookings Institution, the US think-tank. “We have to do better than this. We are talking [to our European partners] like we are talking to our own backbenchers.”

Of particular concern is the harm to the Franco-German relationship, the EU’s axis, with a vivid gap emerging between Ms Merkel’s push for firm rules and French president François Hollande’s calls for solidarity. The two leaders, who strain to present an image of European unity, often found themselves on opposite sides of the table in Brussels, with Ms Merkel maintaining a tough line against Greece and Mr Hollande pleading for leniency.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper expressed regret that “German Europe policy has as a result of the heightening of the Greece crisis become more German, and the French more French”.