15 August 2013

Merkel's summer interview: National music to British ears

Having received only moderate attention in Germany, in Britain Merkel's summer interview was perceived as being a new direction in European policy that would seem to support PM Cameron's plans to return certain powers from Brussels to the nation states.

Two passages in the German Chancellor's summer interview last Tuesday made political London sit up and take notice. "More Europe is more than just the relocation of competence from a nation state to Europe", said Merkel, adding: "I can also have more Europe by engaging in stricter and more intense cooperation in my national actions with others".

As the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports, according to British interpretation, this is a diplomatic paraphrase of a demand that has been voiced by London for a long time: more selective cooperation between European governments with less concentration of power in Brussels. The Chancellor's phrase relating to the accumulation of competences in Brussels - "We can also consider: Do we give anything back again?" - has in particular been understood to echo the British government's position. 

Mats Persson, director of the London think tank 'OpenEurope', interpreted this as a breakthrough: "This is the first time that Ms Merkel - by far the most important politician in Europe - has so openly mentioned the back transfer of power from Brussels". Persson derives new scope for the UK from Merkel's announcement to talk about these issues already "after the parliamentary elections": "This autumn, Cameron has the first proper opportunity to promote EU reform", he said.

As reported by the Times, the British government plans to launch a debate on reform in the European Union in the autumn. At the centre of the debate would be social benefits for non-EU nationals, which Britain would like to be decided by the national governments again, said the Times article, with reference to government circles. Cameron's cabinet has apparently been accelerating its plans since it received signals of cooperation from Berlin.

In Berlin, reports the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, it was registered with astonishment that the Chancellor's statements could be interpreted as boosting the efforts of the British government to shift powers from Brussels back to the nation states. An official Chancellery spokesperson said that Merkel's statements on voluntary coordinations of individual Member States and the possibility of returning powers back from European authorities to the nation states did not represent a new position. Also, the Chancellor had not aimed her remarks at any specific policy area, but had only replied in a general fashion to the question of institutional visions for Europe. 

Still, for a German leader, hitherto seen as an arch-federalist, to talk openly about restoring powers to national governments is unprecedented and suggests that something is finally stirring in the eurozone’s undergrowth, writes the Telegraph. Speculating on what brought about this change of heart, the Telegraph lists David Cameron’s promise of a referendum on British membership as one of the factors. Another, which Merkel explicitly mentioned last week, was the crisis in the Netherlands. The third factor in Mrs Merkel’s calculus was an unfamiliar phenomenon: German euroscepticism.