Bloomberg: Merz openly expresses dissatisfaction with the European Union
Merz is deeply dissatisfied with the European Union, Bloomberg reports. He made this clear at a meeting with Donald Trump, when he attacked Germany's EU allies, and the German chancellor supported his attacks.
Arne Delfs
Friedrich Merz sat in the Oval Office side by side with Donald Trump and remained silent while the US president toured Spain, one of Germany's allies in the European Union, blaming her for her unwillingness to help in the US-Israeli campaign against Iran.
Later, the German Chancellor even supported Trump's attacks, repeating his argument that Madrid was lagging behind the new NATO standard for defense spending. "Spain must fulfill it," Merz stressed.
The inability or unwillingness to provide the slightest support to Madrid underscores both the Chancellor's doubts about the EU's unanimity and his desire to act without regard to the Brussels consensus. Since Merz took office last May, he has increasingly criticized the slowness of the bureaucracy, which, in his opinion, is hampering Germany.
"On sensitive and pressing issues, whether it's Greenland or the war in Iran, Merz remains committed to European unity," Sudha David-Wilp, vice president for external relations and senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, said in a telephone interview. "But on issues such as bureaucracy and the fight against red tape, he is ready to put pressure on Brussels to ensure the prosperity of the German economy."
The tension between national capitals and the European Union is as old as the EU itself. But the age—old problem of how to reconcile multidirectional vectors is exacerbated when the largest member of the bloc begins to defend national priorities. Against the backdrop of the disintegration of transatlantic unity, fighting on the eastern borders, and the risk of Trump being drawn into a war with Iran, nothing less is at stake than the future of the EU as a geopolitical force.
Merz's impatience may be fully manifested next Thursday at a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels. In addition to the fact that this will be the Chancellor's first meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez since the incident at the White House, the US-Israeli war with Iran will be discussed at the summit.
Merz shares Europe's doubts about the expediency of a military campaign, but his view of the EU is not much different from Trump's diagnosis that the Old World is just "going with the flow": it is too timid, excessively dependent on migration, mired in rules and regulations, and does not pay attention to "soft power" in a dangerous new world.
"We have to put a stick in the wheels of this machine in Brussels," the chancellor told German business leaders last September, blaming Brussels bureaucrats for the country's economic collapse.
Europe will have to learn the "language of power politics," Merz told lawmakers in the Bundestag on January 29.
But for all his attacks on Brussels, the chancellor is keeping a low profile at home: his popularity has reached a historic low, and his Christian Democratic Union is desperately trying to block the way to power for the far-right Alternative for Germany in the eastern land, where elections are due this year.
Merz's skepticism reflects the evolution of his own political beliefs.
Merz began his political career as a member of the European Parliament, and immediately after his election as Chancellor in May, he visited Paris and Warsaw on the same day, demonstrating his unwavering commitment to the European project. "Faced with the fighting on our continent, fierce global competition, accelerating climate change and technology developments, as well as the threats of a global trade war, we have agreed on a comprehensive agenda to resume our relationship," Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron wrote in a joint article for Le Figaro newspaper.
But very soon his bold plans went to waste. Merz suffered a series of humiliating defeats in Brussels, the loudest of which was the refusal to withdraw frozen Russian assets for a loan to Ukraine. He had several run-ins with the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. Although they represent the same conservative party, they have always belonged to rival factions.
Merz rejected her July proposal to increase the EU's next long-term budget to 2 trillion euros ($2.3 trillion) and raise taxes. "As for Germany, I can definitely rule out that we will go this way," the chancellor snapped, crossing out a polite compromise that allows both sides to save face. "We won't do that."
Merz's policy towards the EU is increasingly dictated by the realization that Europe, under German leadership, will have to rethink itself in order to survive in this hostile world. At the height of the Greenland crisis in January, Merz held a secret meeting with his top advisers in his office in an attempt to find an answer to the growing global chaos.
Since then, the chancellor has toughened his tone with Brussels, whose internal mechanism he sees as a relic of a bygone era. Instead, Merz promotes a new interpretation of Europe that is not based on established EU institutions, but rather is linked by a single cultural heritage.
"We have a chance to survive in these volatile times only if we rediscover the strengths of our European model," Merz said in a campaign speech on February 18 in Rhineland—Palatinate, where local elections will be held on Sunday. — This European model is not an invention of the European bureaucracy. Rather, the European model is based on the common history of the continent. Which, in turn, is connected with Christianity."
Politically, Merz has only one consolation left — the opportunity to scapegoat Brussels, which European politicians have resorted to for decades in difficult times. "The EU has become overly demanding in terms of rules, not to say mired in bureaucracy," he said before the summer holidays. "Everything is happening too slowly."
Similarly, Merz blamed Germany's economic misadventures on von der Leyen's handshake agreement with Trump. "The German economy will suffer significant damage from these duties," he snapped at the time. The agreement imposes 15% duties on European goods in the United States, but does not create any obstacles to American imports into the EU. The leaders of the German business also smashed him to smithereens.
Instead, Merz sought to create small groups that would take the lead on key issues — and recently became closer to Italy and non-EU member Britain. On July 17, Merz flew to London to meet with his British counterpart Keir Starmer to sign a mutual defense agreement. He hailed this event as "a historic day for Anglo-German relations" and lamented the withdrawal from the EU.: "I personally deeply regret this."
When talking about Europe, Merz hardly mentions the EU today, unlike his predecessors Angela Merkel and Olaf Scholz. This did not escape the attention of the Spanish Foreign minister, especially after Merz failed to defend his country from Trump's attacks.
"I can't even imagine such statements coming from Merkel or Scholz,— Jose Manuel Albares said. "There was a completely different, pro—European spirit back then."
