Protesters wave German flags, alongside a banner saying 'Rapefugees Not Welcome'

The Battle for Germany’s Soul

Jun 28, 2018 Carl Bildt

Although the flow of migrants and refugees into Europe is far below what it was in 2015 and 2016, immigration remains a hot-button issue across the continent. In Germany, an escalating debate over migrant and refugee policies could even decide the future of the country's role in Europe, and of European integration more generally.

STOCKHOLM – One year after the death of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the country he led for 16 years seems to be struggling with whether or not to follow his legacy.

For Kohl, Germany’s history and central position in Europe meant that it must never pursue national greatness as an end in itself. To his mind, the country with more neighbors than any other country on the continent should not throw its weight around. Rather, it should uphold an idea of Europe in which all countries, large and small, feel equally secure.

But since the start of the refugee crisis in the fall of 2015, Kohl’s vision of Europe has been under attack. While Chancellor Angela Merkel has continued to press for cooperative migration and refugee policies within the European Union, a growing chorus of voices in Germany is advocating unilateral action that would most likely come at the expense of other EU member states.

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Carl Bildt

Writing for PS since 2009
84 Commentaries

Carl Bildt was Sweden’s foreign minister from 2006 to 2014 and Prime Minister from 1991 to 1994, when he negotiated Sweden’s EU accession. A renowned international diplomat, he served as EU Special Envoy to the Former Yugoslavia, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, UN Special Envoy to the Balkans, and Co-Chairman of the Dayton Peace Conference. He is Co-Chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Redefining Europe, and Europeans
John Macdougall/Getty Images

Redefining Europe, and Europeans

Carl Bildt
Germany’s federal election next Sunday will play a crucial role in determining the European Union’s direction in the coming years. In a rapidly changing world, Europe's citizens will have to look beyond the nation-state as their sole source of personal identity – and Germany can lead the way.
hopes the continent's people and leaders will heed the right lessons from the 2015 refugee crisis.

7
When Populism Comes Home to Roost
ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP/Getty Images

When Populism Comes Home to Roost

Federico Fubini sees Italy's new government as the result of EU leaders' beggar-thy-neighbor approach to economic grievances.

6
The West’s Crisis of Confidence
Mikhail Metzel\TASS via Getty Images

The West’s Crisis of Confidence

Carl Bildt worries that the two countries most responsible for creating the postwar global order are now abandoning it.

22

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 15 in all 15 Comments on this article

Jonathan Engel Jun 29, 2018

Mr Bildt seems to live in a penthouse above the clouds which protect his intellectual structures from any interface with the reality of the country roads, and city streets of the world not so many meters, and not so many years below him. And he is not alone.

Today's EU luminaries all live in this tax free utopia above Brussels, or Strasbourg, or any one of the European Capitals where career advancement protocols have included a view of the "Greater Good" and a vision of a "concerned" and utterly unconnected elite bureaucracy.

Foisting upon their good natured and innocent peoples the necessity always expressed but never explained of an ever closer Union, and collective institutions, this elite has largely deconstructed 10 centuries of the history of Kings and Knights defending Europe's frontiers from the Crescent and Star.

In Germany, in particular, it has expressed an ethic of guilt for the outrageous murder of 6 million non-combatants in the 1940s by their replacement with their most implacable enemies. A reasoning that the Catholic Casuistic would have never attempted, so perverse is its structure.

In Italy, the EU bred clones have destroyed a successful exporting economy built on depreciation and inflation, to bring into this world an unsuccessful one, where exports are priced out of markets, and taxes are collected efficiently. (Of course Germany, naturally better adjusted to a Deutchmark environment, has replaced Italy in many of it's markets, and why not, that was the reasoning from the beginning).

So when Mr. Bildt consults his online papers from his penthouse he sees that the sheep in his population flock are nervous of his largely uninteresting (to them) reforms and moralising, do not see the beauty of a population paying their taxes to support newcomers coming as "benefit migrants", demonstration for new smartphones and Halal food in front of "refugee centres" in rural Italy, and he still doesn't see any reason why he should take the elevator down to the street level.

Shame on him.
- Henk Crop Jun 29, 2018
  
  Jonathan. Well put.
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jagjeet sinha Jun 29, 2018

FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT
Looks like German departure date is nearing.
The World Cup a timely reminder of German Destiny.
Unless flexibility is exercised - Freedom of movement seems the key.
Unfortunately Brussels rules are bent when it suits Germany.
Not when it suits Britain.
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Michael Public Jun 29, 2018

Russia is not a rising power. Quite the opposite. Liberalism simply means that the rights of individuals are respected vis a vis the state and has nothing to do with elitism and rising inequality.
- Peter Schaeffer Jun 29, 2018
  
  A French analyst (Christophe Guilluy ) has stated the truth clearly for all who care to look
  
  "the rhetoric of an “open society” is “a smokescreen meant to hide the emergence of a closed society, walled off for the benefit of the upper classes.”"
  
  In this context, the author should be seen as a predator who uses the rhetoric of "ethical leadership" and the "Open Society" to destroy the lives of everyone who doesn't enjoy his life of privilege.
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- Peter Schaeffer Jun 29, 2018
  
  MP, In 1998 Germany's economy was 65% larger than Russia's. Now they are about equal in GDP (see the IMF data on the subject). Just the facts. Of course, China's growth has been much greater. Same for India. A long time ago, the "liberal" powers dominated the global economy. Now they only lead in arrogance, virtue-signaling, and inflated pretensions.
  - Adrian Angerstein Jul 3, 2018
    
    Mr. Schaeffer, I think you are looking at the wrong data. Germany and Russia are close to equal in their GDP by purchasing power parity. But, that is not a good measure of its economic weight in the world. Purchasing power parity is good for judging standards of living. Germany and Russia are equal there by total size, but with Russia's larger population, Russia's standard of living is only about 2/3rds Germany's. In nominal terms, Germany's GDP is more than twice Russia's, and Russia's nominal GDP has declined markedly over the last five years. Also, since the Russian economy was on the verge of collapse in 1998, its really not a great year for comparison.
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j. von Hettlingen Jun 29, 2018

Carl Bildt bemoans the lack of political will to follow Helmut Kohl’s legacy. A year ago, the longest-serving German chancellor since Bismarck died at the age of 87. A passionate supporter of greater integration Kohl was once described as the greatest European leader in the second half of the 20th Century. Together with his closest ally, France's President Mitterrand, he shaped the EU’s federal character. And as one of the main architects of the Maastricht Treaty, they laid the groundwork for the creation of the single currency.
The author says the country Kohl led for 16 years “seems to be struggling with whether or not to follow his legacy.” Despite going down in history as the father of the 1989 German reunification – he pulled off a remarkable political coup that might not have occurred had he dithered – his legacy seems lose its relevance. Kohl decided to grant East Germans immediate economic parity, even though his central bankers told him of the massive economic repercussions.
This had robbed him of some of the popularity he might have expected, particularly in the former East where, during one visit, he was pelted with eggs. On his watch, the East suffered high rates of poverty and unemployment. And the costs of reunification led to an economic meltdown throughout Germany, quite a contrast to the golden age of economic and political power a decade earlier. Today many in the former East are staunch AfD voters, who enabled the party to enter the parliament for the first time in the post World War II history. Even though foreigners are few in the region, xenophobia is rife.
Since the onset of the refugee crisis in the summer of 2015, Kohl’s “vision of Europe has been under attack.” While his former protégée, Angela Merkel, is pressing for a pan-European solution to the crisis at a EU summit in Brussels, opponents within Germany are calling for “unilateral action,” at the “expense” of other member states. The ongoing crisis will determine whether her fraying coalition government will survive,
Merkel’s hardline interior minister Horst Seehofer has threatened to send away asylum seekers already registered in another EU country, unless she came up with a solution by July 1. She told her lawmakers at home and EU leaders that a solution could only be found “by allowing ourselves to be guided by values and rooting for multilateralism rather than unilateralism”. If the EU gathering failed to produce a result, she feared of creating a situation where “no one believes in the value system that has made us so strong”.
Although the number of migrants from North Africa “has actually declined sharply” over the past year, refugees crossing the Mediterranean continue to “make headlines” and exacerbate the crisis. This “hot-button issue” provides political fodder welcomed by populist leaders in Austria, Bavaria and Italy, who embrace Christian conservatism. They want to sow discord and instil fear, because the public has not yet overcome the “shock” which “still reverberates in voters’ minds.”
The author says, “politics is about perceptions, not raw numbers. And populist and nationalist parties have managed to paint a picture of a Europe under siege.” They advocate chauvinism and the “general will” of the people. Embracing exclusion and intolerance, they seek to deepen divisions in politics and the society. “In this new age of identity politics, the dispute over immigration has become a battle for Germany’s soul.”
How appropriate is it to compare the Germany under Kohl and the country today? The author says, Kohl was adamant that – given Germany’s “history and central position in Europe – “it must never pursue national greatness as an end in itself.” Since Germany is surrounded by “more neighbors than any other country” on the continent, it should not “throw its weight around. Rather, it should uphold an idea of Europe in which all countries, large and small, feel equally secure.”
Indeed, since Germany became an economic powerhouse, it had been reluctant to punch above its weight and kept a low profile, due to its Nazi legacy. The 2008 global financial crisis hit several eurozone countries hard, and Angela Merkel faced demands from the world to show more leadership and help bail Greece and Spain out. As Europe is distrustful of Trump and eager to keep Putin at bay, EU leaders need to find a solution, however imperfect, to move forward. The populists in Austria, Bavaria and Italy are a bunch of opportunists and spoilers, on whom Europe can not rely. Let’s hope that the others will put aside their differences for the sake of the continent’s future.
- Michael Public Jun 29, 2018
  
  @Peter Schaefer
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Emanuel Müller Jun 28, 2018

Actually a golden age for nostalgics of the third Reich and Waffen-SSs at heart seems to have dawned in the Festung Europa. It is also an excellent period for historians that study the third Reich to be able to interact with the very roots of nazism and the shoa, especially now that the last survivors , and last but not least, they is no credibility possible for Holocaust deniers with the rise and coming-out of neo-nazi western Europe.
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Peter Schaeffer Jun 28, 2018

The rising powers of the world (China, India, Russia, etc.) are all illiberal. Whether they are successful because of illiberalism or in spite of it, doesn't matter. They are illiberal. They will sway much of the for the next 100 years simply by virtue of weight.

The declining West shows that liberalism is a failed path. The U.S. is dramatically more "liberal" than it was one or two generations ago... and dramatically less successful. Sure the elites are richer than ever. However, life for ordinary Americans has declined. The fruits of liberalism are bitter. A similar analysis applies to the UK. Sure the City is richer than ever. How about the rest of England? Not so much.

Of course, we don't have to go abroad to see liberalism failing. Sweden is a case study in failed liberalism. Mass immigration has turned a successful country into crime-ridden one. The Swedish people are (predictably) revolting. Back in 2003, the people of Sweden revolted against Bildt and friends and stopped the Euro. Of course, they were right. Sweden escaped from the Euro nightmare only by virtue of the intelligence of its own citizens.
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Peter Schaeffer Jun 28, 2018

It turns out... That Bildt and friends have a problem with something called "truth"

"Similarly, in an op-ed for the Washington Post, former Prime Minister Carl Bildt described the country’s immigration policy as a success story. He did not elaborate on violent crime. After repeated attacks against Jewish institutions in December — including the firebombing of a synagogue in Gothenburg — Bildt took to the same paper to claim that anti-Semitism is not a major problem in Sweden."

and

"In March, Labor Market Minister Ylva Johansson appeared on the BBC, where she claimed that the number of reported rapes and sexual harassment cases “is going down and going down and going down.” In fact, the opposite is true, which Johansson later admitted in an apology."
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Peter Schaeffer Jun 28, 2018

Liberalism and "ethical leadership" sound nice. In practice, they mean Rotherham, Telford, Malmö, Cologne, etc. Great for the virtue-signaling elites living in gated communities. Not so hot for everyone else. Why should the people of any country (including Russia, China, the USA, the UK, Germany, Europe, etc.) support a system than benefits the cosmopolitan elite and destroys them.

A French analyst (Christophe Guilluy ) has stated the truth clear to all who care to look

"the rhetoric of an “open society” is “a smokescreen meant to hide the emergence of a closed society, walled off for the benefit of the upper classes.”"

In this context, the author should be seen as a predator who uses the rhetoric of "ethical leadership" and the "Open Society" to destroy the lives of everyone who doesn't enjoy his life of privilege.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Henk Crop Jun 28, 2018

This is not only about the future of Germany and Europe. It is about the survival of Europe as a civilization. A 2000 year old civilization with their values and rights: democracy, freedom of speech, civil law, equality of women. Safety. Free market and entrepreneurship. Prosperity.
Many of these are already coming under pressure because of the massive immigration by people from other cultures. But also from our decadent Elite who often does do not enough to protect them.

The population growth in countries around the EU is huge. So is the urge to immigrate, many are Moslim. It will not end soon.
The birthrate in Africa is between 4,7 to 7,7 per woman. In Germany 1,5.
The EU has no other option then bring immigration close to zero.
If Merkel or the EU does not come with such plans.
Others will do that.
- Richard Molineux Jun 28, 2018
  
  "...the crisis will most likely be resolved through a series of imperfect compromises the EU as in the case of the Greek sovereign-debt crisis." This seems a rather feeble description of the Greek experience: the overthrow of its elected government; the destruction of its political parties; the impoverishment of the entire working class; the devastation of its economy; the creation of a huge number of unemployed, especially young unemployed, people; and, at this point in the process, no possibility of its debt ever being paid off.
  
  For an alternative approach without "imperfect compromises" see : https://www.policyforum.net/10-year-recovery-lessons-iceland/
  
  As for the "compromise" of the overthrow of Berlosconi's legitimate government with its replacement by an EU technocrat: that really hasn't ended well, has it?
  
  I like and admire Carl Bildt, but on this one I think he is wrong. The EU must learn to switch on "receive" as well as "transmit", something it has never been any good at.
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