Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

Why The Euro Crisis Is A Crisis Of Sovereignty

Joschka Fischer 27th February 2015 11 Comments

Joschka Fischer

Joschka Fischer

In the last two weeks, the two crises confronting Europe – in Ukraine and Greece – both escalated. In each case, Germany and its chancellor, Angela Merkel, were at the heart of efforts to achieve a diplomatic resolution. This is a new role for Germany, and the country is not yet accustomed to it.

The latest attempt to halt the war in eastern Ukraine by diplomatic means had an even shorter shelf life than the first attempt last September. The new accord – concluded, like the previous one, in Minsk – de facto recognized that Ukraine has been split by military means. But just where the dividing line is remains unclear, because Russian President Vladimir Putin may yet attempt to capture the strategic port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, thereby enabling the Kremlin to create a land bridge between Russia and the Crimea peninsula. Moreover, capturing Mariupol would keep open the option of conquering southern Ukraine, including Odessa, and extending Russian control all the way to Transnistria, Russia’s illegal enclave in Moldova.

Through the continued use of military force, Putin has achieved the main aim of Russia’s policy: control over eastern Ukraine and ongoing destabilization of the country as a whole. Indeed, Minsk II is merely a reflection of facts on the ground.

The question remains, however, whether it would have been smarter to let the one power that Putin takes seriously – the United States – conduct the negotiations. Given Putin’s low regard for Europe, this will most likely become unavoidable, sooner or later.

Still, despite the risks involved, it is important that Germany and France, in coordination with the European Union and the US, undertook this diplomatic effort. Though the Minsk II initiative exposed Europe’s meager political clout, it also confirmed the indispensability of Franco-German cooperation, as well as Germany’s changed role within the EU.

Merkel herself reflects this changed role. Her ten years in power were largely characterized by a new German Biedermeier era. The sun was shining on Germany and its economy, and Merkel regarded it as her highest duty to maintain citizens’ sense of wellbeing by not disturbing them with politics. But Germany’s new significance in Europe has put a brutal end to Merkel’s neo-Biedermeier era. She no longer defines her policies in terms of “small steps”; now she takes strategic threats seriously and confronts them head-on.

This is also true of the Greek crisis, in which Merkel – despite her public image in southern Europe – was not aligned with the hawks in her party and administration. Indeed, Merkel seems to be well aware of the unmanageable risks of a Greek exit from the euro – although it remains to be seen whether she can muster the determination to revise the failed austerity policy imposed on Greece.

Without such a revision aimed at boosting growth, Europe will remain alarmingly weak both internally and externally. Given Russia’s attack on Ukraine, this is a dismal prospect, because internal weakness and external threats are directly linked.

Greece has also shown that the euro crisis is less a financial crisis than a sovereignty crisis. With the recent election of the anti-austerity Syriza party, Greek voters stood up against external control over their country by the “troika” (the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund), Germany, or anyone else. Yet if Greece is to be saved from bankruptcy, it will have only foreign taxpayers’ money to thank for it. And it will be nearly impossible to convince European taxpayers and governments to provide further billions of euros without verifiable guarantees and the necessary reforms.

The Greek conflict shows that Europe’s monetary union is not working because one country’s democratically legitimized sovereignty has run up against other countries’ democratically legitimized sovereignty. Nation-states and a monetary union do not sit well together. But it is not hard to understand that, should “Grexit” occur, the only geopolitical winner would be Russia, whereas in Europe, everyone stands to lose.

Though the geopolitical risks have, so far, barely figured in the German debate, they greatly outweigh any domestic policy risks of finally coming clean with the German public. Greece, Germans should be told, will remain a eurozone member, and preserving the euro will require further steps toward integration, up to and including transfers and debt mutualization, provided that the appropriate institutions for this are established.

Such a step will require courage, but the alternatives – continuation of the eurozone crisis or a return to a system of nation-states – are far less attractive. (Germany has a new national-conservative party whose leaders’ declared aim is to pursue a pre-1914 foreign policy.) In view of the dramatic global changes and the direct military threat to Europe posed by Putin’s Russia, these alternatives are no alternative at all, and the Greek “problem” looks insignificant.

Merkel and French President François Hollande should seize the initiative once again and finally put the eurozone on a sound footing. Germany will have to loosen its beloved purse strings, and France will have to surrender some of its precious political sovereignty. The alternative is to stand by idly and watch Europe’s nationalists become stronger, while the European integration project, despite six decades of success, staggers ever closer to the abyss.

© Project Syndicate

Joschka Fischer

Joschka Fischer was Germany’s foreign minister and vice-chancellor from 1998 to 2005 and a leader in the German Green Party for almost 20 years.

Home ・ Politics ・ Why The Euro Crisis Is A Crisis Of Sovereignty

Most Popular Posts

schools,Sweden,Swedish,voucher,choice Sweden’s schools: Milton Friedman’s wet dreamLisa Pelling
world order,Russia,China,Europe,United States,US The coming world orderMarc Saxer
south working,remote work ‘South working’: the future of remote workAntonio Aloisi and Luisa Corazza
Russia,Putin,assets,oligarchs Seizing the assets of Russian oligarchsBranko Milanovic
Russians,support,war,Ukraine Why do Russians support the war against Ukraine?Svetlana Erpyleva

Most Recent Posts

Sakharov,nuclear,Khrushchev Unhappy birthday, Andrei SakharovNina L Khrushcheva
Gazprom,Putin,Nordstream,Putin,Schröder How the public loses out when politicians cash inKatharina Pistor
defence,europe,spending Ukraine and Europe’s defence spendingValerio Alfonso Bruno and Adriano Cozzolino
North Atlantic Treaty Organization,NATO,Ukraine The Ukraine war and NATO’s renewed credibilityPaul Rogers
transnational list,European constituency,European elections,European public sphere A European constituency for a European public sphereDomènec Ruiz Devesa

Other Social Europe Publications

The transatlantic relationship
Women and the coronavirus crisis
RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?
US election 2020
Corporate taxation in a globalised era

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

EU Care Atlas: a new interactive data map showing how care deficits affect the gender earnings gap in the EU

Browse through the EU Care Atlas, a new interactive data map to help uncover what the statistics are often hiding: how care deficits directly feed into the gender earnings gap.

While attention is often focused on the gender pay gap (13%), the EU Care Atlas brings to light the more worrisome and complex picture of women’s economic inequalities. The pay gap is just one of three main elements that explain the overall earnings gap, which is estimated at 36.7%. The EU Care Atlas illustrates the urgent need to look beyond the pay gap and understand the interplay between the overall earnings gap and care imbalances.


BROWSE THROUGH THE MAP

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

Towards a new Minimum Wage Policy in Germany and Europe: WSI minimum wage report 2022

The past year has seen a much higher political profile for the issue of minimum wages, not only in Germany, which has seen fresh initiatives to tackle low pay, but also in those many other countries in Europe that have embarked on substantial and sustained increases in statutory minimum wages. One key benchmark in determining what should count as an adequate minimum wage is the threshold of 60 per cent of the median wage, a ratio that has also played a role in the European Commission's proposals for an EU-level policy on minimum wages. This year's WSI Minimum Wage Report highlights the feasibility of achieving minimum wages that meet this criterion, given the political will. And with an increase to 12 euro per hour planned for autumn 2022, Germany might now find itself promoted from laggard to minimum-wage trailblazer.


FREE DOWNLOAD

ETUI advertisement

Bilan social / Social policy in the EU: state of play 2021 and perspectives

The new edition of the Bilan social 2021, co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), reveals that while EU social policy-making took a blow in 2020, 2021 was guided by the re-emerging social aspirations of the European Commission and the launch of several important initiatives. Against the background of Covid-19, climate change and the debate on the future of Europe, the French presidency of the Council of the EU and the von der Leyen commission must now be closely scrutinised by EU citizens and social stakeholders.


AVAILABLE HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Living and working in Europe 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic continued to be a defining force in 2021, and Eurofound continued its work of examining and recording the many and diverse impacts across the EU. Living and working in Europe 2021 provides a snapshot of the changes to employment, work and living conditions in Europe. It also summarises the agency’s findings on issues such as gender equality in employment, wealth inequality and labour shortages. These will have a significant bearing on recovery from the pandemic, resilience in the face of the war in Ukraine and a successful transition to a green and digital future.


AVAILABLE HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us on social media

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube