Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Global cities
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

Germany’s Great European Heist

Adam Tooze and Shahin Vallée 25th May 2018

Adam Tooze

Adam Tooze

Two mantras guide German thinking about eurozone integration: responsibilities and control must be aligned (so no mutualization of risk without shared jurisdiction); and legacy risks must be settled before any pooling of risks among euro members takes place. Since 2010, these two refrains have shaped the entire discussion of how to shore up the euro, and they largely account for the anemic progress being made on the creation of a European banking union. Germany is ready to embark on a common future, its leaders say, but only if Europe starts from a clean slate.

Shahin Vallée

Shahin Vallée

At first sight, that proposition seems reasonable enough. But to understand its full implications, try applying the same logic to another policy field: security and defense.

What if France applied Germany’s approach to eurozone integration to the question of mutualizing defense commitments? What if the French were to insist, as an absolute precondition for further security cooperation, that Germany not only increase its defense budget immediately, but also make good on its accumulated backlog in defense spending from recent decades?

Free rider?

Germany has not always been a free rider on other people’s defense spending. West Germany was a reliable player in NATO’s Cold War system of burden sharing, and the Bundeswehr in the 1980s was a capable force. For better or worse, it stood in the tradition of German armies since the Kaiserreich. National service was the norm. Defense spending ran at 3% of GDP.

Then came the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Germany embraced the peace dividend with a vengeance. Reductions in Germany’s armed forces and disavowal of weapons of mass destruction were written into the treaties that reunified Germany. But demilitarization also reflected societal shifts. Something in the political culture of the Federal Republic had changed.


Become part of our Community of Thought Leaders


Get fresh perspectives delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for our newsletter to receive thought-provoking opinion articles and expert analysis on the most pressing political, economic and social issues of our time. Join our community of engaged readers and be a part of the conversation.

Sign up here

More and more young men chose civilian over military service. In 2011, conscription was suspended. As a practical matter, that decision probably should have come sooner. Today’s best-functioning militaries are professional, not conscripted. But, in Germany, no positive image of the Bundeswehr’s new role emerged from the end of the Cold War model. Morale and functional capacity collapsed along with spending.

At NATO meeting after NATO meeting, Germany would commit to spending 2% of its GDP on defense. It never delivered. Spending slumped toward 1% of GDP, with the majority going to salaries and pensions. The latest NATO data show German spending on defense equipment and on research and development running at only 0.17% of GDP in 2017, compared to 0.42% in France and 0.47% in the UK.

Non-operational

Germany’s dearth of military investment has created a daunting gap between its defense capacity and that of the rest of Europe. Only a fraction of Germany’s weapons and military vehicles are operational. On Europe’s eastern border, only nine of the 44 tanks promised for the Bundeswehr unit that is supposed to anchor NATO’s 5,000-strong rapid-reaction force in the Baltics next year are fit for use. The unit also lacks other equipment essential for the mission, such as tents, winter clothing, night vision equipment, and body armor.

For the German left, which opposes the use of hard power, there is no reason to lament this lack of resources. But the gutting of the Bundeswehr also disables Germany’s ability to exercise soft power. In 2014, Germany’s humanitarian team to deliver assistance to Ebola-stricken Liberia was stranded in the Canary Islands. The German Navy’s large supply ships – those most useful for refugee rescue operations in the Mediterranean – will be out of commission for 18 months, owing to a lack of spare parts.

If the Bundeswehr’s guns don’t work, its frigates are in dry dock, and its logistical capacity is zero; what other commitments might the French taxpayer be taking on? By agreeing, year after year, to the mutualization of defense costs, what sort of incentives is France providing to Germany to undertake reform?

If the French were to apply a simple spending rule, they would find that since 1990 they had cumulatively spent 30% of GDP more than Germany on defense. If what the Germans are most interested in is France’s nuclear deterrence, the costs over the same period total approximately 4.5-5 % of French GDP.

Quid pro quo

So the legacy issues are considerable. Furthermore, given Germany’s ingrained post-military habits, backsliding is to be expected. What is French President Emmanuel Macron to make of the German budget announced earlier this month, which shows a marginal increase in defense spending but not enough to meet the NATO target, let alone to close past deficits?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s new grand coalition government may not look like a reliable security partner, but does that mean France should hold out until Germany has made good on its legacy defense debt before considering defense investments and mutualization in Europe?


Support Progressive Ideas: Become a Social Europe Member!


Support independent publishing and progressive ideas by becoming a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month. You can help us create more high-quality articles, podcasts and videos that challenge conventional thinking and foster a more informed and democratic society. Join us in our mission - your support makes all the difference!

Become a Social Europe Member

Europe’s need to develop a twenty-first century security strategy is urgent, not only because Donald Trump’s America is unreliable, but also because humanitarian emergencies demand it. It must develop a shared culture and build democratic governance to decide on the deployment of its defense forces. That will involve deep cultural and political adjustments on all sides. Both Germany’s habit of free riding and France’s tendency toward trigger-happy postcolonial forays will have to be debated.

These issues are at the heart of developing a European sovereign, backed by democratic institutions and decision-making processes that enable the common use of force. But Europe cannot start from some imaginary tabula rasa. It must start from the place to which history has brought it. The quid pro quo that France should demand for cooperation on security policy is that Germany recognizes the same reality with regard to economic policy.

Here, too, the past must be taken as given. Starting positions are unequal and incentive structures are imperfect. But Europe must agree to move forward together nonetheless, or risk being torn apart.

Republication forbidden. Copyright: Project Syndicate 2018 Germany’s Great European Heist

Adam Tooze and Shahin Vallée

Adam Tooze is Professor of History at Columbia University. Shahin Vallée, a former economic advisor to the French Minister of Economy, is a senior economist at Soros Fund Management.

You are here: Home / Politics / Germany’s Great European Heist

Most Popular Posts

Ukraine,fatigue Ukraine’s cause: momentum is diminishingStefan Wolff and Tetyana Malyarenko
Russia,information war Russia is winning the information warAiste Merfeldaite
Nanterre,police Nanterre and the suburbs: the lid comes offJoseph Downing
Russia,nuclear Russia’s dangerous nuclear consensusAna Palacio
Belarus,Lithuania A tale of two countries: Belarus and LithuaniaThorvaldur Gylfason and Eduard Hochreiter

Most Recent Posts

G7,BRICS,China,Russia G7 versus the BRICS: taking stock in 12 figuresThorvaldur Gylfason
solar energy,photovoltaic,Europe,EU,PV Powering up: the EU and solar energyFrancesco Crespi, Dario Guarascio, Serenella Caravella and Giacomo Cucignatto
Nagorno-Karabakh Nagorno-Karabakh: it’s not over yetSvante Lundgren
Sweden,climate,green Sweden’s climate policy—off the railsLisa Pelling
Biden,Detroit,UAW,strike Detroit, Joe Biden and a union renaissancePaul Knott

Other Social Europe Publications

strategic autonomy Strategic autonomy
Bildschirmfoto 2023 05 08 um 21.36.25 scaled 1 RE No. 13: Failed Market Approaches to Long-Term Care
front cover Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI European Collective Bargaining Report 2022 / 2023

With real wages falling by 4 per cent in 2022, workers in the European Union suffered an unprecedented loss in purchasing power. The reason for this was the rapid increase in consumer prices, behind which nominal wage growth fell significantly. Meanwhile, inflation is no longer driven by energy import prices, but by domestic factors. The increased profit margins of companies are a major reason for persistent inflation. In this difficult environment, trade unions are faced with the challenge of securing real wages—and companies have the responsibility of making their contribution to returning to the path of political stability by reducing excess profits.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

The future of remote work

The 12 chapters collected in this volume provide a multidisciplinary perspective on the impact and the future trajectories of remote work, from the nexus between the location from where work is performed and how it is performed to how remote locations may affect the way work is managed and organised, as well as the applicability of existing legislation. Additional questions concern remote work’s environmental and social impact and the rapidly changing nature of the relationship between work and life.


AVAILABLE HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound Talks: does Europe have the skills it needs for a changing economy?

In this episode of the Eurofound Talks podcast, Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound’s research manager, Tina Weber, its senior research manager, Gijs van Houten, and Giovanni Russo, senior expert at CEDEFOP (The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training), about Europe’s skills challenges and what can be done to help workers and businesses adapt to future skills demands.

Listen where you get your podcasts, or for free, by clicking on the link below


LISTEN HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

The summer issue of the Progressive Post magazine by FEPS is out!

The Special Coverage of this new edition is dedicated to the importance of biodiversity, not only as a good in itself but also for the very existence of humankind. We need a paradigm change in the mostly utilitarian relation humans have with nature.

In this issue, we also look at the hazards of unregulated artificial intelligence, explore the shortcomings of the EU's approach to migration and asylum management, and analyse the social downside of the EU's current ethnically-focused Roma policy.


DOWNLOAD 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

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube