The closer we get to the Council of European Heads of State in June, the more the contours of the draft of reform of the Eurozone, the highlight of the summit, become blurred. The French president Emmanuel Macron, who after the triumphant victory in the elections last June made the Euro-reform his strong point, raises the emotional tone of the discourse on Europe in his speeches, evoking the specter of new nationalisms and the risks of stagnation, but does not find the one who should co-lead the change process, the chancellor Angela Merkel, the counterpoint of the past. Merkel herself admitted yesterday, at the end of the French president's visit to Berlin, that she had a cold even though she assured that she "will come back". But everyone knows that, barring twists and turns, you will most likely leave the June summit a pure façade accord waiting for better times.
'SItaly, which was conspicuous in this negotiation due to its absence, the prospect of a more favorable balance between sharing and reduction of financial risks, a balance which would have allowed it greater room for fiscal manoeuvre, would fall. In the event of a new crisis, therefore, the country will find itself facing it in conditions of greater solitude.
Angela Markel's resistance in this phase appears to be dictated above all by internal political reasons. Here we re-propose a pattern that seems to prevail in many countries today more than in the past, namely the submission of international politics to needs of a national nature. In the case of the reform of the Eurozone, for example, the almost ideological rigor of Wolfgang Schauble, now moved from the Ministry of Finance to the Presidency of the Bundestag, no longer influences the negotiations. There are however the party of Alternatives for Germany (Afd) and the leader of the Bavarian "cousins" of the CSU, Horst Seehofer, two annoying thorns in the right side of the chancellor and her CDU, to advise against risky openings to France and the countries of Southern Europe.
[smiling_video id="53246″]
[/smiling_video]
The advance of the AfD in last September's elections shifted the axis of German politics to the right restricted the chancellor's room for manoeuvre. In addition, in October we vote in Bavaria, the richest land in Germany, the second most populous and above all one of the few in the West in which Afd has gained support at the expense of the CSU. In view of the October appointment, Seehofer is bypassing the Afd to the right, trying to anticipate it on the issues that are specific to it and which mainly concern immigration and Islamic culture. The first decision taken by Seehofer once he was appointed Minister of the Interior in the Grand Coalition government with the Social Democrats of the SPD was to change the name of the Ministry of the Interior from Innenministerium to Ministerium fur Heimat, Ministry for the Homeland. If the words have a meaning, citizens in possession of a German passport, not immigrants, belong to the homeland. In an interview with BILD Seehofer then declared that "Islam does not belong to Germany."
The heavy descent into the field of Csu on positions in competition with those of the extreme right, it has not only reduced Angela Merkel's margins but has also discovered her traditional tactic aimed at neutralizing the adversary by involving him in the government game. In the meantime, the SPD has completely left the scene. It's a short step from here to blocking any idea of reforming the Eurozone that could even minimally involve a cost or risk for the German taxpayer. At least until October, when the Bavarian elections are over, the climate could relax.
