La Russia's war against Ukraine, among other important side effects that it has caused (one for all theenlargement of NATO to two other countries, Finland and Sweden), has changed the heart of Europe, pushing Germany at two historic turning points: to rearm and turn its back on Russia, its decades-old political obsession. Now the great country must prepare for the most onerous task: once the war is over, its role in the European Union will be to keep the countries of the East and those of the West together. Because if it fails, the EU we have known so far is in danger of disappearing.
These are the conclusions he comes to Angelo Bolaffi, philosopher and Germanist, one of the most important German scholars and former director of the Italian cultural institute in Berlin, in the interview with FIRSTonline.
Professor, some analysts believe that there is a political vacuum in the center of Europe and that it is called Germany. Is that so?
«To be honest these days the political vacuum is seen everywhere, not just in the center of Europe. In which country do you see clarity, determination, authority on the part of the leaders? That said, I think, contrary to those analysts you mentioned, that Germany is better off than other countries. Despite what it appears, the Scholz government has worked real miracles. In six months, Germany managed to free itself from Russian energy subjection; he turned his back on the Kremlin, the first point of reference for decades of his foreign policy; and agreed to rearm. Of course, it is clear that Europe has problems, but the causes are not the Germans, at least not only».
It's true: after the pandemic, which miraculously brought all Europeans together in a single policy, they seem to have gone back, to distinctions and to each one for himself. What's happened?
«Europe, we must always remember, is made up of national states, which have their own histories, their cultures, their languages, their social models and, often, divergent interests. We must never forget that up to 70 years ago they waged war and that now, faced with an external war, they are forming a common front. So some progress has been made. And yet it can happen, and it happens, that every time there is a new problem, the spring of national interest is triggered, as a sort of Pavlovian reflex. We have seen it in the last few days, with the story of Ukrainian wheat blocked by Poles concerned about the interests of their own farmers. And this despite the fact that Poland is Ukraine's greatest friend, hosting over 6 million refugees on its territory and Warsaw defending Zelensky against Putin. In short, as soon as the problem of their own peasants arose, the Poles didn't think twice. Thus President Van der Leyen had to intervene to put things right, reminding Poland that trade is the responsibility of the European Commission and that nation states cannot intervene with their own decisions. Thus the discussion resumed and in the end an agreement was reached. This is to say that Europe is in a constant search for compromises, it is inevitable. Because there is no democracy without compromises, there are only good and bad ones, as Merkel said. And therefore the truth will not be absolute, but will reside only in the agreement that is found between the parties, hoping that it will make everyone happy and that we can move forward. Europe is condemned, like Sisyphus, to complete a work, then to go back, and finally to start over".
Let's go back to Germany: doesn't Scholz's leadership seem faded to you? Wasn't Merkel's clearer and more determined?
«I start from Merkel and the honor conferred on her in the last few days, the Grand Cross, the highest in Germany. In my opinion, the chancellor certainly deserves this honour, God forbid. But even when honors are bestowed, timing matters. I mean, she should have had it before the current war. Today the question appears a little ambiguous, it seems a sort of justification of the past policy towards Russia, having come the proposal of the conferment from Frank-Walter Steinmeier, current President of the Republic, but former Foreign Minister of the Merkel government, and therefore certainly participant in the chancellor's policy towards Putin. This is to conclude that, despite having been a supporter and admirer of the German leader, even in difficult moments, such as the migrant crisis, I was disappointed by the fact that she did not admit the error of judgment towards Putin, while all the others politicians did. In retrospect, I would rectify my judgement: his policy seems to me to have been reduced after the invasion of the Ukraine ».
We come to Scholz.
«In the meantime, it should be remembered that Scholz won the elections more by chance than by merit. He won because Merkel did not reappear, among other things defining herself as the true heir of the chancellor, "Angelo" Merkel, as I called him in an interview. Then, as soon as he was elected, two misfortunes immediately happened to him: the pandemic and the war. Of course, the German leader is not a charismatic figure, but neither is Kohl or Merkel, they were at the beginning of their mandate, unlike Brandt and Adenauer. I recall that, shortly before reunification, the "Zeit" had defined Kohl as the chancellor of 0,0%, i.e. nothing. Furthermore, Scholz's coalition is much more complicated to manage than the one on which Merkel had been able to count: CDU, CSU and SPD were three forces more homogeneous than the SPD, Liberals and Greens in the alliance that he finds guide. And despite this, Scholz made an epochal turning point in his country: he rearmed Germany. A turning point comparable to that desired by Adenauer in 1949, when he brought the country into NATO, thus completely anchoring himself to the West, rejecting the neutralist temptation that Stalin wanted. It is comparable to that of Reunification, carried out by Kohl in 1990. Not to mention that Germany rearmed itself with the agreement of neighboring countries, Poland in the lead. If you think about this frankly, you really can't say that Scholtz lacks leadership».
We enter the country: how do you judge the acts of the government? There have also been strikes in Germany, as in France…
«The work of this government has been absorbed for two thirds of its time by the war and the energy problem. The shock of the invasion of Ukraine posed two enormous problems for Germany: a historical one, of foreign policy, which concerned its position vis-à-vis Russia; and the other of energy policy, having to reorient the ecological transition by getting rid of the blackmail of Moscow. And it seems to me that in both cases it was a success. As for popular intolerance, if I measure what is happening in France, the day and a half of the public employee strike in Germany is very little. This means that the German industrial relations system holds up well, whoever rules. It is a model based on comparison, in the sense that (good) compromises are sought. More or less like the one we use in Italy, although our two countries are very different. Unfortunately, I fear that it is the French model of the Fifth Republic that no longer works. I mean that top-down model that the French love very much and that also fascinates some in our area. To make a joke: the French like to have a king and cut off the king's head. The Germans (and us too) have definitely come to terms with real or fake monarchies. And still with regard to Scholz's leadership, let us not forget that just three days after the outbreak of war, with a speech to the Bundestag, he immediately took a stand against the Russian aggressor, while still in other capitals the question was whether to advise the Ukrainians to give up. He was the only one to do it, together with Draghi ».
Returning to the energy transition, how do you explain that nuclear power plants have been shut down, but coal remains a major source?
«The closure of the plants had been decided by Merkel, and it had to be done. Of course, keeping coal mines open may seem like a paradox, given that they certainly pollute more than nuclear power. But for the German Greens, nuclear power is the symbol of symbols. You can't touch it. They are ready to compromise on everything, even on coal, as we have seen, but not on that. It's their birth certificate."
What should we expect at the end of the war? What will be the role of Germany?
“We are on the eve of a huge change. Europe, the one we know, is finished in my opinion. It was born from the end of a war and at the end of this war a new one will be born. Even if it won't happen immediately, it will be Ukraine, geographically speaking, that will be the largest nation that will exist in the EU. It will take the place of France, which has this record today. On the western borders of Russia there will exist a whole other Europe that will really want to count. It is what Milan Kundera called "raptured Europe", kidnapped by the USSR, so to speak. And it will not be easy to re-establish a balance between the two sides, the West and the East. It will be necessary to rethink the entire structure of the EU. It will be a huge job. And I don't deny that there is a risk that this new Europe will not be born at all. And here is the role of Germany. Without strong leadership from a strong country, centrifugal forces can take over. Let us remember that in the face of the financial crisis, the EU risked splitting between the North and the South. And that war is certainly something greater than an economic crisis. Couldn't it break this time between East and West?'
Don't you think that it could also be in the interest of this new Europe to keep unity close?
«For now, the problem of the countries in the East is security, so for them the relationship with Washington is more important than that with Brussels. Without Washington, Putin would have arrived in Poland. We know it and they know it. The difference is that most Western countries underestimate the fact that Europe is unable to defend itself without the help of the Americans. Macron said the right thing, albeit clumsily. That is, that Europe should work to have its own autonomous strategic military force. But not against America, as he implied, but with it. Because if the United States falls back into the hands of Trump, or a similar politician, and decides to turn its back on us, what do we do? Poland knows this. The Balts know this. And of course the Ukrainians know it. I hope that a Europe that goes from the Atlantic to the Crimea will be born. But to do this, Germany will count a lot. If Germany is not able to exercise real hegemony, in the sense of being able to keep these two pieces of Europe together, then there would be a vacuum. And if there really were this kind of void at the heart of Europe, then the EU, as we have known it, would no longer exist."
Is Germany ready to do this?
“If there is a political class that thinks about this, it is the German one. Whether it is able to do this then we cannot predict. However, their obsession is to keep all the pieces of Europe together. Especially now that they have freed themselves from the error of perspective according to which only an agreement with Russia could hold Europe together. Before, the German idea was: European security cannot do without Russia. It was Germany's first foreign policy mantra. The other two were: the agreement with France and the one with Poland. Now the idea is different: European security is created only against Russia. Obviously referring to who is in charge today in the Kremlin».
How much will the results on the Ukrainian battlefield influence the construction of the new Europe?
"Very very much. The constitution of the new Europe will be written on the battlefields, there is no doubt. The time in which it was written at the table is over. Blood will be worth as much as ink this time. If not more".
