T
imothy Garton Ash asked an important question in the Guardian recenty – is Europe becoming more German? Or, to put it more accurately, does the EU have to become more German to survive?
“If the eurozone falls apart, it will be because Germany did not do enough to save it. If the eurozone is saved, it will be thanks to Germany. This is the greatest challenge to German statecraft since the country was peacefully united 20 years ago.”
“Yet here is another horn of Germany’s dilemma. For half a century, German politicians have repeated, like a mantra, Thomas Mann’s call for “a European Germany, not a German Europe”. It was in this spirit, and in the context of securing German unification, that the Federal Republic agreed to give up the symbol and anchor of its postwar revival – the mighty D-mark.
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