Among the challenges facing the new German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is the reorientation of his foreign policy. It is usually a continuous state action with previous lines of government, but this time the political forces with which it shares the coalition predict important changes. Neither the Greens nor the liberals of the FDP are within the consensus on basic policies that social democrats and conservatives have maintained for the last 15 years. The main changes are likely to affect Germany’s relations with Moscow and Beijing, which in turn will influence the European Union. They will also probably mark a turning point with the governments of Poland and Hungary. The coalition agreement makes it clear that it will end with Angela Merkel’s complacency towards Budapest and Warsaw, although at the same time Berlin can pamper the relationship with Poland whenever it gives it a chance.
The enthusiasm of the former Social Democratic minister, Heiko Maas, in his relations with Russia for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline distances him from the position of the Greens, although the government agreement omits this important point. It will certainly be the subject of internal debate for more environmental than geopolitical reasons, although it will probably not be questioned, as long as Russia does not attack Ukraine. With regard to China, the Greens have also shown their discomfort with the privileged relationship that Merkel maintained with President Xi Jinping, to the point of having become Berlin’s first bilateral trade partner. During the last years of the chancellor, German companies invested more there than in any other European country. The new branch minister and co-leader of the Greens, Annalena Baerbock, is much more critical of the Xi regime, something that probably makes it difficult for Scholz to maintain as close a relationship with Beijing as Merkel did.
Germany must now decide how to combine its national interest with the leadership it has consolidated in Europe over the last 20 years. Its main challenges are linked to those of Europe and go through the adaptation of an industrialized economy to the ecological transition and through the ways of consolidating the progress made during the crisis in terms of solidarity and economic convergence. Faced with the stability pact and the reform of the fiscal rules of the European club, both Mario Draghi and Emmanuel Macron have already shown their agreement, but we must not rule out some resistance from Scholz: he has not closed the door but has said that the pact stability has shown during the crisis “its flexibility.” The presence in Berlin of a foreign policy less attached to commercial interests and more oriented towards its assembly with the rest of European partners opens the opportunity to give new impetus to all European integration. Even in the Netherlands, a new government has been forged around a clearly pro-European agreement that opens the expectation that The Hague will join the new winds that are blowing strongly from Berlin, Rome, Paris and Madrid.
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