Defence was long the laggard among Western European budgets. By the early 2010s, the “peace dividend” of the post–Cold War era had coupled with crushing austerity policies to take an especially heavy toll. Amid the belt-tightening that accompanied the Eurozone crisis of those years, Germany cut its defence budget by some €8.3 billion. Many other countries did something similar. At its lowest point, in 2014, defence spending among EU members fell to just 1.1% of GDP.
As threats from Moscow and Washington alike have concentrated political minds, recent years have witnessed a veritable reversal of the situation.
Most dramatic of all was the proclamation by Germany’s then Chancellor Olaf Scholz of a Zeitenwende (“Turning of the Times”) in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, in which he pledged a complete overhaul of Germany’s defence policy and a massive boost in funding for the Bundeswehr.Not only did it mark a dramatic end to Germany’s trademark frugality, it also did away with the country’s traditional reticence in questions of political leadership – announcing a far more active and assertive posture.
Given historical precedent, Germany’s boost in defence spending is indeed remarkable. Since the Zeitenwende it has already doubled, and is slated to increase to some 3.5% of GDP by the end of the decade – a quadrupling in just eight years.
It is hardly an auspicious environment for talks on developing a common European nuclear deterrent.
Nevertheless, for the current conservative-led government of Friedrich Merz, defence is hardly the end in itself. Arguably even more urgent for Germany and its Chancellor is the stubbornness of the country’s own economic malaise.
The old taunt of being Europe’s “sick man” has returned over the past couple of years, as the once-unstoppable German economy has taken a heavy hit on exports and industrial output. Meanwhile, China has evolved from bounteous export market to industrial rival. At home, a bitter atmosphere reigns. Merz has staked his chancellorship on forging an economic turnaround. Hence his astonishing decision last year to loosen the constitutional “debt brake” instituted in 2009 and free up vast sums on defence and infrastructure. The logic is that a massive boost in state investment will be the stimulus the German economy needs. After so many years as Europe’s proud champion – and notorious enforcer – of fiscal discipline, it was a striking moment (by Merz’s own recent admission to a podcast, the most difficult political decision he has made). It was manifestly a broken election pledge, for which Merz took a political hit. However small, the Chancellor will no doubt take some comfort in the early economic indications.
It is not always true that what is good for Germany is good for Europe. But in this case at least, both a German economic recovery and assertive defensive stance will be welcomed in other capitals. There was a time not so long ago when the prospect of German military leadership in Europe sent tremors of fear through its neighbours. These days, any apprehension about Germany assuming such a role is more likely to be found within Germany itself than beyond its borders. Back in 2011, as the Eurozone’s debt crisis was unfolding, Poland’s Foreign Minister (then as now) Radek Sikorski captured the mood bluntly: “I will probably be the first Polish foreign minister in history to say so”, he said, “but here it is: I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity”. Fifteen years later, a similar mood prevails.
But the mood is not universal.
Those who hope that the new atmosphere might finally permit the development of an integrated European Army, and who believe that the seriousness of the moment demands transcending the petty quibbles into which new European initiatives quickly tend to sink, have already felt some discomfort at Germany’s muscle-flexing in defence matters. Eyebrows were raised a couple of weeks ago when German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul – a close Merz ally – publicly attacked France’s inability to match President Emmanuel Macron’s rhetoric with concrete spending commitments. Meanwhile, disagreement over the French-German “Future Combat Air System” (FCAS) project has become “a symbol of the growing rift between the two countries over defence issues”, as Le Monde recently put it. It is hardly an auspicious environment for talks on developing a common European nuclear deterrent.
It is a situation laced with historical resonances – and ironies. Back in the early, formative post-war years, defence in fact supplied the greatest missed chance for Western Europe’s integration. The “European Defence Community” would have pooled the resources of six states to create a genuinely supranational European army under a single common command. What was more, it was to be embedded in a constitution-like architecture that would have ensured democratic oversight of the enterprise. Defence was to be a vehicle for political integration.
In the end, however, the idea died in Paris. Jealously guarding national authority over France’s still-expansive empire, irritated by American interventions, and – not least – wary of the prospect of a rearmed Germany, the Parliament of the Fourth Republic torpedoed the idea in 1954. Europeanists today may celebrate how far their project has expanded beyond the Franco-German foundation on which it was initially constructed. But when it comes to defence – arguably the most pressing question of the coming years – it is some of the oldest tensions that remain the most intractable.
