Even Germany Is Gaullist Now. Well Done, Trump. – Merz is laying the groundwork for a grand bargain with Macron as the US alliance withers.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-02-26/even-germany-is-gaullist-now-well-done-trump
by ByGollie
28 comments
> #Even Germany Is Gaullist Now. Well Done, Trump.
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> **Merz is laying the groundwork for a grand bargain with Macron as the US alliance withers.**
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> February 26, 2025 at 5:00 AM GMT
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> *By Lionel Laurent*
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> *Lionel Laurent is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist writing about the future of money and the future of Europe. Previously, he was a reporter for Reuters and Forbes.*
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> After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, French President Francois Mitterrand reassured a cautious US that Paris’s ambitions for a more self-reliant European defense would take eons to succeed: The UK wasn’t keen, the Irish were neutral and the Germans after reunification were geographically “so big they no longer know what they’re supposed to be doing.”
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> That aura of German indecision and inaction is starting to change almost 40 years on, thanks to a new incoming coalition in Berlin under center-right leader Friedrich Merz. His calls for deeper European integration in defense are getting more strident as US President Donald Trump threatens to throw his allies under the bus over Ukraine three years after Russia’s invasion. “America First” is doing what Vladimir Putin alone couldn’t: Helping lay the groundwork of a new Franco-German grand bargain similar to Mitterrand’s own, which effectively secured the single currency in return for German reunification.
> European “Independence”?
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> **^US ^personnel ^by ^country ^shows ^legacy ^of ^post-WW2 ^security**
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> https://i.imgur.com/8NdCRpA.png
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> **^Source: ^EUISS**
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> **^Note: ^Greenland ^not ^shown**
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> While coalition negotiations have barely begun, Merz is doubling down on his call for for defense “independence” from the US — the kind of talk associated with French leaders stretching back to Charles de Gaulle. He’s opened discussions with his Social Democrat partners to approve as much as €200 billion ($210 billion) in special spending. Speed is of the essence at a time of domestic political constraints and of US diplomatic somersaults over Ukraine that go against its continental allies. Merz’s dramatic warning that it’s “five minutes to midnight” also keeps open the possibility he could declare a spending emergency, another route to busting constitutional debt limits.
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> Breaking the taboo of Germany’s frugal attitude to spending and its NATO-first security policy will be hard, as will attempts to fix the sorry state of the country’s armed forces. Yet it will be a big signal to Paris that it’s time to think the unthinkable on topics such as investing in and sharing France’s nuclear deterrent. Whether through jointly issued bonds or a less hawkish attitude to budget deficits, Merz’s coalition could sow the seeds of a new grand bargain combining German financial firepower with French defense ambitions, according to the Jacques Delors Institute’s Yann Wernert. German cash; French nukes; American pressure.
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> **^Nuclear ^Numbers**
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> **^Estimates ^show ^US, ^Russia ^own ^88% ^of ^global ^nuclear ^warhead ^inventory**
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> https://i.imgur.com/DxL7kw0.png
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> **^Source: ^Federation ^of ^American ^Scientists**
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> **^Note: ^Estimated ^total ^nuclear ^warhead ^inventories, ^including ^stockpiled ^warheads ^for ^use ^by ^military ^forces, ^warheads ^held ^in ^reserve, ^and ^retired ^warheads ^in ^queue ^for ^dismantlement.**
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> What a potential change from Olaf Scholz’s outgoing coalition, which butted heads with a weakened Emmanuel Macron on issues like electric cars, energy, trade and Ukraine. Mario Draghi recently spoke for a lot of countries when he implored Germany (and others) to “do something” in the face of a combined security, competitiveness and technology shock – one fueling anti-immigration parties and seeing German firms go bust at a rate unseen since the financial crisis.
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> The shared struggle of Merz and Macron with a resurgent far right and a weak economy brings other ways to reset the sputtering Franco-German motor. Both are scrambling to fix Europe’s weak competitiveness, from rolling back a thicket of environmental red tape that France calls “hell” to deeper integration of continental stock markets that could unlock €10 trillion of European savings. Low-hanging fruit on spending and economic self-help in Germany would also be encouraging after two straight years of contraction, with Bloomberg Economics estimating 1% of gross domestic product in spending potential. As in the days of Mitterrand, there are plenty of policy papers outlining where and how to spend it.
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> Merz also offers the prospect of a wider reset with other key countries closer to the Russian border like Poland, which has undergone a transformation since 1989 into Europe’s biggest defense spender relative to GDP and one of its fastest-growing economies. The alignment of the “Weimar Triangle” countries — France, Germany, Poland — will help establish more unity in the face of “America First,” especially if expanded into new geometries to include the likes of the UK or Italy’s Trump-compatible leader Giorgia Meloni. The latter celebrated Merz’s victory by highlighting security, competitiveness and the fight against irregular migration — a reminder that the 1980s’ open-borders utopianism is gone.
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> Obviously, this is Europe, so suspicion and skepticism are never very far from German attempts to put itself back at the heart of the bloc. Angela Merkel became associated with imposing austerity during the euro crisis; Scholz, meanwhile, was accused of undermining European Union solidarity by spending up to €200 billion at home to cushion the impact of soaring energy prices. The fact that Merz’s center-right allies now lead the EU Commission, the EU Parliament’s biggest group and a large swathe of the Council won’t go unnoticed.
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> Still, there’s currently justified optimism that Europe is taking baby steps towards the “something” Draghi is desperate for. Let’s hope it doesn’t stumble.
Seems good to be self-sufficient in terms of security no?
Frankly I never believed that this was possible. We are in full uchronia
Please Germany, show us that You are still a global superpower worthy of leadership. I don’t want my country to be sold out to Russians again.
I dislike Merz and his party with a passion, but I am beyond grateful he’s not like Scholz when it comes to Russia and Trump. He got the message, understood the assignment and does what our last gov should have done immediately following Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
I don’t trust anything Merz says further than I can throw him, and I’m not a strong man. Not to mention that he’s already setting up to torpedo the coalition he hasn’t started negotiating yet to the best of his ability.
But, if this dipshit is what it take to actually make Germany be an active factor in EU politics again, fine. It wasn’t wise to sit back at any point, but now we can no longer afford to regardless of preference.
How bad do you have to fuck up to get germans to turn their back on the US and like weapons and nukes o_0
Trump was the best thing to happen to Europe in decades.
Maybe we should have a vote on reuniting to Francia
The bully and the playground in Europe, he is trying to break the unity to destabilize. And gain the advantage and control over individual countries.
Trump understands that a united Europe will make his lordship more difficult.bullies seek to divide and conquer. Europe’s unity is its strength if it can dig into it fully. It has to if it wants to have a seat at the adults table with Russia and US. Russia is a shit show but it will have military capacity again in the future. Trump knows he can control Russia with economics more than he can contro EU. EU has the talent and the ability to be a player…when unified. Trumps aim is to create turmoil by breaking EU into factions or individual countries and Trump will seek to pick each one off sowing dissension within countries and between. That’s how a bully wins. Fuck that bully. Fuck all the bullies. You know the one who voted against Ukraine in UN. EU is the playground kids that unite to fuck the bully. It’s an old storyline, at its simplest. The EU just needs to follow through with its commitment to the ideal and what they commonly know they stand for that is not transactional like Trump but transformational for the continent. Just like those who stood for the UN resolution on Ukraine they will stand for each other in the big picture. The EU, Canada, Mexico, and others realize the importance now. Rather than scaring the countries of the EU, Trump has reawakened the power within and created through unity.
You can’t be Gaullist if you don’t wear a képi.
The Europeans should’ve been doing this from 2017-2025, doing it now is too little too late. Basing your collective security on a coin flip every 4 years is beyond irresponsible. Even if Trump lost and went away, any future Republican could easily continue his work on weakening the Atlantic alliance.
So no European army, then?
De Gaulle is going to be revered as the true father of the New Europe.
It’s not smart to trust Merz. But I genuinely hope that he will stick to this.
Trump’s erratic foreign policy is a headache, but if there’s one unintended benefit, it’s that Europe is finally waking up to the fact that US protection isn’t guaranteed. Long overdue, but better late than never i guess.
Last time zie Germans were kean on weapons it took around 50 nations to stop them.
Aren’t they going from like a low level allocation to military to 100 billion to now 200 billion euro allocated in 3 years?
De Gaulle did not trust Germany. The title is an oxymoron.
Germany needs its own nukes. Foreign nuclear deterrents can be withdrawn overnight after an election.
French-German relations since after the war have basically always been good. We tease each other, we have a wonderful love-hate relationship, but it never went so far to become a real kinship. This has changed dramatically and while my French lessons are the only project, I had to give up on in life, I welcome this development.
By the way, Merz isn’t chancellor yet.
The alliance isn’t “withering”, the US is just trying to join the cool kids in terms of how much it invests in the security of Europe. Turns out the cool kids didn’t invest much.
Divide et impera, thats what Putler wants.
As much as I hate Merz’ interior plans for Germany, him and Habeck are right on the money when it comes to foreign policy, so I generally expect little pushback from the Greens regarding the re-militarization of Germany, which could potentially also lead to a 2/3 majority for constitutional amendements if needs be.
Be careful with this guy who was a director of Blackrock, he wouldn’t be the first Trojan horse they put on us
While I have some issues with Merz and the CDU, Ukraine and our independence from the US are none of that.
In fact, if SPD was voted by the majority again, and Scholz would be the chancellor again, I doubt he’d do the same decisions as Merz.
He would play it safe and appease Americans on moral appeal and not take critical leadership in these times.
At least there, they seem to differ.
Also, Ukraine will get the Taurus according to him (not sure how great it is, but from the impression I got from ukrainian comments I read sometimes, it’s quite a good weapon) and more support, so that’s one of the few points I agree at.
Hope he doesn’t pull off the things he said with wind turbines… We need more, not less… Can’t believe he wants to tear them down cause they’re “ugly…”
It’s one 1/3 of our energy production, and we shouldn’t replace it due to that…
He’s not a great candidate, not at all, but he might be good at international politics, so I suppose there needs to be a compromise…
Still find him… very frustrating…
Hope SPD can give him in these areas a no compromise thing for their future coalition (I doubt it’s as important for him anyway).
Hope SPD maintains their grounds firm on that one. Migration is the top core for the CDU anyway, so the focus will be there in their negotiations
and this is just the start…one by one they will all join in. it will be the rest of the world against the US/Russia. Which is exactly what trump wants
does it mean that germany is ready to nuke germany to stop the russians from reaching France?! what a time to be alive!
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