Germany and the Euro Crisis. A Failed Hegemony

2014

This article delivers a contribution to the debate about the Euro crisis. With that purpose, our starting point shall be the book German Europe by the renowned sociologist Ulrich Beck. Analyzing the main ideas expressed in that book, we shall discuss more deeply the future perspectives of the European Union and its common currency, the Euro. In doing this, we shall consider different elements, in order to offer a complete overview of the situation: in particular, we will discuss economic, social and political themes. It will be interesting comparing Beck’s ideas with those of other important thinkers, especially with regard to themes such as the role of the EU in the world politics and the ways in which it could become a more democratic institution. A significant part of this work shall be dedicated to the predominant role of Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel. According to Beck, she is the undiscussed leader of Europe, as with her peculiar political decisions and way of acting she influences and directs the functioning of European Union decisively.

Undergraduate essay. Unpublished. This essay examines the role of hegemonic Germany in the EU and the Eurozone particularly. It briefly explains the theory of Hegemonic stability and presents the main contributors. Further, it presents the case of how Germany, systemically, was dragged to such an hegemonic position. It follows the idea of a relunctant hegemon. Finally, the essay concludes that Germany should resume its natural hegemony, as the Maastricht negotiations developed such a perspective. A hegemonic Germany is deemed to be benevolent for the whole european peace project.

The Eurozone Crisis and the Future of Europe, 2014

2011

Rarely has Germany been as important in Europe – or as isolated – as it is today. Germany has had Europe’s biggest economy since integration began, but since the beginning of the euro crisis last year, there has been a kind of “unipolar moment” within the eurozone: no solution to the crisis was possible without Germany or against Germany. At the same time, from Greece to Libya, Germany has been seen as increasingly evasive, absent and unpredictable. Although Germany has now signalled that it will do whatever it takes to save the euro, much of Europe is worried about the way that this will be done and is even resentful about where Germany seems to be heading.1 To many, it appears that an increasingly powerful and independent Federal Republic is renegotiating the two fundamental principles that have guided its foreign policy for decades: European integration and the western alliance. Some even suggest that Germany is laying the foundations for a new Sonderweg, or special path. While G...

This working paper attempts to understand why after two decades proposing the creation of a political union to make European monetary union (EMU) sustainable, Germany has not utilised the ‘window’ offered by the Eurozone crisis to pursue more vigorously this goal. Using the conceptual devices of the Chartalist understanding of money and hegemony, three possible explanations are explored. 1) Germany is slowly becoming a ‘normal’ European power and has started to favour the intergovernmental to the community method. 2) The German public has lost its enthusiasm for European integration, especially after realising how the proposed banking union has brought the spectrum of a ‘transfer union’ closer. 3) Germany remains a reluctant hegemon and once it has seen that France is still not ready for political union it has refrained from actively promoting this ideal. The conclusion of the paper is that the first two explanations have some merits, but that the third one continues to be the most convincing. The zeal by which the German political elites, supported by their public opinion, have pushed through the Spitzenkandidaten logic in the 2014 European elections confirms that Berlin is still determined to build a more federal Europe. The question is rather whether Paris is ready to participate in this endeavour.

Levy Economics Institute WP series, 2018

There is no disputing Germany’s dominant economic role within the eurozone (EZ) and the broader European Union. Economic leadership, however, entails responsibilities, especially in a world system of monetary production economies that compete with each other according to political and economic interests. In the first section of this paper, historical context is given to the United States’ undisputed leadership of monetary production economies following the end of World War II to help frame the broader discussion developed in the second section on the requirements of the leading nation-state in the new system of states after the war. The second section goes on further to discuss how certain constraints regarding the external balance do not apply to the leader of the monetary production economies. The third section looks at Hyman P. Minsky’s proposal for a shared burden between the hegemon and other core industrial economies in maintaining the stability of the international financial system. Section four looks at Germany’s leadership role within the EZ and how it must emulate some of the United States’ trade policies in order to make the EZ a viable economic bloc. The break up scenario is considered in the fifth section. The last section summarizes and concludes.

Contributions to Political Economy, 2013

Highlighting that France and Germany held largely contradicting hopes and aspirations for Europe's common currency, this paper analyzes how the resulting euro contradiction conditioned the ongoing euro crisis as well as current strategies to resolve it. While Germany generally prevailed in hammering out the design of the euro policy regime, the German authorities have failed to see the inconsistency in their policy endeavors: the creation of a model whose workability presupposes that others behave differently cannot be made to work by forcing everyone to behave like Germany. This fundamental misunderstanding has made Germany the main culprit in the euro crisis, but it has yet to face the full consequences of its actions. Germany had sought every protection against the much-dreaded euro "transfer union," but its own conduct has made that very outcome inevitable. Conversely, having been disappointed in its own hopes for the euro, France is now facing the prospect of a lost generation-a prospect, shared with other debtor nations in the union, that has undermined the Franco-German alliance and may soon turn it into the ultimate euro battleground.

Hong Kong Economic Journal, 14 December 2011

International Journal of Political Economy, 2010

Moving from the current global and European imbalances and crises, and from the consideration of the German reaction to them, the paper explores the political economy origins of the conservative German policy stance. It emerges that an export-oriented economy was a deliberate decision of the German elite after WW II and that the external constraint may be regarded as appropriately designed for internal discipline and efficiency (and vice-versa) in a self-reinforcing process. The conclusions illustrate some possible future scenarios for Europe.