Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

I noted in the press on Monday that in a German people some 80% of those who participated said they felt it was time to have a break from the regular things going on about the holocaust and to move on. Some 48% were also not happy with Israel political standings either.  Don't know what the age inclusion was.

The leader of the Continent’s most powerful economy and of the country once regarded as the most collaborative in Europe, Scholz now seems to view the bloc as a problem to be managed. Meanwhile, European institutions and member countries seem to regard him, in their turn, as a problem to be managed too.

Of course, some might argue that Germany’s actions were never quite as generous as its words. For this, they’d point to the 2008 financial crash and subsequent debt crisis, and suggest that Berlin saw its EU partners as export fodder required to toe its strict fiscal line.

Take these recent examples: Germany was one of only five EU members to reject the imposition of tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Scholz came under sustained pressure from German carmakers — which rely on China for sales — and yet he decided to vote alongside the likes of serial rebels Hungary and Slovakia, knowing the European Commission would press ahead regardless.

But why go against the European mainstream, even when you know you’re going to lose?

And finally, while Germany has long argued for greater fiscal and monetary unity within the EU, as well as for free market principles to be more rigorously embedded, Scholz voiced opposition to Italian bank UniCredit’s plan to merge with Commerzbank — a move that perplexed EU and corporate leaders alike.

Then, there’s the most visible — and symbolically important — demonstration of what’s been coming across as a “Germany First” approach: The government’s unilateral decision to impose checks on its remaining open borders. While controls had been operating on Germany’s eastern frontiers with the Czech Republic, Poland and Austria for some time now, in the middle of September, these checks were also applied to the country’s borders with France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark at short notice.

And although the government insisted these changes were limited to six months, the expectation is that they’ll be renewed. Schengen RIP, or so it seems.