Germany in two minds over taking Europe leadership role

The eurozone crisis appears to have swept this post-war caution aside. Two years into the debt disaster, Germany looks increasingly confident in the role of economic superpower, pushing its model of fiscal discipline on the European Union.

But matching its new-found economic dominance with bolder leadership in foreign and security policy — something partners like the United States are urging on Berlin — is another matter for a country which has shied away from geopolitical power because of its Nazi past.

Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere, one of Chancellor Angela Merkel's most trusted aides, summed up the dilemma when he spoke at the annual Munich security conference this month.

Many allies now consider Germany has “the same rights and therefore the same obligations” as other major powers, he said, “but in Europe there are still people who worry about too much German leadership rather than too little German leadership.”

Since the euro crisis began in 2009, Germany has grown from reluctant bailout paymaster to a position of such influence that its unbending drive for austerity helped bring about the exit of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy and George Papandreou in Greece. It has also imposed a “fiscal compact” for EU budget discipline.

While other major EU economies flounder, Germany has posted growth of 3 percent or better for two straight years. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in a battle to win re-election, now openly cites Germany as a model and has enlisted Merkel's help in the campaign to bolster his own damaged credibility.

But Germany's rise has not been without blunders, such as a heavy-handed proposal to send a “kommissar” to Greece to oversee its austerity drive, or the clumsy comment from a senior Merkel lawmaker that all Europe was now “speaking German.”

Berlin is also accused of being unwilling to pay the price of leadership by resisting calls from the International Monetary Fund and others to pay more money into eurozone bailout funds.

For some, though, it punches beneath its weight on the world stage, notably refusing to join NATO allies in air strikes against Libya's Moammar Gadhafi last year. This was a “disappointment,” said Heather Conley of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

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