By Simon Korner

The war in Ukraine has intensified rivalries between the major imperialist powers. Most notably, the US has forced its European ‘allies’ into self-sabotaging anti-Russian sanctions – at a stroke weakening Europe and strengthening itself. Germany has cut off the cheap Russian energy on which it relied for 40% of its supplies, and has begun importing much more expensive US liquified natural gas instead. This is impacting badly on German industry, and some companies are already moving operations to the USA for cheaper energy (Anadolu Agency, 14/12/22). And then there was the destruction of Nord Stream 2, the 30% German-owned pipeline, which Russia believes, with plausible evidence, that it was a US-orchestrated attack carried out by British special forces (Reuters, 29/10/22).

Meanwhile, US nuclear weapons stationed in Germany, along with 40,000 US troops, reinforce US hegemony over its main European rival. As former Indian diplomat M. K. Bhadrukumar puts it, “Chancellor Scholz is terrified of President Biden’s wrath.”

US dominance over Europe has also expressed itself in the recently introduced Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a law that subsidises fuel prices for US industry, leaving European countries to pay higher prices for US fuel brought about by their sanctions against Russia. In response to the IRA, French newspaper Les Echos has labelled the US a “systemic rival”. For now, Germany and France are united in their protest against what amounts to a trade war against Europe.

FRANCE FEARS RISE OF GERMAN MILITARISM

Notwithstanding their temporary unity against the IRA, the result of the marked increase in US bullying has been to raise tensions between France and Germany, the two major powers in the EU. They have turned on one another to the point where a long-planned joint Council of Ministers summit had to be postponed till January this year due to bitter arguments.

For France, the rise of German militarism is a cause for alarm. Since the 1963 Élysée Treaty, France’s clear military superiority as the sole nuclear power on continental Europe was accepted by Germany, and in turn French military power underwrote Germany’s economic hegemony over the rest of the EU.

France has long insisted on maintaining military pre-eminence in Europe. Its controversial Pacific nuclear tests in the 1990s, for instance, were justified by the then foreign minister on the grounds that, “France had to protect itself after being invaded three times in the past century” (The Times, 4/8/95) – he was referring to invasions by Germany in 1870 (rather over a century before), 1914, and 1940. As an independent nuclear power France is also able to resist US interference to a degree, while ultimately it nurses ambitions to realise De Gaulle’s vision of French pre-Waterloo global supremacy (Foundation Robert Schuman, 1/2/21).

Now French fears of Germany’s strength and intentions have increased exponentially – for good reason. Germany is less and less willing to take French interests into account. Chancellor Scholz has seized the opportunity of the Ukraine war to argue explicitly for German militarism, “Germans are intent on becoming the guarantor of European security…” he said. “The crucial role for Germany at this moment is to step up as one of the main providers of security in Europe by investing in our military, strengthening the European defence industry, beefing up our military presence on NATO’s eastern flank… This decision marks the starkest change in German security policy since the establishment of the Bundeswehr in 1955…” (Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2023).

GERMANY JOINS THE WAR PARTY 

What Scholz calls a “Zeitenwende” or tectonic shift means that the German establishment consensus, as expressed by Willy Brandt, that “war must never again go out from German soil” has been revised (Foreign Affairs, 5/12/22). Germany under the SPD and Greens has joined the war party by delivering heavy weapons to Ukraine, something that was taboo as recently as early 2022 (Deutsche Welle, 19/1/22).

Even more serious taboos are being challenged. A senior Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung editor has called explicitly for Germany to acquire nuclear weapons of its own (Carnegie Endowment, 5/3/20). This would “be a precondition of German leadership in Europe independent from France and closer in line with the worldview of Eastern European countries such as Poland”, according to Wolfgang Streek (New Left Review, 7/11/22).

Concrete moves are already being made for this. Annalena Baerbock, the hawkish Green foreign minister, has insisted on buying thirty-five US F-35 bombers – in fact she made it a condition of the Greens entering the coalition government with the SPD. These planes can carry US nuclear bombs, and were chosen for that purpose (Daily Express, 15/12/22).

As well as acquiring the US nuclear-capable F-35s, Germany is developing a European fighter plane with France and Spain. Known as the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), the project highlights the tensions between France and Germany. Disputes over which aerospace company – France’s Dassault or Germany’s Airbus – predominates have delayed the project. While Dassault’s CEO, Eric Trappier, says his company must remain the “uncontested leader” (Defense News, 22/11/22), Germany’s Airbus is worried about being relegated to a role as a supplier rather than full partner. France, for its part, is worried about giving away high level technology to Germany. Similar quarrels delayed the 1980s joint Typhoon project and led to France going its own way with its Rafale fighter.

Military leadership

In addition, Germany’s plan for a European air defence system called the European Sky Shield Initiative involving 15 countries has infuriated France, which is meanwhile developing a rival air defence system with Italy. “There is the impression that Germany is forging ahead alone,” says Gaspard Schnitzler of the French thinktank Iris (20 Minuten, News von Jetzt, 20/10/22).

France believes Germany is breaking up the old Franco-German axis and thus undermining France’s long-held vision of European (in effect French) “strategic autonomy” – that is, French room for manoeuvre outside US command and commensurate French military pre-eminence within Europe. As one report puts it, France is concerned that “insufficient coordination between member states and off-the-shelf purchases might benefit the US industry rather than Europe’s, ultimately creating new dependencies” (ISPI, 7/4/22).

The European Sky Shield, consisting of US Patriot weapons among others, will cover most of the Baltic and eastern European states, giving Germany too big “a foothold in Eastern European countries” for France’s liking, according to Gaspard Schnitzler, because it poses a challenge to French military superiority. “With its new €100 billion fund announced in February to re-arm the German military, Berlin has enough to triple its acquisition budget every year,” says one researcher at another French thinktank IFRI (Le Monde, 15/10/22).

Germany is thus promoting itself as leading the European arm of NATO, rather than as a partner with France in the EU’s semi-autonomous defence force. Whereas the French government once lobbied for Germany to raise its arms spending – so long as France and the EU controlled the result – it is now watching in dismay as Germany escapes the post-war embrace that bound it to France for decades. As Macron put it, “I think it's not good for Germany or for Europe that it isolates itself” (The Limited Times, 20/10/22).

ENERGY DISPUTE 

Another Franco-German dispute is over energy. With soaring prices across Europe, France, Italy and around two-thirds of EU member states have argued for a price cap on gas, seeking to use the EU as a cartel to keep prices low. Germany opposed this, arguing that a cap would divert gas that the EU needs to other countries willing to pay more. But a more important reason for German opposition was revealed when it suddenly announced €200bn (£170bn) in state aid to German businesses and consumers to offset the high fuel costs – having given France no prior warning of its move. This massive subsidy allows Germany to obtain the gas it needs despite high prices, something less wealthy EU countries, including France, find harder to do. German subsidies benefit its own industry at the expense of the industries of France and peripheral EU countries – similar to what the US is doing to Europe with its Inflation Reduction Act.

Though an EU price cap was finally agreed in late December 2022, the Netherlands, Austria and Hungary refused to sign the deal, and German let-out clauses render it largely unworkable and unlikely to last. 

Germany is also trying to hobble France’s competitive energy industry, in particular the state-subsidised Élecricité de France (EDF). Former EDF boss, Henri Proglio, complained recently, “The German obsession for 30 years has been the disintegration of EDF…they’ve succeeded” (Documentaire et Verité, @DocuVerite, 13/12/22. Proglio added: “How do you expect this country (Germany) to accept that France has a competitive tool as powerful as EDF on its doorstep?”

The Germany-first approach has caused an outcry across Europe. One adviser to Italy’s prime minister said Germany’s energy policy “undermines the reasons for the Union”. Luxembourg’s energy minister, called it an “insane race… to outVcompete other governments in such a difficult moment in Europe.”

France, in turn, is refusing Germany’s request for a new energy pipeline (the MidCat project) to run from Spain across France to Germany. While France cites environmental reasons for refusing the project, it clearly gains by hindering German access to fuel, an area in which France has a relative advantage because of its nuclear power programme.

Beyond the energy sector, the use of economic muscle has long been used by Germany as a weapon to subordinate the other EU countries, including France. Germany, for instance, argues for maintaining the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact, which sets tight limits on national debt. France, by contrast, wants to scrap it to allow it to subsidise its arms and nuclear industries – key sectors of its economy. Germany wants spending limits because its debts are lower than France’s, and seeks to gain advantage by adhering to the Pact. France seeks to gain by breaking it.

CHINA 

There are also major tensions between France and Germany over China – both countries vying for trade, despite US disapproval. Scholz has agreed the sale of 24.9% of Hamburg port to Chinese company Cosco. His recent visit to Beijing with a large business delegation provoked anger among the eastern European countries and the EU foreign ministry, which argue for anti-China confrontation in line with US policy. France is once again worried about Germany going it alone, after Germany rebuffed the idea of a joint Franco-German visit. Following Scholz’s trip, Macron announced his own visit early next year (Politico, 16/11/22).

GERMANY CONSOLIDATES POWER 

Germany favours enlargement of the EU to include “the Western Balkan states, Ukraine, Moldova and, in the long term, to Georgia”, as Scholz announced recently (Guardian, 14/12/22). The accession of several smaller countries – most under German economic influence – will massively enlarge Germany’s sphere of control within the EU, at the expense of France. Within an EU of at least 30 states, Germany will have an inbuilt majority. And if it achieves its aim of establishing a new system of majority voting rather than the current unanimous voting, it will have gained unprecedented political control over the EU.

However, weakened in relation to the USA, German imperialism has been pulled firmly into the Atlanticist fold, at least for now, though the military monster the US is creating could come back to haunt it in years to come.

Within the EU, the effect has been to intensify the historic rivalry between Germany and France. Germany’s doubled military budget will increase the pressure it is already exerting on France to cede its permanent seat on the UN Security Council to the EU. Such a move would in effect mean Germany, as the EU’s hegemonic power, attaining Security Council membership and global power status. As France will not sit by and watch Germany eclipse it, the contradictions between the two look likely to sharpen, leading to the possibility of yet another armed conflict between them.

US Secretary of State Blinken and German Foreign minister Baerbock have a quiet word. Photo by US State Dept