Germany depends on the votes of Spain and Ireland at the EU for a lot of things that Germany finds important.
If a measure at the EU level has enough consensus and Germany vetoes it, they’ll see other members be a lot more likelly to use veto power on things that mostly matter for Germany.
Since Germany are in the curious position of being the EU member that benefits the most from the Free Market (they’re the biggest exporter and their biggest market by far is the rest of the EU) and the Euro (their currency now is a lot weaker and hence they’re more competitive because it’s a currency union with far weaker countries, than it was back in the deutsche mark times), they can’t even threathen to leave the EU as that would a bit like threatenning almost everybody else with a good time whilst they shot themselves on both feet.
Still, the most likely outcome is going to be nothing at all getting done at EU level, either way, if only because that’s always the most likely outcome.
If only Germany would not be willing to recognice Palestine, then this might happen, but that is not the case. France and Italy the two next most powerfull countries do not recognice Palestine either.
Germany is usually fairly happy with the current state of the EU. The things Germany wants to change are usually also supported by Spain and that means blackmail is harder. The only exaption to that is finance. However Spain is not going to let billions go to waste to have Palestine recogniced. That is just more of a symbol, rather then massivly important.
Also Germany leaving the EU would cause some massive problems in other EU countries as well. They would hardly be cheering for it.
It’s unclear were exactly France is on this, though I agree that Italy under the current far-right government is unlikelly to recognize Palestine.
I’m mostly thinking about the Financial stuff: none of the so called PIIGS forgot how they and their populations were sacrificed to save German banks and a “Let’s fuck Germany” posture wouldn’t at all be a hard sell in those countries plus I very much doubt that generally not doing what’s good for Germany would be bad for those countries since they’re almost opposite to Germany in the forms by which their economies can benefit from the Euro - they would actually grow more in an Euro without Germany.
I’m also not so sure that a German exit would end up being bad for the rest of the EU, especially for the less export oriented and more peripheral countries like Spain - certainly an Euro minus Germany would actually be better for everybody else but Germany (as Germany pushes up the value of the Euro, making other Euro nations less competitive and partly explaining their anemic growth and lack of funds to restructure their Economies, which is the other big reason for their anemic growth) though granted it depends on how important are exports to Germany in each economy, though on non-Euro EU matters you might be right. In summary and as I said before, almost nobody else but Germany benefits from Germany’s Euro membership and the kind of nations that would be least affected by a Deutschexit are the ones who have no borders with Germany, a group that includes Spain, Ireland and Norway (though the latter is not an EU member and hence has no vote or veto so doesn’t really apply for the scenario we are discussing).
Spain has grown faster then Germany for most of the last decade(besides 2020). Out of PIIGS Portugal and Ireland also have done pretty well. Greece got hit hard and Italys economy has problems since the 90s(aka not a EU/Euro problem).
The figure is quite different if you look at the growth in nominal per-capita terms rather than in percentage of initial value as any shitty-shit growth in a poor nation looks a lot more in percentage terms.
Further, I’m living in Portugal and I can tell you that at least in quality of life terms the country has been going backwards for at least a decade, even if mathematically, thanks to a housing bubble and understating housing inflation, the GDP figures produced show “Growth” which is actually just housing inflation that has not been discounted from the Nominal GDP.
The only one of the PIIGS anywhere near catching up to Germany is the Republic Of Ireland and even those have fishy numbers because of how many international companies declare the revenue of their entire EU operations in Ireland because of just how much Ireland facilitates tax evasion - a lot of the money being “made in Ireland” is neither “made in Ireland” nor does it even pass by Ireland and it being counted as Irish GDP is just an accounting artifact.
But yeah, Norway is not an EU member, as I myself pointed out in the very post you replied to.
Correct on a per capita bases Portugal has been growing much much faster then Germany. The simple truth it that Germany is not benefiting from austerity either. What should happen is that the German government massively increases spending. This would turn Germany from a net exporter, to a net importer. That allows the PIIGS to export products to Germany paying down the debt, but it also stimulates the economy. Germany profits from the increased spending as well.
The simple truth is that German life expectancy is declining since a couple of years(being below Spain, Italy and Portugal btw). Median wealth of Italy, Spain and Portugal is higher then that of Germany, which is only slightly higher then that of Greece. Real wages in Germany have gone up by 3.8% over the last decade(not annually but the entire decade).
The only ones who really profit from this austerity are the super rich. Other then that it is as bad a policy for Germany as it is for Italy, Portugal, Spain or Greece.
European legislation supersedes German legislation. Germany has to fall in line and implement what Europe tells it.
Foreign policy needs consensus. So the EU can not force Germany to do anything in terms of foreign policy.
Germany depends on the votes of Spain and Ireland at the EU for a lot of things that Germany finds important.
If a measure at the EU level has enough consensus and Germany vetoes it, they’ll see other members be a lot more likelly to use veto power on things that mostly matter for Germany.
Since Germany are in the curious position of being the EU member that benefits the most from the Free Market (they’re the biggest exporter and their biggest market by far is the rest of the EU) and the Euro (their currency now is a lot weaker and hence they’re more competitive because it’s a currency union with far weaker countries, than it was back in the deutsche mark times), they can’t even threathen to leave the EU as that would a bit like threatenning almost everybody else with a good time whilst they shot themselves on both feet.
Still, the most likely outcome is going to be nothing at all getting done at EU level, either way, if only because that’s always the most likely outcome.
If only Germany would not be willing to recognice Palestine, then this might happen, but that is not the case. France and Italy the two next most powerfull countries do not recognice Palestine either.
Germany is usually fairly happy with the current state of the EU. The things Germany wants to change are usually also supported by Spain and that means blackmail is harder. The only exaption to that is finance. However Spain is not going to let billions go to waste to have Palestine recogniced. That is just more of a symbol, rather then massivly important.
Also Germany leaving the EU would cause some massive problems in other EU countries as well. They would hardly be cheering for it.
It’s unclear were exactly France is on this, though I agree that Italy under the current far-right government is unlikelly to recognize Palestine.
I’m mostly thinking about the Financial stuff: none of the so called PIIGS forgot how they and their populations were sacrificed to save German banks and a “Let’s fuck Germany” posture wouldn’t at all be a hard sell in those countries plus I very much doubt that generally not doing what’s good for Germany would be bad for those countries since they’re almost opposite to Germany in the forms by which their economies can benefit from the Euro - they would actually grow more in an Euro without Germany.
I’m also not so sure that a German exit would end up being bad for the rest of the EU, especially for the less export oriented and more peripheral countries like Spain - certainly an Euro minus Germany would actually be better for everybody else but Germany (as Germany pushes up the value of the Euro, making other Euro nations less competitive and partly explaining their anemic growth and lack of funds to restructure their Economies, which is the other big reason for their anemic growth) though granted it depends on how important are exports to Germany in each economy, though on non-Euro EU matters you might be right. In summary and as I said before, almost nobody else but Germany benefits from Germany’s Euro membership and the kind of nations that would be least affected by a Deutschexit are the ones who have no borders with Germany, a group that includes Spain, Ireland and Norway (though the latter is not an EU member and hence has no vote or veto so doesn’t really apply for the scenario we are discussing).
Spain has grown faster then Germany for most of the last decade(besides 2020). Out of PIIGS Portugal and Ireland also have done pretty well. Greece got hit hard and Italys economy has problems since the 90s(aka not a EU/Euro problem).
Also Norway is not an EU member.
The figure is quite different if you look at the growth in nominal per-capita terms rather than in percentage of initial value as any shitty-shit growth in a poor nation looks a lot more in percentage terms.
Further, I’m living in Portugal and I can tell you that at least in quality of life terms the country has been going backwards for at least a decade, even if mathematically, thanks to a housing bubble and understating housing inflation, the GDP figures produced show “Growth” which is actually just housing inflation that has not been discounted from the Nominal GDP.
The only one of the PIIGS anywhere near catching up to Germany is the Republic Of Ireland and even those have fishy numbers because of how many international companies declare the revenue of their entire EU operations in Ireland because of just how much Ireland facilitates tax evasion - a lot of the money being “made in Ireland” is neither “made in Ireland” nor does it even pass by Ireland and it being counted as Irish GDP is just an accounting artifact.
But yeah, Norway is not an EU member, as I myself pointed out in the very post you replied to.
Correct on a per capita bases Portugal has been growing much much faster then Germany. The simple truth it that Germany is not benefiting from austerity either. What should happen is that the German government massively increases spending. This would turn Germany from a net exporter, to a net importer. That allows the PIIGS to export products to Germany paying down the debt, but it also stimulates the economy. Germany profits from the increased spending as well.
The simple truth is that German life expectancy is declining since a couple of years(being below Spain, Italy and Portugal btw). Median wealth of Italy, Spain and Portugal is higher then that of Germany, which is only slightly higher then that of Greece. Real wages in Germany have gone up by 3.8% over the last decade(not annually but the entire decade).
The only ones who really profit from this austerity are the super rich. Other then that it is as bad a policy for Germany as it is for Italy, Portugal, Spain or Greece.