Responding to Germany and to AKK

AKK, full name, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the new leader of the CDU governing party in Germany, is more concerned with the growing influence of the AfD – Alternative for Germany, the extreme-right, ultranationalist party – than with European affairs. That explains, to a very large extent, the way she responded to Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance proposals. She was above all writing to her constituency within CDU and to many of those voters that have decided to move their support to AfD during the last few years. One of the things she must achieve is to bring that support back to CDU. Her leadership is a lot about that objective.

All that is fine. We know that party politics is primarily a domestic matter. However, AKK’s approach is not a balanced one. Germany is a key player within the EU. As such, it ought to show leadership and ambition on European matters. That is particularly needed now, when the European elections are already taking shape in the near horizon and a new leading team will take over in Brussels and be directing the institutions for the next five years. Moreover, this is a time of major political challenges, both within Europe and in the international scene. Internally, Europe as a project is seriously questioned by a bad mixture of populist sentiments and national fragilities. Externally, the risks to European interests are many, complex, simultaneous and compound. They come from some neighbours – these are always the most dangerous threats. But in the connected world we live in, the concept of neighbourhood needs to be reassessed. And the threats also come from unsettling changes of policy at the level of our traditional allies.

There is thus plenty of room to be leader about. That should be one of the messages to be sent back to Germany and to AKK.