Only Germany can tame East-West tensions in Europe

Even on its own, the refugee and migrant crisis is stirring such discord among governments as to threaten European Union (EU) unity. Now, however, this threat is intensifying because of tensions over EU policy towards Russia and the actions of a conservative nationalist government in Poland that is aligned with Hungary’s self-styled illiberal democracy. At stake is the EU’s biggest achievement since the demise of Communism in 1989-91: the healing of the post-second world war division between western and east-central Europe.

Sweden’s imposition of border checks on the Oresund bridge with Denmark, and the Danish government’s decision to do the same on its border with Germany, shows that the obstacles to a common response to the refugee crisis do not arise in central and eastern Europe alone. Nevertheless, it is the particular diagnosis of the problem in countries such as Hungary, Poland and Slovakia that distances them from their western partners .

These governments purport to see the European way of life as under threat from waves of Muslim immigrants from the Middle East, north Africa and beyond. They do not want their societies to be multi-ethnic or multireligious in character. Some would even argue sotto voce that the New Year’s Eve sexual assaults and robberies in Cologne demonstrate western liberalism’s fatal illusions about immigration and the integration of communities.

These same governments are also at odds with Berlin over a pipeline project, known as Nord Stream 2, whose purpose is to deliver Russian gas under the Baltic Sea to Germany. Coming on top of the original Nord Stream venture, which opened in 2011, Nord Stream 2 looks to central and eastern Europeans like a second dagger pointed at their national security.

Nord Stream 2 is not an inherently west-east clash, as was shown at an EU summit last month when Italy was among those speaking out against an exclusive German energy partnership with Russia. However, a completely new factor entered the equation in October: The election victory of Poland’s rightwing Law and Justice party (PiS).

The determination of PiS to seize control of all organs of state authority, and its instinct to brand opponents as national traitors, have upended the efforts of Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor, to cultivate Poland as the democratic pillar of “new Europe”. As an anti-Russian party, PiS has in fact scored an own goal because its antics play into the hands of Germany’s so-called Putinversteher — politicians who “understand” Vladimir Putin, Russia’s President, and who regard Poland and other eastern critics of the Kremlin as unstable, paranoid nuisances blocking German-Russian rapprochement.

Merkel is no Putinversteherin, and the 28-nation EU’s success in staying united on sanctions against Russia for its intervention in Ukraine indicates that West and East are by no means split on all dossiers. Yet, it remains a fact that in some western European circles there exists a certain nostalgia for the EU of 15 nations or fewer that existed before the bloc’s 2004 expansion into central and eastern Europe.

Only Germany has the strength, strategic interest and sense of historical responsibility to prevent west and east from drifting apart. France is wrapped up in its unilaterally declared “war” on terror while the United Kingdom is wrestling with the question of Brexit — whether to leave the EU. Meanwhile, the political pressures on Merkel from the refugee crisis will not abate: Five of Germany’s 16 states will hold elections this year and a federal election is due in 2017. The burden of responsibility on her and Germany’s political classes is heavy indeed.

— Financial Times