Germany's great experiment

Angela Merkel changed the face of European politics

If at any point in the last 15 years, I had been asked which European country was likely to see serious conflict in the near future, there was only one answer. Which country had the most bitter colonial history with its largest migrant group? Which had the worst problem with jihadism? In which country could you feel the palpable hatred, which at some point was bound to erupt? It seemed obviously to be France.

After Sunday’s European election results, and President Macron’s decision to hold a snap election – they seem to be the rage these days – France’s continual move to the right seems unstoppable, and the still-unlikely possibility of a Marine Le Pen presidency grows stronger every day.

Yet it is not France that most concerns the rest of Europe now but Germany, the EU’s largest and most important nation and for decades a beacon of stability. The phrase ‘Keine Experimente!’, used by the post-war Christian Democrats but echoing that of the inter-war Catholic Centre Party, encapsulated the dullness of their politics, and they liked it that way.

By the 2010s, Germany had come to be the poster child for a more sensible and forward-thinking vision of a nation. To a certain type of British liberal, it was the country they wished Britain could be. This feeling was only heightened by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s welcome to Syrian refugees in 2015, applauded as an act of generosity that would cleanse her nation from historical sin.