![]() They still fail to grasp the historical truth that successful unions such as Britain’s union of England with Scotland and Ireland and America’s union of states have been events. Too much in hock to the traditions of the Holy Roman Empire and the EU, they see political union as a process. Where the Germans can be faulted is in their lack of boldness in pushing forward the political unification of Europe on a democratic basis. In other words, the potential surrender of sovereignty to a democratic single European state is written into the very core of the German political DNA. The Basic Law, the German constitution, is bookended by a preamble that announces the intent to “serve world peace” as “an equal member of a united Europe”, and the final paragraph - revised after unification - which states that it will be superseded by a new constitution freely agreed to by the German people. Famously, Chancellor Kohl regarded German unification as a prelude to a much larger European unification. Far from wishing to dominate Europe, the German elite see the European project as both the apotheosis and the transcendence of their national aspirations. Even where it is not so explicit, much of the rhetoric against a “German Europe” draws on memories of Hitler’s attempts to control the entire continent 70 years ago. ![]() In Paris, the socialist senator Marie-Noelle Lienemann invokes the spirit of the Second World War Free French leader General Charles de Gaulle against German suggestions that France should balance its books. More recently, Germanphobia resurfaced in France.
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