Merkel may be leading, but who’s following?

BERLIN — If everything goes as expected, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will once again be anointed “leader of the free world” at the upcoming G20 summit in Hamburg this week.

At first glance, a celebration of her leadership is not unjustified. In a world increasingly run by angry old men, Germany’s female chancellor of 12 years offers a welcome respite. Merkel tops the list of the world’s most trusted leaders, and Germany, having largely shed the darker memories of its past, has been named the world’s most popular country.

Internationally, Berlin has increased its engagement — in Mali, the Mediterranean and elsewhere — stepping up where others have stepped down. Perhaps ironically, the nation responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century has — for many — become the defender of global progress in the 21st.

But as German leadership continues to make global headlines, it’s time for a more nuanced assessment of what the country has done and can do.

Take the never-ending eurozone crisis. Merkel’s dictum — “if the euro fails, Europe fails” — has remained Berlin’s tautological reply to a perpetual crisis in Greece and beyond. She certainly deserves credit for defending the euro; not every call for reforms is objectionable. But Berlin’s single-minded insistence on austerity and structural reforms is as one-sided as it is self-referential.

As southern member countries struggle with record unemployment and waves of populist unrest, Germany is booming.

“Germans tend to view economics as part of moral philosophy,” former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti liked to quip. The consequences for Europe, however, have been anything but amusing. The German obsession with the thrifty “Swabian housewife” has condemned a Continent in dire need of investment to years of economic stagnation.

Irrespective of its intentions, Berlin’s leadership in managing the crisis has not united the European Union but only deepened its fault lines. Even as southern member countries struggle with record unemployment and waves of populist unrest, Germany is booming.

German leadership in the refugee crisis deserves a similarly grim verdict. Yes, Merkel’s decision in the summer of 2015 to open the borders to refugees stranded in Budapest was an example of moral integrity that was missing from other European leaders at the time.

Cricket, played at Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin, is a favorite sport of the Afghan refugees

But there is a difference between political leadership and dogmatic isolation. In the two years since Merkel’s optimistic “Wir schaffen das” (“We can do it”), Berlin has not only failed to bring about a common European response to the challenges of migration; it has stopped pretending to try.

The controversial topic of the relocation of migrants was quietly removed from a European Council meeting in June, despite the recent escalation on Italian shores. Again, Germany’s actions left the Continent more divided and Berlin more isolated than ever.

Even after Berlin markedly changed its stance, divisions in Europe deepened further. Germany’s celebrated Wilkommenskultur has long been replaced by a more hardheaded approach.

The government labeled scores of countries, including Afghanistan, “safe countries of origin” regardless of all evidence to the contrary. It closed the Balkan route and brokered an ambiguous EU-Turkey-deal that made Europe hostage to the whims of an autocrat.

The pragmatic reasons for this fundamental U-turn are of course clear, but it cast a large question mark over the celebrated example of German moral leadership.

The same can be said about Merkel’s acclaim as the “climate chancellor.” She was right to make tackling global warming one of the central tasks of the upcoming G20 summit and to confront U.S. President Donald Trump over his pulling out of the Paris Agreement. But the fact is that there has been virtually no reduction in German CO2 emissions since 2009.

In June, the Federal Environment Agency cautioned that the country’s ambitious climate targets for 2020 are unlikely to be reached even by 2030. Even more critically: Despite its potential benefits, Germany’s energy transition has so far failed to kick off any international domino effect.

In politics as in life, leadership is ultimately about encouraging others to follow. Here, Germany’s record is ambiguous, to say the least.

To be fair, some expectations simply cannot be fulfilled. The German chancellor herself has said she is highly skeptical of the leadership role ascribed to her by international media.

Merkel’s view is, in fact, shared by her fellow citizens, whose appetite for global leadership remains limited. Berlin’s de facto dominance in Europe notwithstanding, Germans are as reluctant as ever to embrace a prominent international role. According to recent polls, only 42 percent support increasing the country’s minute defense budget, 41 percent favor a more robust engagement abroad, and only 38 percent would like to take a stronger military stance against the Islamic State.

International observers celebrating Germany and its chancellor as potent protectors of the international order in Hamburg should take a close look at the facts. Germany is indeed a liberal democracy ready to play its part, but its track record shows that global expectations are anything but realistic.

In politics as in life, leadership is ultimately about encouraging others to follow. Here, Germany’s record is ambiguous, to say the least. At the end of the day, a leader without followers is only a person going for a walk.

Michael Bröning is head of the International Policy Department at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Berlin, a political foundation affiliated with Germany’s Social Democratic Party.