Abstract
This chapter argues that, contrary to expectations raised by the ‘normalisation’ debate, the crisis in Germany reflects both its post-war European identity and the incorporation of ordoliberal values into understandings of Europe. While both German elites and media actors present the Euro crisis as a broad European crisis threatening the very project of European integration, the crisis has also seen the development of a particularly German flavour of European solidarity and the ‘good European’ based on an ‘ordoliberal ethic’ of economic discipline and individual responsibility. Hostility to Greece in the conservative and populist press can be understood in this light–rather than signalling a strengthening of German national identity, this instead represents the development of a new Northern European identity from which Greece and other southern Europeans are excluded.
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Notes
- 1.
This chapter draws on my article entitled ‘Has Germany “Fallen out of Love” with Europe? The Eurozone Crisis and the “Normalization” of Germany’s European Identity’, published in the journal German Politics and Society, Vol. 33, No. 1/2, pp. 25–41.
- 2.
‘Ein Ölfleck über Europa’, FAZ, 27 April 2010, p. 13.
- 3.
There is debate about whether this clause does actually constitute a ‘no-bail-out’ clause in a strict sense, see e.g. Falkner (2013). However, for the purposes of this argument it is the perception of non-compliance which is important for the question of solidarity and trust.
- 4.
In the summer of 2015, a number of early founders of the party including former party leader and co-founder Bernd Lucke left the AfD to form a new party, the ‘Alliance for Progress and Renewal’ (Allianz fuür Fortschritt und Aufbruck – ALFA) in response to a shift to the right. Five out of the AfD’s seven MEPs switched their allegiances to ALFA, which has taken on much of the AfD’s original manifesto. In the months following, the AfD has adopted a much more extreme rhetoric, particularly regarding refugees and Islam. In March 2016 the AfD was asked to leave the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and Beatrix von Storch, a vice chair of the AfD, joined UKIP’s Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy.
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Galpin, C. (2017). Has Germany Fallen Out of Love with Europe?. In: The Euro Crisis and European Identities. New Perspectives in German Political Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51611-0_4
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