The Franco-German legacy of Wolfgang Schäuble is fading

The death of veteran finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble marks the end of the post-war generation of Francophile German politicians and heralds rockier relations for the EU’s Franco-German “engine” as Berlin shifts its focus eastward.

Monday’s (22 January) state memorial service for Schäuble, who died on 26 December and is often considered the architect of European austerity, will be fraught with symbolism.

Hosted on Franco-German Day, the service is evidently supposed to emphasise his close connection with France, with French President Emmanuel Macron expected among those paying their respects in Berlin.

However, the date also lends itself to darker metaphors, as Germany buries the last of a generation of post-war politicians for whom the bilateral friendship was an “existential feeling”, heralding a more estranged era in the relationship between the EU’s two largest economies.

“The emotional phase after the world wars, in which people were relieved that they were no longer at war with each other, is coming to an end (…) for Franco-German relations,” Yann Wernert, policy fellow at the Jacques Delors Centre think tank, observed.

What lies ahead, he said, is “a more pragmatic phase”, with more controversy and policy bargaining looming.

Born during World War II, Schäuble embodied the longing for Franco-German reconciliation of the previous era, which dominated politics after 1945 and became the driving force behind European integration.

He liked to tell reporters how he had kept the newspaper with war headlines that his father bought on the day of his birth, journalist Sabine Syfuss-Arnaud recounted.

Upon learning that she was Franco-German, the then finance minister had offered her the position of his international spokesperson, which Syfuss-Arnaud politely declined.

For Schäuble, Franco-German and European understanding and integration “was an existential feeling,” she said.

Architects of Europe

Throughout the 1980s and 90s, Schäuble and contemporaries such as Chancellor Helmut Kohl, French President François Miterrand, and EU Commission President Jacques Delors, fostered rapid rapprochement between Germany and France, resulting in the EU single market and a shared currency.

Even ideas such as a Franco-German confederation and joint army were not off-limits.

There was a bilateral “reflex that had a positive effect on the willingness to (…) find solutions,” Wernert said.

On the news of his passing, the Paris branch of the Franco-German parliamentary assembly (APFA) honoured Schäuble as “a passionate European as well as a fervent defender of Franco-German friendship”.

Still, in France, the former German finance minister is nowadays mostly remembered for his role in the euro crisis, when he preached – and demanded – austerity from everyone.

“Schäuble’s legacy is controversial because of German austerity”, noted Victor Warhem, from the European Policy Center (EPC) in Paris.

All quiet on the Western front

The gradual disappearance of the post-war generation has come with a loss of cultural understanding, making the special Franco-German relationship look a little scratched while complicating European politics, insiders point out.

“Paris remains special, but with the fall of the Berlin Wall and later EU enlargement, Central and Eastern Europe have gained importance for Germany,” Wernert said.

The close relationship with France is much less entrenched in Germany’s east, a former Soviet satellite state.

A review by the Franco-German Youth Office (DFJW) found that more than 95% of Franco-German interactions in Germany, in areas such as youth exchanges, investment, and tourism, take place in the former Western Germany.

Notably, both Schäuble and Kohl came from the West. Under Angela Merkel, Germany’s first Eastern German chancellor, the Franco-German friendship has started to feel “forced”, said Syfuss-Arnaud.

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Advocates of the relationship on both sides have seen this growing cultural estrangement with concern.

“People like [Schäuble] are hard to find nowadays,” Charles Sitzenstuhl (Renaissance), deputy chair of the French Parliament’s European affairs committee, told Euractiv in an interview last year, crediting Schäuble with understanding “French sensitivities and how French politicians think”.

Armin Laschet (CDU, EPP), former prime minister of the regional state of North Rhine-Westphalia and Franco-German culture commissioner, voiced concern about fewer students in both countries learning the language of their neighbour.

In 2022, numbers in Germany sank to the lowest level in almost 30 years despite a growing population, he told Euractiv, while the DFJW pointed out that intercultural youth exchange has been underfunded for years.

“Europe will suffer”

Without cultural understanding, as well as “commitment and passion” for the Franco-German friendship, “Europe will suffer in the long term”, Laschet said, pointing to frequent misunderstandings between the current governments in Berlin and Paris.

Has the Franco-German tandem entered an interregnum under Scholz?

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is running out of time to shape a joint Franco-German legacy with French President Emmanuel Macron, with worries growing that his distanced approach to Paris will yield an era of stagnation in the relationship.

The importance of Franco-German understanding for the EU was underlined when deep disagreement between both countries in areas such as electricity market reform, European defence, and debt rules held up business in Brussels for months.

People with knowledge of the matter credited the improved interpersonal understanding that came after a Franco-German cabinet retreat in Hamburg for resolving the impasse on electricity.

“The Franco-German friendship should not be taken for granted,” Laschet summarised. “It’s a special achievement that we must work on daily.”

EPC’s Warhem said that despite impressions that the bilateral relations are floundering, “we must not lose hope”.

“Whenever there were diplomatic tensions between France and Germany over the years, the two countries have always gone beyond this in the common interest.”

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]