Europe | A new pecking order

Who is in charge of Europe? 

The East is up, Germany is down, Britain is out 

A montage of Olaf Scholz, Ursula Von der Layen, Emmanuel Macron and the Berlaymont Building surrounded by the EU stars and flags, against a backdrop of a shelled apartment block and the lone figure of Volodymyr Zelensky.
Image: Klawe Rzeczy/Getty Images
|Brussels

Football is a game where “twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win,” quipped Gary Lineker, an English player. For decades the European project had similarly predictable dynamics: whether composed of six countries or 12 or 27, member states chased compromises until whatever had been stitched up by France and Germany was accepted by all. But the old model of dominance by its two biggest members has long been creaking. As Europe faces up to repeated crises a new, more fluid geography of power is taking shape.

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This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Who’s in charge?”

From the January 13th 2024 edition

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