So, Merz is likely Germany’s next Chancellor. He’s said one good thing:
“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.
“After Donald Trump‘s statements, it is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.”
Excellent. The first step in recovery from being a slave, or vassal, is admitting the problem and deciding to stand up.
Problem is Merz is rabidly anti-Russia, pro-Israel and stupid. If Germany wants to re-arm, it has to stop its de-industrialization, and that means it needs cheap energy, which right now can only be supplied by Russia. Then it needs to massively invest in tech and science, because it’s far behind China, the US, Japan and South Korea. Its industry is almost all legacy 20th century industry.
If Europe’s going to re-arm, where it getting the weapons from? The US? China? Russia? It has to have its own arms industry.
Germany’s been doing a pretty good job of moving to electrification, but during the transition it’s going to need cheap oil and gas. It also needs to invest in new forms of nuclear power which are safer and cheaper to provide electrical backbone (and to catch up in tech.)
All of this is going to take a lot of money and forcing Germany companies to stay in Germany and invest in research and new products. That means raising taxes on the rich and corporations, and re-jiggering the tax code to force reinvestment of profits into research and new production.
Merz isn’t the sort of guy who’s going to want to put top marginal tax rates back up to 80 or 90%, end stock options, smash CEO and exec pay, and so on.
Still, at least Merz has got it thru his thick head that America is Europe’s overlord and something should be done about that.
But actually stopping Germany’s decline requires making Russia a trade partner, not an enemy. Same for almost all of Europe. Until Europeans get over their paranoid delusions about Russia, they’re going to continue their decline. Same with China. If they insist on being hostile to both Russia and China, even as the South doesn’t want to do business with them, there is no path to save the “garden.”