La Germania e i BRICS

Sul Corriere della Sera di ieri Danilo Taino, ex corrispondete da Berlino, ha firmato un interessante articolo, Il sesto BRICS del mondo? Si chiama Germania. La tesi di Taino è condivisibile ed è riassumibile così: La Germania ha stretto rapporti commericali molto forti con le economie emergenti di Brasile, Russia, India, Cina e Sud Africa (BRICS), tanto da potersi ormai considerare il sesto paese di questo gruppo ... grazie anche agli ottimi dati economici della Repubblica Federale Tedesca. Questo non vuol dire che la Germania rinunci all'Europa e all'Euro, ma significa che "nel rapporto con i Brics la Germania si muove da sola". L'articolo può essere letto qui 

Riguardo al rapporto tra la Germania e i BRICS vi segnalo anche un mio articolo del 21 marzo del 2011: Niente Libia per la Merkel. La Germania preferisce il "BRIC", pubblicato su L'Occidentale di Giancarlo Loquenzi. Qui di seguito uno stralcio

Ma perchè la Germania, che tanto ha fatto per essere eletta nel Consiglio di sicurezza delle Nazioni Unite, si è astenuta sulla risoluzione dell’ONU sulla no-fly zone in Libia? Perchè non ha voluto far parte di quella “sensazionale alleanza tra Stati Uniti, Lega Araba ed Unione Europea” per citare il Die Welt del 18 marzo scorso? E’ stato il Ministro degli Esteri Guido Westerwelle ad aver chiarito, nel dibattito al Bundestag (il parlamento tedesco), ma anche in un’intervista concessa ad alcune testate straniere, la posizione del Governo: crediamo che siano necessarie pressioni politiche, sanzioni finanziarie ed economiche mirate e non un intervento militare perché è difficile prevederne le conseguenze. E’ questa la motivazione ufficiale che ha portato la Germania ad astenersi insieme a Brasile, Russia, India e Cina.

Questa scelta è stata criticata da gran parte della stampa tedesca, che ha denunciato una sorta di isolamento della Germania. Per il giornale conservatore Die Welt è una segnale sbagliato alla comunità internazionale e danneggia l’immagine della Germania essendo una posizione irresponsabile. La Zeit, settimanale liberal-progressista, sul suo sito, ha definito vile la politica estera tedesca. La Germania pagherà le conseguenze dell’astensione nel momento in cui si dovrà eleggere il membro permanente nel Consiglio di sicurezza delle Nazioni Unite – ricordiamo che la Germania, attualmente, è uno dei membri non-permamenti. La Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, giornale conservatore, ha titolato, eloquentemente, “l’isolamento del sistema Westerwelle”. Per la Süddeutsche Zeitung, quotidiano liberal-progressista, Westerwelle, nella sua relazione al Parlamento, ha detto solo una mezza verità.
Ma proviamo a capire l’altra mezza verità che si nasconderebbe dietro l’inaspettata decisione della Germania. Ora, la no fly zone decisa per la situazione in Libia ha visto in prima linea Gran Bretagna e Stati Uniti, ma soprattutto la Francia di Sarkozy. Il recente attivismo politico del Presidente francese non è, naturalmente, casuale. Il Mediterraneo, infatti, sin dall’inizio delle rivolte arabe, ha riacquistato nuova centralità geo-politica nello scacchiere internazionale, così, il principale ispiratore dell’Unione del Mediterraneo (un organismo ultimamente un po’ appannato), ovvero Sarkozy, ha voluto rivendicare il proprio ruolo nel bacino. In questo senso è comprensibile la posizione di secondo piano della Repubblica Federale Tedesca. 
A tutto questo è necessario aggiungere che ci sono enormi interessi economici che legano la Germania alla Cina ed alla Russia, due paesi che si sono astenuti nel consiglio di sicurezza. Proprio l’estate scorsa Angela Merkel ha fatto un importante viaggio diplomatico ed economico proprio per rafforzare i rapporti con questi due paesi che sono due membri permanenti nel Consiglio di sicurezza delle Nazioni Unite.

Già nel luglio del 2010, sul Liberal, avevo messo in risalto gli enormi interessi della Germania in Asia: La Merkel in Asia fra petrolio e diritti (leggi qui l'articolo)

Segnalo, inoltre, un altro articolo sull'asse Mosca-Berlino, pubblicato sempre su L'Occidentale e che può essere letto qui.
Sui fortissimi interessi economici tra Germania e Cina segnalo altri miei articoli:
1) La Cina in Germania l'ha fatta da padrone, da leggere qui
2) In Cina la Merkel parla d'interscambio ma anche di crisi del debito europeo, da leggere qui

Sempre sul rapporto tra Germania e i BRICS in relazione anche alla crisi dell'Euro, pubblico qui di seguito uno stralcio di un mio articolo del marzo scorso pèubblicato sulla rivista Longitude, 14, diretta da Pialuisa Bianco (l'intero articolo può essere richiesto per mail a u_villanilubelli@yahoo.it), The EU's unwilling golden goose:

GERMANY AND EUROPE: DIVERGING INTERESTS

Germany, as the leading European economic force, has a guiding and leadership role in Europe that the Germans themselves do not want, but that the events of recent months and the deepening of the crisis has imposed upon them. Germany has the job of guiding Europe past the obstacle that the crisis has become. This has been pointed out by, among others, Alexander Hagelücken in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (5 December) – Germany must play, whether it wants to or not, the role of guide - and Florian Eder in the Welt am Sonntag (4 December) -  Germany is a successful economic model and it is better to be unpopular than to be exploited and bled dry economically.

Now, the fact that there is a single currency but not a common financial and economic policy between the 17 European countries is considered by Germany (and by France) to be the main cause of the present crisis. The Germans are afraid that too much public debt will push the CEB to print too much money which would cause inflation. Chancelor Merkel by insisting on an economic recovery plan in the European countries in greatest difficulty and on her opposition to Eurobonds, risks taking Europe into a dangerous recession with devastating consequences. The crisis we are undergoing is the first real test of the credibility of Kohl and Mitterrand’s Europe: a Europe with a single currency, but without a uniform political, social and economic profile. It is precisely here that Angela Merkel and the German Federal Republic is playing their most important game since reunification.

The real problem is how Germany is to play out its role outside of Europe. The axis of the German Federal Republic’s economic interests has moved eastwards in recent years.  Gerhard Schröder’s chancellorship saw the beginnings of an economic-political axis with Moscow, which, thanks to the North-Stream Gas Pipeline has seen Russia’s role on the international chessboard strengthened. Let’s not forget that it was this very man, ex chancellor and still today the chairman of the board of Gazprom’s Nord Stream AG who envisaged the export of gas directly from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea. In this sense the case of the North Stream Pipeline is particularly significant, not only because Russia and Germany would like a direct connection which would run across the Ukraine and Poland, but also because it has become even more important after Germany’s decision to abandon nuclear energy.

Now Chancellor Angela Merkel’s political line is not actually very different from the past. From the summer 2011 trip to Moscow, accompanied by a large group of businessmen with economic interests in Russia, to the position on the war in Libya, Germany seems to recognize its new strategic role with regard to Moscow.  Anyway, it is useful to remember that the relationship has not been without clashes, such as happened between Putin and Merkel during a meeting of the Wirtschaftsforum of the Süddeutsche Zeitung in autumn 2010 in Berlin, when there was some difference of opinion between them. It was in Berlin, in fact, that Putin proposed, maybe only half-seriously, a free trade area from Vladivostok to Lisbon. Angela Merkel’s reaction was far from positive reminding Putin that such a large free trade area presupposes collaboration from a Russia, which, at the moment, is increasing its import duty on goods from abroad thereby hindering freedom of trade. The political and economic involvement between Germany and Russia is also symbolically and concretely represented by Gerhard Schröder, who moved quite nonchalantly from being the federal chancellor to the director of Gazprom without his move being met by any particular negative reaction on the part of his co-citizens, as is rightly noted by André  Glucksman (Il Corriere della Sera, 01.11.2011).

The case of China also needs to be considered. The German export market depends heavily on the Chinese market. The volume of trade between the two countries reached the record figure  of 145 billion  euro in 2011, more than a quarter of the volume of all of the trade that China does with Europe (443 billion euro). It is estimated that by 2015 it will reach 200 billion euros. China, then, has become the second largest export market (after the United States) for Germany’s goods. Already by 2010 exports to the People’s Republic of China had increased by 40 per cent. It is the German motor industry which profits most from the Chinese market: one Volkswagen in three is sold to China.

This strong commercial relationship has been confirmed more than once. Only last month on 2 February Angela Merkel flew, for the fifth time in her chancellorship, to China to reinforce the already thriving trading relationship. But it was maybe in June 2011, during Wen Jiabao’s visit to Berlin, that commercial relations between Germany and China moved up to a higher level. The Chinese Premier arrived with a large group of businessmen and he didn’t hide the fact that he was well aware of the economic power he wielded. But it doesn’t end there. At the upcoming Hannover trade fair China will be the guest of honour. What is more, next autumn there will be consultations between the two governments in Beijing.

In relation to Germany’s guiding role in the present European and Euro crisis then, the question must be asked as to how far Germany’s interests really coincide with those of Europe. In the single currency’s most difficult year, while Greece and Portugal were risking bankruptcy and Italy found itself forced to take measures to protect itself from attacks from the financial markets, Germany was continuing to break records. The German miracle has been possible thanks to Germany’s conquest of the emerging markets in Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). Germany has in fact exported goods to the value of 100 billion euros to BRIC markets, a figure equal to 10 per cent of Germany’s exports as a whole. For Italy the figure is 7, for Great Britain 6.4, for France 6.1 and for Spain only 4.4 per cent. In the last ten years while Germany has increased its exports to China seven-fold, Italy France and the United Kingdom have only managed to increase theirs four-fold. To understand the significance and influence of emerging markets to the world economy, one only needs to consider that accordiung to current projections, in 2050 Asia’s GDP will be 54 per cent of that of the world  while European GDP will be 18 per cent. In 2010 Europe’s was 34 per cent while Asia’s was 22.5 per cent.

It is Germany then that has understood earlier and better than  others the opportunities offered by the emerging markets. It has done this by political and entrepreneurial visits, but also thanks to a policy of competitive pricing and to specialising in products which marry well with the BRIC countries desire for technology. Germany’s success is based on making the best use of its workforce and investment in building expertise. As recorded by Fareed Zakaria in the Washington Post (19th January 2012), “The German system gives incentives to train workers and keep them employed…In a world filled with cheap labor, rich countries are better off with highly skilled workers, making premium products, with a focus on long term growth and social stability. The German system, in other words, might be a better fit for the globalized world”. Berlin’s choice could not have been more judicious, considering the fact that these economies have been practically untouched by the euro crisis and so continue to invest in the technology of the future.

But Germany has not only intensified commercial exchanges with the new emerging markets of BRIC, but also with Eastern European countries, those countries outside of the single currency area that are the natural physiological outlet for the German market. Poland has had the “honour” of entering the top ten for German exports, the Czech Republic is twelfth and Hungary sixteenth. That Germany is looking East could almost lead one to think that she could easily do without the euro. In reality though, the European Union still today remains Germany’s main point of reference with 60% of its total export.

Germany cannot do without the Euro and the EU. Angela Merkel has said more than once that the EU’s problem is primarily political. In an interview given on 26 January this year to four of some of the most important European newspapers the chancellor stated that her vision was political union. Today more than ever every concern faced by one country in the union also affects the other member states. Europe cannot be seen as foreign policy. This is true to such an extent that, for Angela Merkel, institutional and structural reform is necessary. According to the Chancellor, over time, the scope of the commission will change in such a way that it functions as a European government. A stronger Parliament will also be part of this picture. This could be, according to Merkel, the future shape of the future Union. In the same interview, however, Merkel reminded her audience that the permanent financial state safety-net (European Stability Mechanism) is Germany’s idea, but the terms of the treaty of the monetary union also say that no one country can take on the debts of others. This concept was recently specified by Jens Weidmann, President of the Bundesbank, in an article on the need to stabilize the Euro which was published in the German monthly Cicero (February 2012): The policy is intended to reinforce European institutions. The EFSF and ESM must be made up and ready as soon as possible.

di Ubaldo Villani-Lubelli