What’s that spell? Germany!

‘The EU is Germany writ large’

If you look at the actual structures of the EU, there’s the Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers and the European Court. That is exactly the same way that Germany is governed. The Bundesregierung, or federal government, is like the Commission, the Bundestag, or German parliament, is like the European Parliament, and the Bundesrat, the council of the German Länder (the federal states), is like the Council of Ministers, and both the EU and Germany have very powerful constitutional courts, too. So for a German politician moving into the EU, it’s a very familiar world, which is precisely why the Germans find it so easy to operate in Europe…

In the past, the Brits used to complain that the EU or EEC was all run by the French – and certainly French was the working language – but actually it’s run on a German paradigm. The EU is Germany writ large. And this is how it has been from the beginning. It is not some recent German plot to subvert the EU – it is how it was set up…

Germany has been a huge beneficiary from the euro. A study was published recently by the Centre for European Policy Studies in Germany, which estimated that Germany had earned €1.9 trillion from adopting the euro in its first 20 years. But it had cost France €3.6 trillion and Italy €4.3 trillion. German politicians don’t like to admit this.