Belov Vladislav Borisovich – PhD in economics, deputy director (on science work), head of the Department for country studies, head of the Center for German studies, Institute of Europe RAS
Since the creation of the ECSC, the EEC and Euratom, Germany has consistently strengthened its role in the processes of Western European economic, and then political integration. After the unification of the two German states, German politicians paid special attention to maintaining a balance between national and European interests, seeking to create in the 1990 s and 2000 s of a «European Germany» rather than a «German Europe». In the last two decades the German state became the protagonist of institutional changes in the European Union and a jealous supervisor over the implementation by the EU member states of the Maastricht agreements and the Stability Pact. German political leaders supported the main reforms proposed by E. Macron in 2017. Along with ambiguous decisions on migration policy, obvious economic and political domination, the pressure that Germany exerts on southern, central and eastern European countries, causes open discontent with German policy and behavior model in many European states which promotes, among other things, the formation of Euroskeptical attitudes among EU citizens. At the beginning of the 2019, Federal Chancellor A. Merkel, who has led government coalitions for more than 13 years, and her current cabinet faced a number of serious internal and external challenges. The vector of further economic development of the European Union in many respects depends on the efficiency of responses to them. The article analyzes the current economic and political role of Germany in the EU. Special attention is paid to the French-German cooperation, Brexit, the eurozone, processes of digitalization, industrial policy and energy security of the European Union. A forecast is made about the medium-term role and the place of Germany in the European Union.
European Union, EU, Germany, France, Russia, eurozone, Brexit, digitalization, energy security.
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