Look Who’s Talking: Why Germany Plays the Strong, Silent Type in the Field of Economic Security

CSDS POLICY BRIEF • 10/2023

By Roderick Parkes

31.03.2023

The German government caused dismay this month by demanding unilateral concessions, unannounced and at the very last moment, in a European initiative on the electrification of cars. We live in times of deep insecurity, and Germany’s European partners require reassurance, clarity, predictability. This requirement applies to the economic sphere just as much as to defence. Germany might feel that such displays of economic unilateralism signal a reassuring new awareness of its power. In fact, they primarily communicate Germany’s own sense of insecurity and economic decline, its angst about ‘losing our economic leverage before we have even learnt to use it’, to quote one expert. This Policy Brief sets out a first speculative analysis of German economic reassurance practices. Its goal is to help Germans improve their choices of how and to whom they signal.

CSDS Policy brief_2310.pdf (352.72 KB)

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