Germany, he writes, "today is the best country in the world." Because?
To begin with, due to the resistance of the Germans to consider themselves better...
That is very healthy!
...Later, for his ability to think in the long term in a rational, serious and constructive way; And that is why where there are two Germans there are three agreements: coalitions, seriousness... and the ability to gradually integrate radicals like the Greens into the system.
What envy, moreover, of the Germans?
That they are more communal than individualistic and more capable of thinking in generations than in elections. I also admire its electoral system and its efficient federalism: no one is better than anyone because they live in one place or another.
Here the Große Koalition is unthinkable.
That German capacity for a pact for the future still emanates from its learning from the past: Brexit, on the other hand, shows that the British are still thinking of repeating the empire.
You quote the German Vergangenheitsbewältigung (learn from the past).
Almost eighty years after Hitler, this still weighs heavily on their behavior and my first criticism is that, instead of obsessing over not repeating a war, they should obsess over avoiding dictatorships.
Do you shoot against the rapprochement of Schröder –and, in his day, Merkel– to Putin?
Schröder admired Putin and was wrong; but Merkel deserves credit for integrating East Germany and giving asylum to 1.5 million refugees...History will honor her.
I remember nursing homes burned down.
They were minor cases. You will see how the other countries, Spain as well, will end up copying the German multikulti model –5% of Germans are already of Turkish origin– and will end up integrating due to demographic imperative.
Was Merkel so generous with Greece, Spain, Italy in the 2008 debt crisis?
Once again, it is not that Germany is not wrong, but that, as it thinks in the long term, it achieves consensus that allows it to rectify and, even if it misses trains, to reach its destination first afterward. Now it is much less stubborn when it comes to the debt of other countries.
Do you still think we stole from you?
Germany, above all, saves; so much so that sometimes it does not invest, for example in its necessary infrastructures, to the point that this saving is wasteful and that is why it is so stingy with what it perceives as other people's electoral budget joys.
Doesn't it go too slow sometimes?
It is true that Germans suffer from chronic risk aversion and that failure is, unlike in the US, highly frowned upon; but on the other hand, they are capable of admirable collective turns to rectify and hit the mark.
Didn't they rip off the tricked-out diesel? Aren't they late in electric cars?
They have already reacted, so they will end up surpassing the American and Asian electric vehicle pioneers... Long term again! Another great secret of German industry is how they integrate workers into business management...
If your company is more yours, do you produce more?
Germany was the first to combine economic growth and social inclusion. This is how it managed to overtake the US as the world's leading exporter in 2003. And its fabric of medium-sized companies coordinates world champions from small German towns where they work with an admirable team spirit.
Germany is not a land of innovation.
It was lousy, true, for startups. Because employers and Germans in general value safety more than innovation.
And do they not also have their corruptions?
Of course. In banking, for example. And the country did not invest, in broadband. But it was slowly but surely again. And today it has reacted and already competes and invests in brains from all over the world, although the total value of the companies in the DAX is less than that of Apple.
Does not Germany take advantage of being in the center of the most prosperous Europe?
Germanophobes ironize that he has outsourced his energy to Russia; its trade, to China, and its army, to the US...
And is it not yet dependent on Russian energy?
What we were saying about the German ability to rectify: in just six months they have gone from depending on 80% of Putin's gas and energy to only 10%. Again, the collective reaction corrected previous errors.
Why does Germany often unite on challenges that divide other countries?
Because he understood before that development is not such if it does not integrate everyone: thus he avoided regional imbalances and promoted co-management in companies giving dual vocational training the power to empower apprentices.
Won't Germany, and the EU now, be overtaken and humiliated by China and the US?
Germany is the great hope of Europe and the only one that can oppose authoritarianism from shared prosperity, because it knows what happens when countries do not learn from their history.
