But now the boot is on the other foot. An extraordinary populist coalition comprising Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Italian Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini, and German Federal Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer is threating to oust Merkel over her migration policies. [...]
But the Meseberg summit itself looked more like a Franco-German conclave than a relaunch of the European project. Macron is trying to protect Merkel from the rebellious forces within her own governing coalition, and both leaders are acting like they are still the masters of the universe. Yet for all their talk of transforming the European Stability Mechanism into a European Monetary Fund and reining in the Italian government’s behavior on refugees, one gets the sense that it is the populists who are calling the shots. [...]
Earlier this month, just as Merkel and Seehofer’s dispute was heating up, Kurz made an appearance in Berlin, where he called for Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Germany – or, at least, Germany’s interior ministry – to form an “axis of the willing” on migration. Kurz also tried to undercut Merkel in early 2016, when he was serving as Austria’s foreign minister. Appearing on live German television, he declared that he would close the Balkan route for refugees fleeing Syria for Northern Europe. [...]
But the key difference between then and now is that the US government no longer has an interest in a strong, united Europe – or in global stability, for that matter. After the annexation of Crimea, Merkel could count on then-US President Barack Obama’s support. The same cannot be said for President Donald Trump or Richard Grenell, his chosen ambassador to Germany, both of whom are actively undermining Merkel’s domestic credibility.
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