Merkel as 'Queen Europe' surveys field of weakened allies

(BERLIN) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel is now as never before the voice of Europe, supporters and critics across the continent say, as she presses ahead with her austerity drive against a weakened France.

Earlier this year, debt-battered Greece looked hopefully to new French president Francois Hollande as a "European Roosevelt", the daily Ta Nea said, to lift Europe out of its crisis with a vast stimulus programme based on public investment.

But it was the conservative Merkel, not the Socialist Hollande, who travelled to Athens this week, braving throngs of irate protesters who had to be forced back with water cannon and tear gas.

She and Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras together backed swingeing spending cuts and painful structural reforms demanded by the country's creditors in exchange for a new tranche of bailout money.

In the meantime France was engrossed in a national debate on ratifying a European treaty on budgetary discipline, leaving it in a sideshow to the main action on the European stage.

And Britain, which remains outside the eurozone, is grappling with its own budget woes, with euroscepticism on the rise.

As the markets and media hang on her every word, Merkel, in her perceived role as "Queen Europe", appears to be making Berlin the new capital of the EU.

"Berlin is the new Brussels,", Ulrike Guerot of the European Council on Foreign Relations told AFP, noting the current weakness of Paris.

"You don't have the sense that Hollande knows what he wants, that he knows how to govern, that he will become the new (Francois) Mitterrand or even if he would be capable of it," she said, referring to France's last Socialist president.

At the same time, the situation for Germany is dicey because "it did not seek to be in this position and is not accustomed to it."

The violent protests in Athens Tuesday, complete with demonstrators in Nazi uniforms waving swastika flags, reminded Berlin of the burden of history that still weighs on any claim to German leadership.

Guerot also noted that Hollande "knew how to rally resistance in southern Europe against Merkel" and that despite its economic and political clout, Germany could at any point find itself isolated against a united front of opponents.

Jean-Dominique Giuliani, head of the Robert Schuman Foundation think-tank in Brussels, said he never agreed with the common interpretation of an EU summit in late June that Hollande bent Merkel to his will with the help of Spain and Italy on the thorny issue of direct recapitalisation of banks.

He said to the contrary that "Merkel is able to exercise her influence due to the relative weakness of France".

"Hollande remains to be convinced that Europe is based on the Franco-German motor," he said, adding that the engine traditionally seen as driving Europe was "out of working order".

But he said he was confident it could be jump-started "with a bit of practice."

Michele Comelli, an expert on Europe at Rome's Institute of International Affairs, echoed the view across the continent: "For the public, Merkel is clearly the go-to leader to take decisions" on the fate of Europe.

"The relationship of equals introduced at the beginning (by Hollande) is disappearing," he said.

Spain and Italy may find in Hollande "significant support on issues such as eurobonds or growth, but France has its own problems and there is not a single vision between the three countries," Comelli said.

Merkel also reaps benefits from the supremacy of the conservative camp in Europe to advance her ideas, even if it doesn't insulate her from the displays of public ire seen on the streets of Athens.

"Merkels decision to visit a country where large swathes of the population consider her a persona non grata was a clear signal that Berlin is determined to impose its brand of austerity on the entire continent, regardless of the social repercussions and reactions," said George Gilson, a journalist specializing in European issues in the English-language weekly Athens News.

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