Germany in the European Union: an assertive status quo power?

The European Union (EU) is Germany’s institutional anchor for external policymaking and European integration remains its most relevant framework for exerting political influence in Europe and beyond. Since the creation of the European Community
(EC) in the 1950s, Germany had assumed the role of a ‘Musterknabe’ (model pupil) (Bulmer and Jeffery, 2010, p. 114) by choice, not coercion, with many of the EC’s economic, political, and legal structures resembling Germany’s institutional preferences for supranational integration. In the last decade, however, concerns with safekeeping control of state core powers have shifted Germany’s preference towards intergovernmental policy- making. This became clear during the European Union (EU) crises of the 2010s, in which Germany played a pivotal role, and which strengthened Germany’s position as a primus inter pares. This chapter explores Germany’s role in the EU, the domestic actors that constrain or empower its European policy, and Germany’s policies in the EU’s crises during the last decade.