The Berlin conference on the Libyan crisis showed, once again, the centrality in Europe and the 'innovativeness' of the international policy approach of Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel. The recent skein of the Libyan crisis, on the geopolitical and diplomatic level, has unfolded on the axes of its policy: on the Germany and Turkey axis and on the one between Germany and Russia. The Chancellor, therefore, can be defined, also for this, the 'Queen of Europe', as can be read in the subtitle of the book "Frau Merkel, Queen of Europe", written by Claudio Landi, parliamentary journalist of Radio Radicale, published by Passigli Editore.
Angela Merkel, in this fifteen years, according to Landi, was one of the most important statesmen of the West. During his tenure he saw three US presidents: George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. With the President of the ECB, Mario Draghi, he built the governance tools that allowed the eurozone to overcome the debt crisis and consolidate the global role of the single currency. But, especially, he underlines in the book, 'he led Germany as a Federal Republic and as a pivotal country of the European Union, through the contradictions of this era of great economic, social and civil transformations, which see the' return of Asia ' and the end of the world overwhelmingly western-centric '.
The globalized world is no longer a place where only the West gives the cards. Other great actors have become protagonists. And Merkel's innovative geopolitical approach is to "combine the Western values of social-liberal civilization with the 'return of Asia', through a 'sophisticated balance' policy between all global players and a construction strategy governance institutions: from the ECB to the Paris Climate Agreement ", as Claudio Landi argues.
According to his analysis, Angela Merkel's Germany built a complex series of relations and consequent 'balances' between the United States and the Russian Federation and between these and the new global Asian players, China and Japan in the first place. At the same time he sought to bring Europe together under his leadership, with fiscal and monetary rules, as regards the eurozone, and with capitalist penetration and tight diplomatic work, as regards central and eastern Europe. . Starting with the Visegrad Group.
This complex and refined geopolitical construction seems particularly innovative and connected to the world of global value chains designed by some great political scientists, from Prarag Khanna, an Indian scholar, to Barry Buzan, a great English specialist. But innovations also come at a price and present contradictions: the geopolitical construction of Angela Merkel is no exception.
The 2015 migrant crisis and the ongoing geopolitical confrontations with the US put it to the test. Merkel's innovative 'great civilian power' approach may work well but, Landi observes, "there is a great contradiction: Germany, even with the EU at its side, does not have the 'tonnage' to support its size of global competition. Only a Europe more motivated by its ideology and more willing to organize its many geopolitical tools and resources adequately, with Germany (and France) at the center, can stand up to that global competition ".
Merkel's construction "can innovate as it is a 'liberal geopolitics': it has a method based on compromise and liberal values, the strength of institutions, diversity, freedom as responsibility, which allows, in theory, to innovate", he assures the author. But now the question is: can Europe, which Merkel has been able to innovate in these years, continue and expand innovation processes even with the end of the Chancellor's political cycle? "Is this the challenge of the next few years - answers Claudio Landi - to learn and absorb Angela Merkel's approach knowing how to broaden it. Ursula von der Leyen, Cristine Lagarde, the French president himself and especially the next German Chancellor will be capable of it? This challenge is being played out by the potential of European democracy to count in the globalized world and to participate in the construction of a liberal West suited to the globalized world. For now, we can only recognize that in Berlin for Libya, the German Chancellor has demonstrated, for yet again, of his ability ".