At a recent discussion with Simon Tilford of the Centre for European Reform about my new book, The Paradox of German Power, I was asked about the role of ordoliberalism in Germany’s response to the euro crisis. A couple of years ago, my colleagues Sebastian Dullien and Ulrike Guérot wrote an excellent brief for ECFR in which they argued that ordoliberalism – an economic theory that goes back to the so-called Freiburg School in the 1930s but is little known outside Germany – cast a “long shadow” over current German economic thinking. I think they’re right, but I wasn’t really able to give a good answer about exactly what role ordoliberalism plays in the German economic policy process. The more I thought about it after the discussion, however, the more it struck me that there is a parallel with the role of Ostpolitik in the German foreign policy process.
Tag Archives: Ostpolitik
Finland and Russia
Last week I spent a few days in Helsinki, where I took part in a panel discussion about European foreign policy organised by the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. It was an interesting time to be there. The issue on everyone’s minds, just like everywhere else right now, was the Ukraine crisis and in particular the implications of the Russian annexation of Crimea last month. St. Petersburg is less than 200 miles away from Helsinki and Finland was part of the Russian empire for 108 years until it became independent in 1917. Russia still feels very present in Helsinki – for example a statue of Tsar Alexander II stands in front of the neo-classical Lutheran cathedral in the centre of the city. So during my time there, I was particularly interested to hear from officials, analysts and journalists about the complex relationship between Finland and Russia.
Germany’s Kissinger
I’m currently working on an academic paper on the concept of “normality” in debates about German foreign policy since reunification. In that context, I’ve been reading a lot about Egon Bahr, who I argue played a crucial role in the late 1990s and early 2000s in redefining “normality” in terms of a foreign policy based on sovereignty and the pursuit of national interests. As Chancellor Willy Brandt’s foreign-policy adviser in the early 1970s, Bahr was the architect of West Germany’s Ostpolitik, a policy that dovetailed with the Nixon’s administration policy of detente towards the Soviet Union. Now in his eighties, he is a kind of éminence grise of German strategy and in particular the guru of German foreign-policy realism. In that sense, it seems to me that Bahr can be thought of Germany’s Henry Kissinger.
Hans Kundnani 