“German Chancellor Angela Merkel is turning east as she pushes plans for a more competitive Europe, seeking to bring on board the leaders of Poland and other eastern countries as allies elsewhere prove hard to find.
Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, the key players in the euro-area debt crisis, travel to Warsaw today for talks on closer European Union integration with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his peers from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. The six leaders are due to hold a joint news conference at about 4 p.m. Warsaw time.
As southern Europeans vilify Merkel for her austerity-led solution to the debt crisis, the head of Europe’s biggest economy is looking for support to the countries of the east she knows from childhood growing up in communist EastGermany. It’s the first time that French and German leaders are jointly attending the four-country forum.
“Germany’s allies in the sovereign-debt crisis are not too numerous,” Kai-Olaf Lang, an analyst at the Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said by telephone. In contrast, Central Europe is “mainly like-minded in economic and financial matters” with the German government.
Forging eastern alliances might help Merkel outmaneuver the U.K. as it seeks to shield the City of London and allow her to sidestep efforts to block closer integration in Europe, including her latest push on competitiveness.
