Germany’s failure to lead the EU is becoming a problem

IN THE mid-2010s, as the European Union lurched punch-drunk from one crisis to the next, there was one constant. Germany, and in particular Angela Merkel, its chancellor, was the star around which the rest of Europe orbited. Southern European countries choked on the austerity they had to swallow as the price of their bail-outs; easterners wished Mrs Merkel had taken a tougher line on Russia after its annexation of Crimea in 2014. All had a point. Yet none had any way of working around Germany.