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THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
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responsibility rather than state responsibility.
Education was meant to be the key to a better life,
and everyone was supposed to forge their own
good fortune – those who could not meet the
new demands of flexibility, mobility and self-suffi-
ciency could not count on much support in the
form of de-commodification. This policy became
successful thanks to a one-sided, export-focused
economic model, which appeared to take advan-
tage of the benefits of globalisation, as all three
domestic economic sectors – private households,
companies and the state – became net savers,
while products were sold abroad on credit.
The other side of this model manifests itself
economically in various ways. German internal
demand has been widely ignored for a long
time, there is an increase in precarious working
conditions, and there is insufficient government
revenue. Public infrastructure has been neglect-
ed due to a lack of investment in municipalities,
and public facilities such as nurseries, schools,
swimming baths and libraries are being closed or
not being renewed. Germany has also become a
country in which the gap in income and assets
has grown wider and wider. What the euro crisis
revealed above all else was the unsustainability
of the import deficit model, which literally ex-
ports unemployment to other European states,
as their current account balances go further into
the red and they become increasingly dependent
on Germany as a creditor. Nonetheless this poli-
cy was and is maintained.
However, the increased levels of immigration
meant a political obligation to accept, absorb
and integrate new arrivals. Many members of
the lower middle class, who did not believe they
were in a secure position, considered that this
treatment of immigrants was not fair to them.
All the more so when refugees were premature-
ly housed in mass residences, which were more
often located in middle-class suburbs than in
upmarket urban neighbourhoods. The main
reason for this dissatisfaction, though, was that
the government was not prepared to discard
ordoliberal principles despite the exceptional
situation. It opted for piecemeal measures rath-
er than starting a comprehensive programme of
investment for integration and infrastructure,
which would have eased social integration both
for refugees
and
for people who feel neglected
by politics. Instead, the majority of parties in
Germany implied that existing social services,
infrastructure and educational facilities would
have to be shared out among more people. The
“culture of welcome” was, in itself, a positive
phenomenon, but it was blown up in the media
during the first months of increased immigra-
tion to such an extent that the economic divid-
ing line between a state-run community effort
and a simple plea for individual responsibilities
became blurred. On one hand it became associ-
ated with an integration and investment pro-
gramme and on the other with a call for refu-
gees and members of the public in the host
society to take on responsibility for becoming
integrated and earning a living. While the latter
option prevailed, it was possible to persist with
the free-market TINA principle (“there is no al-
ternative”).
Conflict lines and the Grand Coalition
Of course the governing conservative and social
democratic parties do not want to leave it up to
far-right and far-left political actors to cater to
those who are dissatisfied. Naturally the new
coalition of Christian Democrats and Social
Democrats would not want to leave itself open
to the accusation of having rejected Emmanuel
Macron’s invitation to revive the Franco-German
engine of EU integration. The coalition has big