FEATURED COMMENTARY & ANALYSIS

It’s Merkel’s Turn: Phase Two of Europe’s Tag Team Effort With Trump

New Atlanticist
May 6, 2025

Is Merz’s double-take chancellor vote a sign of things to come in Germany?

By
Jörn Fleck and Jurek Wille

It took two rounds of voting in the Bundestag to elect Friedrich Merz chancellor, a sign of division unprecedented in modern German history.

Defense Policy
Elections

It’s Merkel’s Turn: Phase Two of Europe’s Tag Team Effort With Trump

New Atlanticist
Feb 19, 2025

Germany’s economy has gone from engine to anchor. Here’s what the next chancellor faces.

By
Piotr Arak

Revitalizing growth in Germany’s economy, which appears increasingly mired in stagnation, will demand urgent action from the next chancellor.

Economy & Business
Elections

It’s Merkel’s Turn: Phase Two of Europe’s Tag Team Effort With Trump

New Atlanticist
Feb 4, 2025

The next German chancellor must lead from the front, not the middle, on European security

By
Rachel Rizzo, James Batchik

From support for Ukraine to defense spending, German leaders would be wise to take the phrase Führung aus der Mitte permanently out of their vocabulary.

Elections
Germany

Events

Online Event
Tue, May 6, 2025 • 10:00 am ET

What to expect from Germany’s next government

Elections
Europe & Eurasia
European Union
Germany

Online Event
Tue, February 25, 2025 • 9:00 am ET

Debriefing Germany’s federal elections

Elections
European Union
Germany
Politics & Diplomacy

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The Europe Center promotes the transatlantic leadership and strategies required to ensure a strong Europe.

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Content

New Atlanticist

Apr 26, 2018

It’s Merkel’s Turn: Phase Two of Europe’s Tag Team Effort With Trump

By Jörn Fleck

There seemed to be a plan behind French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visits to Washington this week: a carefully choreographed tag team effort to tame US President Donald J. Trump’s unilateralist impulses on tariffs and the Iran nuclear deal that cause serious friction in transatlantic relations.

European Union Germany

New Atlanticist

Apr 26, 2018

Can the Competing Logic of Macron, Merkel—And Structural Change in Europe—Coexist?

By Jeffrey Gedmin

“We are happy when people and things conform and unhappy when they don’t. People and events don’t disappoint us, our models of reality do.” —    Stefan Zweig, Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist, and biographer Lawmakers in the national parliament—who “owe just about everything to him”—are “perfect foot soldiers” for a leader with “an expansive notion of […]

European Union France

New Atlanticist

Apr 26, 2018

A Strategy for Merkel to Get Trump’s Attention

By Jacob Schrot

When German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives in Washington on April 27 for her second visit since US President Donald J. Trump took office, she will not be weary of pointing out the common democratic values that Europe and the United States share and cherish. Trump will equally not be weary of showing his genuine disinterest […]

Germany United States and Canada

New Atlanticist

Apr 26, 2018

The Coming of Emmanuel Macron

By Nicholas Dungan

Whatever the policy outcomes on individual issues, Emmanuel Macron’s three-day state visit to Washington, from April 23 to April 25, will have succeeded in one goal which is surely at the top of the French president’s agenda: to “Make France Great Again.” He did so by assuming the mantle of the leadership of the West, […]

France Germany

New Atlanticist

Apr 23, 2018

Europe Needs To Persuade Iran, Not Just Trump, To Save The Nuclear Deal

By Barbara Slavin

As French President Emmanuel Macron arrives in Washington, a top priority will be convincing his American counterpart to stay within the landmark nuclear agreement with Iran. But judging from this analyst’s conversations with Iranian diplomats in Europe and New York over the past week, Macron and his colleagues in Germany and Britain may have an […]

France Germany

New Atlanticist

Apr 23, 2018

Macron And Merkel Come to Washington. Lend Them Your Ear

By Daniel Fried

The free world (to put it in Washington wonk speak: the “rules-based, liberal global order”), the product of American leadership, which generated relative peace, prosperity, and democracy after 1945 and even more after 1989, faces aggression from without, most acutely from Russia; a long-range challenge from the rise of China; and, most alarming, doubts from […]

France Germany

In the News

Apr 16, 2018

Gedmin in The Hill: Populist Right’s Rise in Germany Not (yet) a Reason for Panic

By Jeffery Gedmin

Read the full article here

Germany

New Atlanticist

Apr 16, 2018

Emmanuel Macron: The Trump Whisperer?

By Ashish Kumar Sen

French President Emmanuel Macron said in a television interview on April 15 that he convinced US President Donald J. Trump not to withdraw troops from Syria. “Ten days ago, President Trump was saying ‘the United States should withdraw from Syria.’ We convinced him it was necessary to stay for the long term,” Macron said in […]

European Union France

New Atlanticist

Apr 14, 2018

World Reaction to Strikes on Syria

By Ashish Kumar Sen

The United States, the United Kingdom, and France on April 13 launched strikes on Syria in retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons attack which they blamed on Bashar al-Assad’s regime. While US Defense Secretary James Mattis described the strikes as a “one-time” shot, the Western allies warned more strikes could come in the event of […]

France Germany

In the News

Apr 10, 2018

Shaffer Quoted in Foreign Policy on Germany Souring on Russia’s Nord Stream

By Brenda Shaffer

Read the full article here

Germany
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Nik Foster

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Global China Hub

China Energy & Environment

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Samuel Denney

Nonresident Fellow

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English Europe & Eurasia

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Tyson Barker

Nonresident Senior Fellow

Europe Center

Cybersecurity Digital Policy

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James Batchik

Associate Director

Europe Center

Central Europe Digital Policy

Executive Leadership Intensive participant

Noel Coenraad

Strategy Advisor, Vattenfall AB

Millennium Leadership Program

Energy Transitions Germany

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Hanna Dohmen

Nonresident Fellow

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