Bulletin n. 2/2016
December 2016
INDICE
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Villani-Lubelli Ubaldo
    Il ritorno della questione tedesca: l’inevitabile egemonia della Germania in Europa
    in Rivista di Studi Politici Internazionali , Volume 83, n. 2, aprile-giugno ,  2016 ,  205-218
    The article analyzes the role of Germany in Europe, retracing the steps of the rediscovered main role of the German Federal Republic after the fall of the Berlin Wall. After November 9th, 1989 and the subsequent reunification, the fear of reunified Germany was widespread among Europe’s political leaders of the time. Despite the resentment, the Berlin government made a European and pro-Western choice. Over the past quarter of a century, however, the European economic and geopolitical balance has changed. After a phase of normalization, Germany has once again become a power center. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how the hegemony of Germany in Europe is not the result of a will to power (Wille zur Macht) of the German Federal Republic, but of four geopolitical and economic factors: a) the Eastern enlargement of the European Union, b) efficiency of the German economic and social model, c) the economic and political decline of France and, finally, d) the retreat of United Kingdom from the EU. The German hegemony in Europe today is emerging as a positive power aimed at maintaining a) the European balance and b) the competitiveness of the European Union in the global market. The new German question is no longer whether Germany is European or whether Europe should be German (Thomas Mann), but whether Germany reunified after the fall of the Berlin Wall will be able to exercise its power and what form will Europe take because of this new power center.
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