4. Analysing Leadership I: Germany in the Eurozone Crisis

When the Economic and Monetary Union found itself in crisis, the actor mostly called on to assume leadership was Germany. This chapter provides three case studies on Germany’s role in the first bailout of Greece, the proposal of a “super-commissioner”, and the genesis of the Fiscal Compact. The analysis not only probes the plausibility of the book’s theoretical model, but also provides a theory-guided and generalizable explanation of Germany’s ambiguous leadership record in the eurozone. The chapter submits that Germany’s (non-)leadership is driven primarily by its material interest in shifting the adjustment costs of the crisis to the national level and thus to the “debtor states”. Whether Germany succeeds in doing so depends on the preferences of other eurozone actors and the respective institutional constraint.