At the heart of the Merkel-Macron plan is a recovery fund worth €500bn ($546bn), or 3.6% of the EU’s GDP
dwells a certain magic,” beamed Angela Merkel, cribbing from Herman Hesse, when a freshly inaugurated Emmanuel Macron visited Berlin three years ago. But Germany’s chancellor added an earthy caveat: “The magic lasts only when there are results.” And there have been precious few to speak of. A plan to reboot the euro area was ground down to a budget of homeopathic insignificance. A revised Franco-German treaty substituted symbols for substance.
The deal appears to have come together only in the few days preceding the announcement, after pressure on Mrs Merkel from both Mr Macron and Olaf Scholz, Germany’s finance minister. Why did she budge? Officials say her first instinct was simply for a larger, until it became clear that cash-strapped governments could not afford it. The chancellor repeatedly described the crisis as the worst thehas ever known, a hint she was open to more drastic steps.
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