• SPEECH
The choice facing Europeans

Speech by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, at the official dinner of the Deutsche Bundesbank in Berlin, Germany

It is a pleasure to be here at the Bode Museum in Berlin.

More than two centuries ago, the poet Johann Paul Friedrich Richter described Berlin as “more a part of the world than a city”.[1] History would prove him right.

This city came to embody the upheavals that shaped Germany, Europe and the world, from the destruction of war to its decades-long division at the centre of the Cold War.

At key points during that time, West Germans and Europeans were confronted with the need to make critical choices. One set of relationships had to be prioritised over another.

In 1949, West Germans made such a choice in their first post-war election. Konrad Adenauer emerged as Chancellor with a clear commitment to anchor the Federal Republic firmly in the West.

Adenauer’s election had ripple effects across Europe. His politics of Westbindung helped set the direction for European integration in its formative years, laying foundations that would shape the decades that followed.

When the Wall fell in Berlin, East Germans too were finally able to make their choice. They chose freedom and a shared future with their compatriots in the West.

And then, for a time, the choices imposed by history seemed to fall away. To borrow Francis Fukuyama’s phrase, history itself appeared to have come to an end.

Europeans no longer had to choose so starkly between their relationships. Because those relationships were, at heart, complementary.

European integration could deepen at the same time as countries expanded their economic relationships across the world. Countries could take energy from Russia, demand from China and security from the United States.

Today, however, the full weight of history has returned.

Europe is entering a harsher, less forgiving world, one increasingly shaped by major powers willing to use their economic and geopolitical weight to their own advantage.

So, EU Member States – and Europe as a whole – need to make a choice: about who we are as Europeans, and who we choose to rely on. There are three pathways before us.

The first is to accept that Europe’s moment on the world stage has passed, and that its decline is now “inevitable”.

But not to worry, the argument goes. We can still decline gracefully by importing technologies from others to power the growth needed to fund our social model. Europe will become a museum, yes. But a nice museum, just like this one.

That pathway is a mirage. In reality, Europe would be left with weakened growth and a social model we could no longer pay for.

We would be squeezed by those whose technologies we became dependent on. If the history of this city has taught us anything, it is that we should not give up our freedom lightly.

The second pathway is for each country to pursue its own perceived national interest, whether in terms of trade, industrial policy or energy.

We hear these calls getting louder. But they are also a mirage. If we look around, all the “middle powers” are grappling with the question of how they can band together to strengthen their hand and resist pressure from larger players.

Yet Europe has an advantage here: through the European Union, we have already built the structures that allow us to act together – and to do so relatively quickly.

Why should Europe give up its greatest asset by letting itself splinter into 27 national agendas?

As Adenauer himself once said, “The political and economic forces of each European country, if dispersed, count for little in world affairs; combined, they can play a major role.”[2]

This brings me to the third pathway, which is to choose each other, and continue the work of building Europe.

We know this is a hard choice. We know that it involves painstaking, slow negotiations and difficult compromises. But we are now “alone together”. We can only rely on ourselves.

If our strengths in one domain, such as the Single Market, are undermined by weaknesses in others, such as defence or fragmented, costly energy markets, we will be easy to divide.

But if we act together in areas where it makes sense, we can master our own scale and become less vulnerable to outside pressure. Then, we will have more sovereignty and faster growth.

The savings and investments union can help unlock Europe’s abundant savings and channel them towards investment in the areas where we need to become stronger.

In parallel, the digital euro will help preserve our monetary sovereignty in a world where we can no longer afford to depend so heavily on others.

And it is perhaps fitting to end on money, because the Bode Museum is home to the Münzkabinett, a world-class collection tracing the evolution of money over centuries.

Among its holdings is a medal of Alexander von Humboldt, commissioned by the listeners to his famous Kosmos lectures here in Berlin.[3]

He once wrote: “Schwieriges erscheint mir nie unmöglich.”[4] That is the right thought for Europe today. The choice to build Europe is a difficult one. But it is far from impossible. Let us embrace the chance to do so.

  • Johann Paul Friedrich Richter is also known by his pen name, Jean Paul.

  • Adenauer, K. (1954), remarks before the Gemeinschaftsausschuss der hessischen gewerblichen Wirtschaft, Offenbach, 24 September, quoted on the website.

  • This refers to the silver medal created by Henri François (Heinrich Franz) Brandt in 1828. It is distinct from the 1847 gold Kosmos medal in honour of Humboldt, which is also held by the Münzkabinett. See Münzkabinett, “Alexander von Humboldt”.

  • Translated as: “Difficult things never seem impossible to me.”

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