Why Olaf Scholz is no Angela Merkel

An old story, pointed if apocryphal, had the late Henry Kissinger complaining, “Who do I call if I want to call Europe?” In fact, for long periods of time (admittedly after Kissinger had left government), there was a good answer. During most of the 1980s and 1990s it was Helmut Kohl, the German chancellor, and from 2005 till the end of 2021, it was Angela Merkel. So large, rich and generally weighty is Germany that nothing important happens in Europe unless its chancellor wants it to, and what the chancellor wants, she or he usually gets. Until now.