Lawmakers and diplomats in Brussels express frustration at Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s unpredictable coalition

For years Germany was seen as a rock of stability and predictability in the EU. These days, its partners wonder what curveball Berlin will throw at them next.

Last week the German government sent shockwaves through Brussels by withdrawing its support for a piece of legislation that it had long appeared to back: the EU’s new supply chain law.

The volte-face was a stark example of how chaos in chancellor Olaf Scholz’s unruly coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and liberals is disrupting EU policymaking — something even senior German officials were forced to admit.

“The fact Germany is abstaining at the last minute on the supply chain law, despite consenting to [it] earlier, damages our reliability as a partner and our weight in Europe,” said foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, a Green politician.

German diplomats and EU lawmakers worry that Berlin’s behaviour is stirring up animosity in other capitals. “You can see the resentment growing,” said René Repasi, a German MEP from Scholz’s Social Democrat party. “It’s leading to a situation where people in Brussels begin to doubt if they can rely on Germany. The basic trust is destroyed.” Leaders attend a European Council summit in Brussels."

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Many in Berlin fear consequences beyond reputational damage. Repasi, the Social Democrat MEP, said that when Germany abstained it strengthened France’s negotiating position, often to the detriment of Berlin.

“The big concern for me is that people will go around Germany to form majorities. That means there’ll be a tendency to adopt more and more French positions, because the negotiators think: at least France will back it, and ensure there’s a qualified majority in favour.”

The supply chain law is a good example, he said. There, France insisted on — and won — a carve-out for financial institutions, a position Germany did not support.

Repasi said the FDP might also object to the EU’s new rules on “platform work”, designed to improve the working conditions of people working in the gig economy.

EU diplomats fear the German liberals could also intervene on new rules for air quality and packaging waste, which are at a similar stage in the Brussels’ policymaking process. Here a German abstention could have a critical impact on the bloc’s environmental goals, they say.

The “real venom”, according to one EU diplomat, was that countries no longer felt comfortable negotiating compromise agreements with the Germans for fear they would U-turn at the last minute.

“It’s the unreliability that is the real thorny issue and undermines trust in the Germans.”