The Age of The Strongman: How the Cult of the Leader Threatens Democracy around the World

by Gideon Rachman

March 2020, Merkel endorsed the idea that the EU should – as Macron had long pleaded – issue common debt on the financial markets to fund joint projects. It was sold as a one-off project to fund Covid relief. But the details mattered less than the significance of the gesture. In Berlin, Paris and Brussels, it was generally agreed that a Rubicon had been crossed: the common currency was now going to be backed by commonly issued debt. In the long run, Macron envisioned the development of a deep EU bond market that could rival the US Treasury market as a safe asset for the world’s investors. That in turn could allow the euro eventually to create an alternative to the dollar as the world’s major reserve currency. Since the US dollar is the source of so much of America’s global power, the internationalisation of the euro would be a major step on the road to Macron’s goal of ‘Europe puissance’ – Europe as a world power.