Gazing ever hopeful into the Kristallkugeln

Peering into the near future, Europe’s largest economy remains central to the direction for Europe as a whole. And, judged by the recent long profile of chancellor Angela Merkel in the New Yorker, there is self-confidence in the Bundestag.

Here she is dismissing the Russian president, after a macho incident with a labrador:

I understand why he has to do this—to prove he’s a man,” she told a group of reporters. “He’s afraid of his own weakness. Russia has nothing, no successful politics or economy. All they have is this.

Political economy is the point, however.