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Between values and interests – German leadership in the EU
https://doi.org/10.31749/2451-0610-ksm-2025-007
Abstract
This article aims to present a concept of German leadership in the European Union grounded in German and European interests, values, and principles: peace, freedom, security, democracy, the rule of law, responsibility, respect for human rights, and international cooperation. It is based on an analysis of coalition agreements concluded by German governments between 2018 and 2025. It is divided into several sections reflecting the content of the aforementioned documents and the research questions posed in their analysis. The research resulted in the verification of the main hypothesis: that the concept of German leadership in the EU presented in the coalition agreements from 2018, 2021, and 2025 still aligns German interests with European interests, and the subsidiary hypothesis: that this concept is linked to the belief that only a value-based, more efficient, and stronger European Union – politically, economically, and militarily – can play a role in the international arena. The article was written using comparative methods and document analysis.
Keywords:
German European policy , government coalitions , German parties , deepening integration , EU enlargement , values , interestsDownload files
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
No. 22 (2025)
Published: 2026-07-17
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.