An historic moment for Europe?

"I fear German power less than her inactivity," remarked Poland's Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski at the height of the eurozone crisis. More than Germany leading Europe, Europe must fear a Germany that eschews its leadership responsibilities.

Last week Chancellor Angela Merkel disproved these concerns. Her joint proposal with President Emmanuel Macron puts Germany back in the game and raises hopes of regaining the European Union's lost dynamism.

What does the joint French-German initiative for a European Recovery Fund propose? Common funding and joint bond issuance, under the seven-year EU budget. For a European economy of 14 trillion euros, in the greatest recession since the 1930s, 500 billion euros in grants, distributed over a three-year period, is no huge fiscal stimulus.
But it is a leap towards closer integration, particularly since it overturns two...