The Enabling Power

The special Munich Security Brief, published on the occasion of Germany's EU Council Presidency, calls for Germany to become Europe's "enabling power" – a power that spurs and facilitates rather than slow-walks European progress. To this end, the Munich Security Brief argues, Germans need to embrace and implement the "European imperative": Whatever Germany does in the future, it should evaluate its actions according to two criteria. First, whether they enhance the EU's ability to recover economically and politically; and second, whether they enable the EU to become a more credible international actor that can protect its values, interests, and sovereignty in an increasingly harsh security environment.

This Munich Security Brief is part of a series of publications and events on the occasion of Germany’s EU Council Presidency. In this context, the MSC published a Munich Security ReportSpecial Edition on German foreign and security policy in October as well as a Munich Security Report Special Edition on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on international development, peace, and stability in November.

With its Munich Security Briefs, the MSC aims at contributing to ongoing debates on particular issues within the broad field of international security. A much more concise format than the Munich Security Report, the briefs are meant to provide both an overview of an issue as well as a succinct analysis of its policy implications and strategic consequences. They generally express the opinion of their author(s) rather than any position of the MSC.

A German version of this Munich Security Brief, titled "Die Möglich-Macher-Macht. Deutschlands europäischer Imperativ," is also available.