Geoeconomic Statecraft and Normative Power: Germany, the Eurozone, and Strategic Interdependence with Russia

Abstract

The author studies Berlin’s role in shaping European economic governance and external interdependence through the lens of geoeconomics and normative power. It argues that Germany’s leadership during the Eurozone crisis consolidated a form of asymmetric economic governance that prioritized stability, fiscal discipline, and export competitiveness, while simultaneously deepening structural dependencies in Europe’s external relations—most notably with Russia. Rather than treating these trajectories as separate policy domains, the article demonstrates how internal crisis management and external economic strategy became mutually reinforcing. Germany’s selective deployment of norms within the Eurozone, combined with its preference for depoliticized market-based interdependence in energy relations, contributed to a European order characterized by economic resilience and strategic vulnerability. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of policy discourse, institutional practices, and geopolitical reasoning, the article situates German policy within broader debates on Normative Power Europe and geoeconomic statecraft. It concludes that the limitations of the European response to Russia’s aggression cannot be understood solely as failures of foresight or unity, but as the outcome of a political-economic configuration in which normative governance and strategic risk management were unevenly aligned.