China’s adherence to the rules-based international system is selective, prioritizing certain rules in favour of others. States supportive of that ‘system’ – or, as some argue, systems[1] – should identify areas of mutual strategic interest so that they can draw China further into the global rules-based order and leverage China as a constructive player that potentially also contributes to improvements in such areas. This is particularly apposite at a time when the US is in retreat from multilateralism and Russia seems bent on disrupting the rules-based international order.

Supportive player

There are many reasons for actively engaging with China on mutual areas of interest. China is a committed multilateralist in many areas, recognizing that often international cooperation and frameworks hold the key to its domestic problems, for example in the fields of environmental sustainability and financial regulation.

China’s economic power is valuable in upholding international institutions: China is the UN’s third-largest donor (after the US and Japan) at a time when the UN is facing budgetary shortfalls. China is also the second-highest contributor to the UN peacekeeping budget, and the largest contributor of peacekeeping forces among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

China also has a valuable role to play in the settlement of international disputes over trade and investment. China is a big supporter of the World Trade Organization (WTO)’s dispute settlement mechanism, and one of its most active participants;[2] China is currently playing an active role in negotiations to save the WTO’s appellate mechanism from folding in the wake of the US’s refusal to nominate new judges.

The last 15 years have also seen a major shift in Chinese attitudes to investment arbitration, from a general suspicion and limitation of arbitration rights to broad acceptance and incorporation of such rights in China’s trade and investment treaties. China is actively engaged in multilateral negotiations through the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) on reforms to investor–state dispute settlement.

China has shown leadership on global climate change diplomacy, urging nations to remain committed to the Paris Agreement in the wake of the US decision to pull out, and has been an important interlocutor with the UK and the EU on these issues. As a strong supporter of the Paris Agreement, but also as the world’s top emitter of carbon dioxide, China has a crucial role to play in pushing forward implementation of the Paris targets. Despite its high emissions, China remains one of the few major economies on track to meet its targets,[3] giving it greater leverage to peer review other parties’ efforts.

A recent report by the UK parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC), on China and the rules-based international order, noted that where a body of trust and goodwill is developed with China, there is the possibility of discovering interests that coincide and the ability to work together on issues mutually regarded as of global importance. The report refers to a number of success stories from UK partnership with China in multilateral forums, including in counterproliferation and global health.[4]

Developing areas of global governance

As well as working with the current system, China is increasingly involved in the shaping of newer areas of international law – whether it be submissions to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) on procedural rules for the emerging deep-sea mining regime or pitching for a greater role in Arctic governance.[5]

This enthusiasm should be harnessed to promote the international rule of law, but at the same time there needs to be recognition of the strategic goals that drive China’s engagement. China’s interest in the Arctic, while including the desire to protect its ecology and environment, is also about access to marine resources, as well as about the Arctic’s strategic potential for China’s military.

China’s submissions to ITLOS on the rules of procedure for deep-sea mining are constructive, but also reflect an ambition to secure first-mover advantage when commercial mining eventually takes place. Like other major powers working in this policy area, China’s actions are guided by self-interest, but that doesn’t mean its goals can’t be pursued through multilateral rules.

China is also interested in creating new international structures and instruments that further its strategic aims. For example, with Russia (through the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) it has proposed an International Code of Conduct for Information Security in the UN.[6]

China is also pondering an array of options for dispute-resolution mechanisms for its Belt and Road projects, including the possibility of an Asian version of the international Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes, which might sit under the auspices of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).[7]

The creation of new instruments and institutions need not be a threat to the rules-based international order in itself. We have already seen a combination of the creation of parallel complementary regimes alongside the reform of existing institutions, for example in development financing through the AIIB or the New Development Bank (often referred to as the ‘BRICS Bank’); these two banks are relatively conventionally structured along the lines of Western-dominated institutions, albeit with greater Chinese control. Based on these examples, selective adaptation seems more likely than a hostile ‘Eastphalian’ takeover.[8]

Risks

There is, however, a real risk that in certain areas China may promote a rival authoritarian model of governance, assisted by an opportunistic convergence with Russia on issues such as human rights, development and internet governance. In areas where China’s core interests clash with those of the rules-based international order, China has shown itself to be unbending, as in its refusal to abide by the July 2016 decision of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in its dispute with the Philippines over the South China Sea.[9]

China is becoming more assertive at the UN, but while it seeks to project itself there as a responsible emerging global leader, it is promoting a vision that weakens international norms of human rights, transparency and accountability,[10] while also carrying out practices domestically that raise serious human rights concerns (not least the detention of hundreds of thousands of Uighurs in re-education camps in Xinjiang).[11]

China’s increased dominance geographically and geopolitically through its Belt and Road infrastructure projects carries with it a number of social and economic risks, including smaller states becoming trapped in unsustainable financial debts to China.

But at a recent Chatham House conference on Asia and international law, participants highlighted the limitations on how far China can shape an alternative governance model.[12] China currently lacks soft power, cultural power and language power, all of which are needed in order to embed an alternative model abroad. China also currently lacks capacity and confidence to build coalitions with other states in the UN.

Where it has tried to get buy-in from the international community for its new institutions, such as the China International Commercial Court (CICC) announced in July 2018, there has been scepticism about the standards to be applied.[13] Unless the court can demonstrate sufficient due process, international parties are likely to prefer other centres with a strong reputation for upholding the rule of law, such as those in London, Dubai and Singapore.

Where China does promote its own governance model at the expense of the rules-based international order, states are starting to push back, often in concert. EU member states so far have adopted a joined-up approach to the Belt and Road Initiative. With the exception of Italy, they have refused to sign a Memorandum of Understanding on participation unless China provides much greater transparency on its compliance with international standards.

The EU also recently presented a coordinated response to China on the situation in Xinjiang.[14] Similarly, members of the so-called ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence-sharing alliance (comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US) have acted together in relation to certain incidents of cyber interference attributed to China.[15]

There are also signs of pushback from smaller states closer to home in relation to challenges to national sovereignty, debt diplomacy and financial viability arising from Belt and Road projects. The Sri Lankan government recently reversed the award of a $300 million housing deal to China, instead opting for a joint venture with an Indian company.

China has been downscaling its investments as a way to counter some of the backlash it has received: the most recent Belt and Road summit put forward a more modest set of aspirations. This suggests that there is some scope for states to stand up to China and use leverage to secure better deals.

Many international institutions have been Western-dominated for years;[16] China, together with many emerging and middle powers, has felt for some time that the international architecture does not reflect the world we live in. Given that context, states that champion the rules-based international order should acknowledge China’s desire to update the international order to reflect greater multipolarity, globalization and technological change, while being clear-eyed about their engagement with China. This involves investing in a proper understanding of China and how it works.[17]

Where possible, cooperation with China should lead to outcomes that are backed up by international standards and transparency. The above-mentioned FAC report cites evidence that the UK’s support, and that of other developed countries, had a positive impact in shaping the governance and standards of the AIIB.[18] China has brought in international experts to advise on disputes before the CIIC, which may reassure would-be litigants.

China’s relationship with the rules-based international order needs to be assessed pragmatically and dynamically. China can be a valuable partner in many areas where its objectives are closely aligned with those of the international community – from trade to climate change to peacekeeping.

But where the country’s core interests are at odds with those of the wider international community, an increasingly confident China will strongly resist pressure, including on the South China Sea and human rights. In these areas, states supportive of international law can most powerfully push back through alliances and by ensuring that their own core values are not compromised in the interests of economic benefits.

Notes

[1] Chalmers, M. (2019), Which Rules? Why There is No Single ‘Rules-Based International System’, RUSI Occasional Paper, April 2019, London: Royal United Services Institute, https://rusi.org/occasional-papers/Which-Rules-Why-There-Is-No-Single-Rules-Based-International-System.

[2] See, for example, Moynihan, H. (2017), China’s Evolving Approach to International Dispute Settlement, Briefing, London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/chinas-evolving-approach-international-dispute-settlement.

[3] UN Environment (2018), Emissions Gap Report 2018, p. XVII, https://www.unenvironment.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2018.

[4] House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (2019), China and the Rules-Based International System: Sixteenth Report of Session 2017–19, p. 32, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmfaff/612/612.pdf.

[5] Moynihan, H. (2018), ‘China Expands Its Global Governance Ambitions in the Arctic’, Expert Comment, 15 October 2018, https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/china-expands-its-global-governance-ambitions-arctic.

[6] Updated version proposed 9 January 2015.

[7] Moynihan, H. (2018), ‘Exploring Public International Law Issues with Chinese Scholars – Part Four’, Meeting Summary, 3 June 2018, https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/exploring-public-international-law-issues-chinese-scholars-part-four.

[8] Chatham House (2019, forthcoming, ‘Security and Prosperity in the Asia-Pacific: The Role of International Law’, conference summary, https://www.chathamhouse.org/event/security-and-prosperity-asia-pacific-role-international-law.

[9] Permanent Court of Arbitration Case No. 2013-19 (Philippines v China), Award of 12 July 2016, https://pca-cpa.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/07/PH-CN-20160712-Award.pdf.

[10] Piccone, T. (2018), China’s Long Game on Human Rights at the United Nations, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/FP_20181009_china_human_rights.pdf.

[11] Wye, R. (2018), ‘‘The entire Uyghur population is seemingly being treated as suspect’: China’s persecution of its Muslim minority’, LSE Religion and Global Society blog, 18 September 2018, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2018/09/the-entire-uyghur-population-is-seemingly-being-treated-as-suspect-chinas-persecution-of-its-muslim-minority/.

[12] Chatham House (2019, forthcoming, ‘Security and Prosperity in the Asia-Pacific: The Role of International Law’.

[13] Walters, M. (2018), ‘Jury is out over China’s new commercial court, say lawyers’, Law Society Gazette, 1 November 2018, https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/jury-is-out-over-chinas-new-commercial-court-say-lawyers/5068125.article.

[14] The Economist (2019), ‘Hope remains for Western solidarity. Look at embassies in Beijing’, 17 April 2019, https://www.economist.com/china/2019/04/20/hope-remains-for-western-solidarity-look-at-embassies-in-beijing.

[15] In December 2018, the Five Eyes attributed the activities of a Chinese cyber espionage group targeting intellectual property and sensitive commercial property to China’s Ministry of State Security.

[16] Roberts, A. (2017), Is International Law International?, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[17] Parton, C. (2019), China–UK Relations: Where to Draw the Border Between Influence and Interference?, RUSI Occasional Paper, February 2019, London: Royal United Services Institute, p. 30, https://rusi.org/publication/occasional-papers/china-uk-relations-where-draw-border-between-influence-and.

[18] House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (2019), China and the Rules-Based International System, p. 15.

This essay was produced for the 2019 edition of Chatham House Expert Perspectives – our annual survey of risks and opportunities in global affairs – in which our researchers identify areas where the current sets of rules, institutions and mechanisms for peaceful international cooperation are falling short, and present ideas for reform and modernization.

The UK Supreme Court’s ruling last Wednesday has, at least temporarily, scuppered the prime minister’s plans to limit parliamentary debate before the looming Brexit deadline. Some of the prime minister’s allies have attacked the ruling as a ‘constitutional coup’. But a close reading reveals that the court has stayed within its remit to interpret, rather than make, the law.

In a carefully reasoned judgment, the court emphasized that the case was not about Brexit. But the judges certainly did not shy away from the extraordinary nature of the matters before it, noting that such factual situations have ‘never arisen before and are unlikely ever to arise again… But our law is used to rising to such challenges and supplies us with the legal tools to enable us to reason to a solution.’

The key question before the court was whether the prime minister’s decision to seek prorogation was ‘justiciable’ – i.e. amenable to being reviewed by a court. The English and Scottish courts earlier on in these proceedings had come, dramatically, to opposing views on this.

The Supreme Court was not dissuaded by the inherently political considerations involved in the prime minister’s decision, stating that while ‘courts cannot decide political questions, the fact that a legal dispute concerns the conduct of politicians, or arises from a matter of political controversy, has never been sufficient reason for the courts to refuse to consider it’.

The court went on to emphasize that the Crown’s remaining prerogative powers (exercised on the advice of the government or directly by ministers) have long been subject to judicial scrutiny; such oversight is essential to guarding the separation of powers underpinning the UK’s constitution.

So far, so conventional. The full bench of the Supreme Court was required to grapple, though, with a prerogative power that had never been tested before in the courts. And so they delved back to the 1611 Case of Proclamations: ‘the King hath no prerogative, but that which the law of the land allow him’. In the court’s view, the legal issue to be resolved was the scope of the power to prorogue (the existence of this particular prerogative not being in dispute).

With no case law available to provide direct guidance on this question, the court, instead, relied on two fundamental principles of the UK’s constitution – parliamentary sovereignty and parliamentary accountability. What would be the logical consequence of an unlimited power to prorogue? The ability to shut parliament permanently.

The conclusion: this particular prerogative power had limits. The court held that:

‘A decision to prorogue Parliament (or to advise the monarch to prorogue Parliament) will be unlawful if the prorogation has the effect of frustrating or preventing, without reasonable justification, the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions as a legislature and as the body responsible for the supervision of the executive. In such a situation, the court will intervene if the effect is sufficiently serious to justify such an exceptional course.’

Having come to this conclusion, the court was left to examine what justification had in fact been given, noting that the prime minister’s motives were irrelevant. It noted that no clear reason had been given – the relevant documents were all concerned with preparing for the Queen’s speech.

Noting evidence on normal practice for such preparations, including from a former prime minister, the court found it ‘impossible… to conclude…that there was any reason – let alone a good reason – to advise Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament for five weeks’.

The court’s decision was neither inevitable nor a radical departure from legal tradition. It represents the gradual evolution of the long-established legal principle that the crown’s powers are set by the law and supervised by the courts.

Courts have traditionally been reticent to rule on prerogative powers which are ‘high politics’ by nature – classic examples include declaring war and negotiating treaties. In recent years, though, the judiciary has shown a growing confidence to grapple with the contours of those prerogative powers that remain. Deference is still shown when looking at how those powers have been used as opposed to the limits of the prerogative in question.

The Supreme Court ruling won’t reassure those who worry about the emergence of an activist court willing to wade (improperly) into the political arena. Nor will it necessarily bring comfort to those anxious about an unwritten constitution in an era where political conventions are fast unravelling.

But divisive court rulings are nothing new, nor are ministerial outbursts about inconvenient judgments. In the current environment, politicians should take particular care not to send mixed messages which undermine the independence of the UK’s judiciary. Public trust in British institutions is dangerously low and the UK can ill-afford further damage to its reputation as a country steeped in democracy and the rule of law.

A controversial debate during COVID-19 is the state of readiness within governments and health systems for a pandemic, with lines of the debate drawn on the issues of testing provision, personal protective equipment (PPE), and the speed of decision-making.

President Macron in a speech to the nation admitted French medical workers did not have enough PPE and that mistakes had been made: ‘Were we prepared for this crisis? We have to say that no, we weren’t, but we have to admit our errors … and we will learn from this’.

In reality few governments were fully prepared. In years to come, all will ask: ‘how could we have been better prepared, what did we do wrong, and what can we learn?’. But after every crisis, governments ask these same questions.

Most countries have put in place national risk assessments and established processes and systems to monitor and stress-test crisis-preparedness. So why have some countries been seemingly better prepared?

Comparing different approaches

Some have had more time and been able to watch the spread of the disease and learn from those countries that had it first. Others have taken their own routes, and there will be much to learn from comparing these different approaches in the longer run.

Governments in Asia have been strongly influenced by the experience of the SARS epidemic in 2002-3 and - South Korea in particular - the MERS-CoV outbreak in 2015 which was the largest outside the Middle East. Several carried out preparatory work in terms of risk assessment, preparedness measures and resilience planning for a wide range of threats.

And, at the international level, there are frameworks for preparedness for pandemics. The International Health Regulations (IHR) - adopted at the 2005 World Health Assembly and binding on member states - require countries to report certain disease outbreaks and public health events to the World Health Organization (WHO) and ‘prevent, protect against, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks, and which avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade’.

Under IHR, governments committed to a programme of building core capacities including coordination, surveillance, response and preparedness. The UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk highlights disaster preparedness for effective response as one of its main purposes and has already incorporated these measures into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other Agenda 2030 initiatives. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said COVID-19 ‘poses a significant threat to the maintenance of international peace and security’ and that ‘a signal of unity and resolve from the Council would count for a lot at this anxious time’.

This pandemic looks set to continue to be a grave threat to humanity. But there will also be future pandemics – whether another type of coronavirus or a new influenza virus – and our species will be threatened again, we just don’t know when.

Other disasters too will befall us – we already see the impacts of climate change arriving on our doorsteps characterised by increased numbers and intensity of floods, hurricanes, fires, crop failure and other manifestations of a warming, increasingly turbulent atmosphere and we will continue to suffer major volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis. All high impact, unknown probability events.

Preparedness for an unknown future is expensive and requires a great deal of effort for events that may not happen within the preparers’ lifetimes. It is hard to imagine now, but people will forget this crisis, and revert to their imagined projections of the future where crises don’t occur, and progress follows progress. But history shows us otherwise.

Preparations for future crises always fall prey to financial cuts and austerity measures in lean times unless there is a mechanism to prevent that. Cost-benefit analyses will understandably tend to prioritise the urgent over the long-term. So governments should put in place legislation – or strengthen existing legislation – now to ensure their countries are as prepared as possible for whatever crisis is coming.

Such a legal requirement would require governments to report back to parliament every year on the state of their national preparations detailing such measures as:

• The exact levels of stocks of essential materials (including medical equipment)
• The ability of hospitals to cope with large influx of patients
• How many drills, exercises and simulations had been organised – and their findings
• What was being done to implement lessons learned & improve preparedness

In addition, further actions should be taken:

• Parliamentary committees such as the UK Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy should scrutinise the government’s readiness for the potential threats outlined in the National Risk register for Civil Emergencies in-depth on an annual basis.
• Parliamentarians, including ministers, with responsibility for national security and resilience should participate in drills, table-top exercises and simulations to see for themselves the problems inherent with dealing with crises.
• All governments should have a minister (or equivalent) with the sole responsibility for national crisis preparedness and resilience. The Minister would be empowered to liaise internationally and coordinate local responses such as local resilience groups.
• There should be ring-fenced budget lines in annual budgets specifically for preparedness and resilience measures, annually reported on and assessed by parliaments as part of the due diligence process.

And at the international level:

• The UN Security Council should establish a Crisis Preparedness Committee to bolster the ability of United Nations Member States to respond to international crisis such as pandemics, within their borders and across regions. The Committee would function in a similar fashion as the Counter Terrorism Committee that was established following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
• States should present reports on their level of preparedness to the UN Security Council. The Crisis Preparedness Committee could establish a group of experts who would conduct expert assessments of each member state’s risks and preparedness and facilitate technical assistance as required.
• Regional bodies such as the OSCE, ASEAN and ARF, the AU, the OAS, the PIF etc could also request national reports on crisis preparedness for discussion and cooperation at the regional level.

COVID-19 has been referred to as the 9/11 of crisis preparedness and response. Just as that shocking terrorist attack shifted the world and created a series of measures to address terrorism, we now recognise our security frameworks need far more emphasis on being prepared and being resilient. Whatever has been done in the past, it is clear that was nowhere near enough and that has to change.

There are two well-established ideas in trade. Individually, they are correct. Combined, they can lead to a conclusion that is unfortunately wrong.

The first idea is that, across a range of economic sectors, the EU and the US have been engaged in a battle to have their model of regulation accepted as the global one, and that the EU is generally winning.

The second is that governments can use their regulatory power to extend strategic and foreign policy influence.

The conclusion would seem to be that the EU, which has for decades tried to develop a foreign policy, should be able to use its superpower status in regulation and trade to project its interests and its values abroad.

That’s the theory. It’s a proposition much welcomed by EU policymakers, who know they are highly unlikely any time soon to acquire any of the tools usually required to run an effective foreign policy.

The EU doesn’t have an army it can send into a shooting war, enough military or political aid to prop up or dispense of governments abroad, or a centralized intelligence service. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has declared her outfit to be a ‘geopolitical commission’, and is casting about for any means of making that real.

Through the ‘Brussels effect’ whereby European rules and standards are exported via both companies and governments, the EU has indeed won many regulatory battles with the US.

Its cars, chemicals and product safety regulations are more widely adopted round the world than their American counterparts. In the absence of any coherent US offering, bar some varied state-level systems, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the closest thing the world has to a single model for data privacy, and variants of it are being adopted by dozens of countries.

The problem is this. Those parts of global economic governance where the US is dominant – particularly the dollar payments system – are highly conducive to projecting US power abroad. The extraterritorial reach of secondary sanctions, plus the widespread reliance of banks and companies worldwide on dollar funding – and hence the American financial system – means that the US can precisely target its influence.

The EU can enforce trade sanctions, but not in such a powerful and discriminatory way, and it will always be outgunned by the US. Donald Trump could in effect force European companies to join in his sanctions on Iran when he pulled out of the nuclear deal, despite EU legislation designed to prevent their businesses being bullied. He can go after the chief financial officer of Huawei for allegedly breaching those sanctions.

By contrast, the widespread adoption of GDPR or data protection regimes inspired by it may give the EU a warm glow of satisfaction, but it cannot be turned into a geopolitical tool in the same way.

Nor, necessarily, does it particularly benefit the EU economy. Europe’s undersized tech sector seems unlikely to unduly benefit from the fact that data protection rules were written in the EU. Indeed, one common criticism of the regulations is that they entrench the power of incumbent tech giants like Google.

There is a similar pattern at work in the adoption of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. In that field, the EU and its member states are also facing determined competition from China, which has been pushing its technologies and standards through forums such as the International Telecommunication Union.

The EU has been attempting to write international rules for the use of AI which it hopes to be widely adopted. But again, these are a constraint on the use of new technologies largely developed by others, not the control of innovation.

By contrast, China has created a vast domestic market in technologies like facial recognition and unleashed its own companies on it. The resulting surveillance kit can then be marketed to emerging market governments as part of China’s enduring foreign policy campaign to build up supporters in the developing world.

If it genuinely wants to turn its economic power into geopolitical influence – and it’s not entirely clear what it would do with it if it did – the EU needs to recognize that not all forms of regulatory and trading dominance are the same.

Providing public goods to the world economy is all very well. But unless they are so particular in nature that they project uniquely European values and interests, that makes the EU a supplier of useful plumbing but not a global architect of power.

On the other hand, it could content itself with its position for the moment. It could recognize that not until enough hard power – guns, intelligence, money – is transferred from the member states to the centre, or until the member states start acting collectively, will the EU genuinely become a geopolitical force. Speaking loudly and carrying a stick of foam rubber is rarely a way to gain credibility in international relations.

This article is part of a series of publications and roundtable discussions in the Chatham House Global Trade Policy Forum.

The lack of political will to carry out rule of law reforms is frequently the reason why reforms are not fully implemented. The case of Moldova proves that in societies where strong vested interests still persist, political savviness is equally as important as political will.

Old and new political power brokers in Moldova struck a fragile pact in June to oust Vladimir Plahotniuc. Plahotniuc had built a network of corruption and patronage with the help of the Democratic Party, which he treated as a personal vehicle and which allowed him and a small economic elite circle to enrich themselves off of government institutions and state-owned enterprises, to the detriment of Moldovan citizens and the health of their political process.

Maia Sandu, co-leader of the pro-reform ACUM electoral bloc, then formed a technocratic government with a remit to implement Moldova’s lagging reform agenda. Though made up of ministers with the integrity and political will to implement difficult transformational reforms, its biggest weakness was its coalition partner – the pro-Russian Socialists’ Party and its informal leader, Igor Dodon, the president of Moldova.

Now the Socialists – threatened by how key reforms to the justice system would impact their interests – have joined forces with Plahotniuc’s former allies, the Democratic Party, to oust ACUM, exploiting the party’s lack of political savviness. 

Reform interrupted

It was always clear the coalition would be short-lived. President Dodon and the co-ruling Socialists joined to buy themselves time, with the hope that they could restrict the most far-reaching reforms and tie the hands of ACUM ministers. In less than five months, however, the Sandu government initiated key reforms in the judicial system, aimed at dismantling Plahotniuc’s networks of patronage but also impacting the Socialists, who to a large degree also profited from the previous status quo.

The red line came over a last-minute change in the selection process of the prosecutor general proposed by Sandu on 6 November, which the Socialists claimed was unconstitutional and gave them the justification to put forward a motion of no confidence in the Sandu government. This was conveniently supported by the Democratic Party, who appeared threatened by an independent prosecutor’s office and saw an opportunity to return to power.

Thus, the political will to reform proved insufficient in the absence of a clear strategy on how to address the concerns of the old regime that they would be prosecuted and their vested interests threatened. Here, ACUM’s lack of political experience let them down. With their hands tied from the beginning in a fragile coalition with the Socialists, ACUM were unable to prevent sabotage from within state institutions and their own coalition, and could not find consensus to proceed with more radical methods to tackle corruption.

Less than two days after the Sandu government was out, a new government was sworn in on 14 November. Prime Minister Ion Chicu was an adviser to President Dodon before taking office and former minister of finance under the Plahotniuc-backed government of Pavel Filip, as part of a cabinet of ministers consisting largely of other presidential advisers and former high-level bureaucrats and ministers from the Plahotniuc era. 

The new government

A top priority for the Chicu government is to convince the international community that it is independent from President Dodon, and that its ‘technocrats’ will keep the course of reforms of the Sandu government. This is critical to preserving the financial assistance of Western partners, which the Moldovan government heavily relies on, particularly with a presidential election campaign next year, when they will likely want to create fiscal space for various giveaways to voters.

But within its first week in office, Chicu appears incapable of walking this line. Reverting to the initially proposed pre-selection process of prosecutor general signals that the post could be filled by a loyal appointee of President Dodon. Moreover, Chicu’s first visit abroad was to Russia, allegedly a major financial contributor of the Socialists’ Party. With the Socialists now holding the presidency, government, Chisinau mayoralty, and the parliament speaker’s seat, the danger of an increased Russian influence on key political decisions is very real.

A government steered by President Dodon risks bringing Moldova back to where it was before June, with a political elite mimicking reforms while misusing power for private gains. The biggest danger is that instead of continuing the reform process to bring Moldova back on its European integration path, the new government may focus on strengthening the old patronage system, this time with President Dodon at the top of the pyramid.

Lessons

This new minority government, supported by the Democrats, is a more natural one for President Dodon and therefore has more chances to survive, at least until presidential elections in autumn of 2020. Both the Socialists and the Democrats will likely seek to use this time to rebuild their own methods of capturing state resources. But with the Socialists relying on the Democrats’ votes in parliament, this is a recipe for further political instability.

Similar to Moldova, several other states across the post-Soviet space such as Ukraine and Armenia have had new political forces come to power with the political will and mandate to carry out difficult reforms to strengthen rule of law and fight systemic corruption in their countries. What they all have in common is the lack of political experience of how to create change, while old elites, used to thinking on their feet to defend their vested interests, retain their connections and economic and political influence.

Moldova is a good example of why political will needs to be backed up by clear strategy on how to deal with threatened vested interests in order for new political forces to be able to maintain themselves in power and reforms to be sustainable. When the chance comes again for fresh leaders to come to power, it is importantthey are politically prepared to use it swiftly and wisely.

Despite face-to-face diplomatic meetings being increasingly rare during the current disruption, COVID-19 will ultimately force a redefinition of national security and defence spending priorities, and this could provide the possibility of an improved political climate at RevCon when it happens in 2021.

With US presidential elections due in November and a gradual engagement growing between the EU and Iran, there could be a new context for more cooperation between states by 2021. Two key areas of focus over the coming months will be the arms control talks between the United States and Russia, and Iran’s compliance with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal.

It is too early to discern the medium- and longer-term consequences of COVID-19 for defence ministries, but a greater focus on societal resilience and reinvigorating economic productivity will likely undercut the rationale for expensive nuclear modernization.

Therefore, extending the current New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) would be the best, most practical option to give both Russia and the United States time to explore more ambitious multilateral arms control measures, while allowing their current focus to remain on the pandemic and economic relief.

Continuing distrust

But with the current treaty — which limits nuclear warheads, missiles, bombers, and launchers — due to expire in February 2021, the continuing distrust between the United States and Russia makes this extension hard to achieve, and a follow-on treaty even less likely.

Prospects for future bilateral negotiations are hindered by President Donald Trump’s vision for a trilateral arms control initiative involving both China and Russia. But China opposes this on the grounds that its nuclear arsenal is far smaller than that of the two others.

While there appears to be agreement that the nuclear arsenals of China, France, and the UK (the NPT nuclear-weapons states) and those of the states outside the treaty (India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel) will all have to be taken into account going forward, a practical mechanism for doing so proves elusive.

If Joe Biden wins the US presidency he seems likely to pursue an extension of the New START treaty and could also prevent a withdrawal from the Open Skies treaty, the latest arms control agreement targeted by the Trump administration.

Under a Biden administration, the United States would also probably re-join the JCPOA, provided Tehran returned to strict compliance with the deal. Biden could even use the team that negotiated the Iran deal to advance the goal of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

For an NPT regime already confronted by a series of longstanding divergences, it is essential that Iran remains a signatory especially as tensions between Iran and the United States have escalated recently — due to the Qassim Suleimani assassination and the recent claim by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to have successfully placed the country’s first military satellite into orbit.

This announcement raised red flags among experts about whether Iran is developing intercontinental ballistic missiles due to the dual-use nature of space technology. The satellite launch — deeply troubling for Iran’s neighbours and the EU countries — may strengthen the US argument that it is a cover for the development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

However, as with many other countries, Iran is struggling with a severe coronavirus crisis and will be pouring its scientific expertise and funds into that rather than other efforts — including the nuclear programme.

Those European countries supporting the trading mechanism INSTEX (Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges) for sending humanitarian goods into Iran could use this crisis to encourage Iran to remain in compliance with the JCPOA and its NPT obligations.

France, Germany and the UK (the E3) have already successfully concluded the first transaction, which was to facilitate the export of medical goods from Europe to Iran. But the recent Iranian escalatory steps will most certainly place a strain on the preservation of this arrangement.

COVID-19 might have delayed Iran’s next breach of the 2015 nuclear agreement but Tehran will inevitably seek to strengthen its hand before any potential negotiations with the United States after the presidential elections.

As frosty US-Iranian relations — exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic — prevent diplomatic negotiations, this constructive engagement between the E3 and Iran might prove instrumental in reviving the JCPOA and ensuring Iran stays committed to both nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

While countries focus their efforts on tackling the coronavirus pandemic, it is understandable resources may be limited for other global challenges, such as the increasing risk of nuclear weapons use across several regions.

But the potential ramifications of the COVID-19 crisis for the NPT regime are profound. Ongoing tensions between the nuclear-armed states must not be ignored while the world’s focus is elsewhere, and the nuclear community should continue to work together to progress nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, building bridges of cooperation and trust that can long outlast the pandemic.

The eruption of another Icelandic volcano this week, ejecting ash plume into the atmosphere, reminds us afresh of Europe's vulnerability to 'low probability, high impact' events. Will Europe respond better this time? A forthcoming Chatham House Report shows that in such crises our governments and global businesses are in a better place to cope for a week - but no longer. This is because the full consequences of worst case scenarios are rarely factored in.

The ash cloud in 2010 is estimated to have cost the EU around $ 5-10 billion - the airlines bore about $ 1.7 billion in lost revenues and the tourism industry was hit hard. The greatest impact felt by many organisations was in human resources - the absence of stranded employees and dislocated management structures - but some companies fared better than others having learnt lessons from 9/11, SARS and other shocks to aviation. Businesses responding to a Chatham House survey on the impact of the ash cloud said that if the ash event last year had persisted just a few more days there would have been far more serious consequences.

This is not surprising given our dependence on long supply chains and the just-in-time business model. Since the earthquake and tsunami in March, for example, Japanese national infrastructure has been struggling to cope with fraying supply-chains and significantly slowed production. Carmakers and mobile phone manufacturers across the world were forced to halt or slow production as inventories of essential products - electronic components, car parts and fine chemicals - were quickly run down. Major cities for production, trade and travel are often badly affected by any international shocks, irrespective of the source, rendering the apparent resilience of having multiple suppliers meaningless.

A major scenario planning exercise conducted by Eurocontrol, five weeks ago suggests that the EU might be better prepared for an ash cloud disruption than a year ago. A key test for Europe now lies in whether member states will succeed in working together better in coordinating responses to ash threat and building public confidence in science-based risk management and planning.

Policy-makers face again the challenge of communicating a complex problem to a frustrated public. The ash cloud last year demonstrated the complication of crisis management in the media-saturated world, where opinion can be swayed by the most audible, the most active or the most politically powerful voices rather than the best informed or the most legitimate. There are important lessons here on the advantages and potential pitfalls of engaging stakeholders and the public via social and online media.

Our forthcoming report also shows a bias in the traditional media towards industry voices rather than those of the scientific community and policy-makers. During the crisis last year, there was scant public defence of the precautionary principles or safety, merely airlines duelling through the airwaves to step up pressure to remove the flight ban. First off the gate, Ryanair had already started its public relations battle last night. This time around, let's hope that traditional media will give greater airplay to voices beyond industry commentators, including scientists and experts. In-depth explanations of the science and technology involved in an event can help people assess the levels of uncertainty and risk involved in a situation, and what it means for them.

Chatham House’s recent paper, Woody Biomass for Power and Heat: Impacts on the Global Climate, highlights how the use of wood for electricity generation and heat in modern (non-traditional) technologies has grown rapidly in recent years, and has the potential to continue to do so. EU member states’ national targets for renewable energy generation agreed in 2009 have helped ensure that the EU is now the world’s largest producer and consumer of wood for energy. And although other member states use wood more extensively for heat, the UK is the EU’s largest user for electricity generation, mostly sourced from the US and Canada.

Wood for energy often has a positive image: a natural product of growing forests. The biomass energy industry, which has grown rapidly on the back of government subsidies, likes to contrast it with dirty coal or oil. They point to the government’s sustainability criteria, which notionally guarantee a reduction of at least 60 per cent in greenhouse gas emissions compared to the fossil fuels the biomass replaces.

The problem with this happy picture, however, is that in fact biomass, when burnt, emits more carbon per unit of energy than most fossil fuels. The exact amount varies with the type of biomass and the type and age of the power plant, but figures from the Drax power station, Europe’s largest consumer of wood pellets, show that in 2013 it emitted about 13 per cent more carbon dioxide per unit of energy generated from biomass than from coal.

How is this consistent with meeting the government’s requirement for a 60 per cent reduction in emissions? Only by completely ignoring the carbon emitted when the wood is burnt; the sustainability criteria measure only supply-chain emissions from harvesting, processing and transporting the wood. (Direct land-use change – for example, clearance of the forest for agriculture or urban development – also falls outside the criteria, but biomass for energy generally originates from existing forests.)

This treatment of combustion emissions as zero – and thus, the awarding to wood the same kind of financial and regulatory support as other renewables such as solar PV and wind – is justified on the basis that the carbon contained in woody biomass is part of the natural forest cycle. The carbon released during combustion was absorbed by forest growth in the past and will be reabsorbed by forest growth in the future; in contrast, fossil fuels originate outside this cycle and their combustion adds carbon to the atmosphere.

But this argument rests on a basic fallacy. Carbon is carbon, wherever it comes from, and if you burn wood for energy, you increase carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere (by more than if you had used fossil fuels), and thereby contribute to climate change. The fact that the carbon emitted was absorbed by growing trees in the past is simply irrelevant. After all, when it’s harvested you don’t have to burn it; you could use it for construction or furniture or window frames or a host of other uses, fixing the carbon in wood products rather than emitting it to the atmosphere.

Climate impacts

It is true that continued forest growth will absorb carbon in the future, but the process is a long one, taking decades or even centuries if whole trees are harvested and burnt. Replacing large mature trees, with plentiful leaf cover absorbing large volumes of carbon dioxide, with small young ones mean that the rate of carbon uptake will be far lower for years. On top of that, the impact of harvesting itself releases soil carbon into the atmosphere, further accelerating climate change.

The impact on the climate of using sawmill or forest residues for energy rather than whole trees is undoubtedly lower, since these tend to be wastes from other industries which harvest trees for their own purposes, and do not imply any additional harvesting. Sawmill wastes which, if left to themselves, would rot and release their stored carbon into the atmosphere in a matter of months or years, are in many ways the ideal feedstock; it makes sense to use them for energy rather than leave them to decay. However, mill residues are already intensively used and there seems little room for expansion; a survey in the US in 2011 found that over 99 per cent of mill residues were already used, mainly for energy and wood products such as particleboard.

Forest residues are the parts of harvested trees that are left in the forest after log products have been removed, including stumps, tops and small branches, and pieces too short or defective to be used; these can amount to as much as 40–60 per cent of the total tree volume. Their impact on the climate if used for energy varies significantly. While the smallest pieces tend to rot and release their stored carbon into the atmosphere quite quickly, if left in the forest, they are generally not suitable for use for energy, as they contain too much dirt and ash to be burnt cleanly. Larger pieces are more suitable but take much longer to decay; burning them for energy instead of leaving them in the forest thereby increases carbon concentrations in the atmosphere for years or decades. And on top of that, a portion of the carbon and other substances contained in the residues is transferred to the soil as they decay; their removal from the forest for energy may reduce both soil carbon and the levels of the nutrients trees need to grow, again with negative impacts on the climate.

The biomass industry generally likes to claim that it uses mainly mill and forest residues, though on closer inspection the categories they report often contain whole trees, perhaps classified as ‘unmerchantable’ or similar. (This is not helped by the fact the categories used by Ofgem, for example, to whom UK biomass users have to report, are confusing and potentially overlapping.) Several independent studies, however, have concluded that the use of mill and forest residues is in reality substantially lower; pellet plants in the US – the UK’s main source of supply – in fact source about 75 per cent whole trees.

Setting aside these arguments about feedstock, however, can it be safely assumed that future forest growth allows us to treat biomass as carbon-neutral? If the trees would have grown anyway, even in the absence of the biomass energy industry, it cannot be assumed that their future absorption of carbon cancels out the carbon emitted when wood is burnt. If the rate of carbon absorption in forests remains the same whether or not some of the harvested wood is burnt, then clearly, the best outcome for the climate in the short and probably medium term is not to burn it, but to use it for wood products or leave it to decay slowly in the forest. This is not an academic argument: the current global rate of emissions of greenhouse gases is incompatible with the aims of the Paris Agreement and may risk triggering irreversible tipping points in the Earth’s climate system. We need to reduce carbon emissions now, not in several decades’ or centuries’ time.

The biomass industry likes to point to the expansion of US forests in recent decades to show that forests overall have been absorbing more carbon even while increasing volumes are burnt for energy – sometimes implying that this forest growth has been encouraged by the demand for energy. But in fact US forest expansion started in the 1950s, decades before European subsidies stimulated the expansion of the modern biomass industry. And there is little evidence of recent overall forest growth in the US southeast, the location of almost all the pellet plants supplying European demand. In any case, the point is not whether US (or European) forests are expanding, but whether they would have grown at a different rate if part of their wood had not been burnt for energy. If they would have grown at the same rate, or faster, in the absence of biomass energy use then it cannot be assumed that using wood for biomass is good for forests, or the climate.

Redirecting public money

There is no question that renewable energy policy and forest policy both have a critical role to play in the mitigation of climate change. But governments have limited resources to deploy in their support, which is why the Chatham House paper questions whether it is really a good use of public money to subsidise activities which release stored forest carbon into the atmosphere, thereby increasing carbon emissions and accelerating climate change.

I argue instead that support should be limited to those feedstocks which genuinely reduce carbon emissions over the short term – i.e. mill residues and post-consumer wood waste. This would not only have a positive direct impact on the climate but would also release more resources for genuine zero-carbon technologies, such as solar, wind or tidal – and perhaps also for programmes encouraging afforestation and the more extensive use of wood in buildings and products. Use it, don’t burn it.

To comment on this article, please contact Chatham House Feedback

There are two well-established ideas in trade. Individually, they are correct. Combined, they can lead to a conclusion that is unfortunately wrong.

The first idea is that, across a range of economic sectors, the EU and the US have been engaged in a battle to have their model of regulation accepted as the global one, and that the EU is generally winning.

The second is that governments can use their regulatory power to extend strategic and foreign policy influence.

The conclusion would seem to be that the EU, which has for decades tried to develop a foreign policy, should be able to use its superpower status in regulation and trade to project its interests and its values abroad.

That’s the theory. It’s a proposition much welcomed by EU policymakers, who know they are highly unlikely any time soon to acquire any of the tools usually required to run an effective foreign policy.

The EU doesn’t have an army it can send into a shooting war, enough military or political aid to prop up or dispense of governments abroad, or a centralized intelligence service. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has declared her outfit to be a ‘geopolitical commission’, and is casting about for any means of making that real.

Through the ‘Brussels effect’ whereby European rules and standards are exported via both companies and governments, the EU has indeed won many regulatory battles with the US.

Its cars, chemicals and product safety regulations are more widely adopted round the world than their American counterparts. In the absence of any coherent US offering, bar some varied state-level systems, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the closest thing the world has to a single model for data privacy, and variants of it are being adopted by dozens of countries.

The problem is this. Those parts of global economic governance where the US is dominant – particularly the dollar payments system – are highly conducive to projecting US power abroad. The extraterritorial reach of secondary sanctions, plus the widespread reliance of banks and companies worldwide on dollar funding – and hence the American financial system – means that the US can precisely target its influence.

The EU can enforce trade sanctions, but not in such a powerful and discriminatory way, and it will always be outgunned by the US. Donald Trump could in effect force European companies to join in his sanctions on Iran when he pulled out of the nuclear deal, despite EU legislation designed to prevent their businesses being bullied. He can go after the chief financial officer of Huawei for allegedly breaching those sanctions.

By contrast, the widespread adoption of GDPR or data protection regimes inspired by it may give the EU a warm glow of satisfaction, but it cannot be turned into a geopolitical tool in the same way.

Nor, necessarily, does it particularly benefit the EU economy. Europe’s undersized tech sector seems unlikely to unduly benefit from the fact that data protection rules were written in the EU. Indeed, one common criticism of the regulations is that they entrench the power of incumbent tech giants like Google.

There is a similar pattern at work in the adoption of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. In that field, the EU and its member states are also facing determined competition from China, which has been pushing its technologies and standards through forums such as the International Telecommunication Union.

The EU has been attempting to write international rules for the use of AI which it hopes to be widely adopted. But again, these are a constraint on the use of new technologies largely developed by others, not the control of innovation.

By contrast, China has created a vast domestic market in technologies like facial recognition and unleashed its own companies on it. The resulting surveillance kit can then be marketed to emerging market governments as part of China’s enduring foreign policy campaign to build up supporters in the developing world.

If it genuinely wants to turn its economic power into geopolitical influence – and it’s not entirely clear what it would do with it if it did – the EU needs to recognize that not all forms of regulatory and trading dominance are the same.

Providing public goods to the world economy is all very well. But unless they are so particular in nature that they project uniquely European values and interests, that makes the EU a supplier of useful plumbing but not a global architect of power.

On the other hand, it could content itself with its position for the moment. It could recognize that not until enough hard power – guns, intelligence, money – is transferred from the member states to the centre, or until the member states start acting collectively, will the EU genuinely become a geopolitical force. Speaking loudly and carrying a stick of foam rubber is rarely a way to gain credibility in international relations.

This article is part of a series of publications and roundtable discussions in the Chatham House Global Trade Policy Forum.

Perhaps it will be second time lucky. At the end of April, Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) will elect a new party leader to follow in the footsteps of Angela Merkel. An emergency party congress has been summoned to do that after the surprise resignation of Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Merkel’s chosen successor.

The plan is to leave the decision on who will be the CDU candidate for chancellor at the next election until after Germany’s EU presidency concludes in December. So Merkel will keep her job until 2021, and the new leader will have to learn to live with her.

The three leading candidates are Armin Laschet, Friedrich Merz and Norbert Röttgen, all from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Two of the three – Merz and Röttgen – were sacked by Merkel from their former jobs. They have not forgotten. Only Armin Laschet, currently CDU leader in North Rhine-Westphalia and state premier, can be described as a Merkel loyalist, true to her centrist mantra.

He is the man to beat, having teamed up with Jens Spahn, the 39-year-old health minister, who is popular with party conservatives. Spahn will run as his deputy, so the team straddles the left-right divide in the party. But the contest still seems set to be a bitter battle between pro- and anti-Merkel factions that could leave the party badly split.

After nearly 15 years as chancellor, and 18 years as CDU leader, Merkel remains the most popular politician in Germany. In spite of criticism that she lacks vision, her caution and predictability appear to be just what most German voters like.

But her term in office has also seen the steady shrinking of the centre ground in German politics, with the rise of the environmentalist Green party and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) at the expense of the centre-right CDU and the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD).

The battle for the soul of the CDU is between those who think Merkel has been too left-wing, and want a more conservative leader to win back AfD voters, and those who believe that the CDU must stay in the centre, and prepare for a future coalition with the Greens. Merz is seen as the former, Laschet and Röttgen the latter.

Unless Laschet emerges as the clear winner in April, the leadership contest is likely to leave Germany sorely distracted by domestic politics just as it takes over the EU presidency in the second half of the year. Instead of Merkel having a triumphant international swansong on the EU stage, she could be battling to protect her inheritance at home.

The one area on which all three leadership candidates seem to agree is foreign policy: they all want Germany to take more leadership and responsibility, and for the European Union to play a bigger role in security, defence and international affairs. They are all Atlanticists, but critical of Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ stance. All are on the record criticizing the chancellor – at least tacitly – for not having a more vigorous foreign policy.

There the similarity ends.

On the right, the 64-year-old Merz is both the most conservative and the most popular with the party grassroots. He fell out with the chancellor when she took over his job as CDU leader in parliament in 2002. He quit politics to become a corporate lawyer (and a millionaire), but never lost his political ambition. He is an economic liberal but socially conservative, a strong critic of Merkel’s migration policy and her lack of clear leadership. Critics say he is a man of the past, and not a team player.

On the EU, he believes Germany is ‘leaving too much to the French’. If France and Germany cannot agree on financial matters, he said at the London School of Economics in February, they should instead forge a stronger EU industrial policy focused on creating more ‘European champions’.

Laschet, the Merkel loyalist, is four years younger, and from the left of the party. Like Merz, he is a former member of the European parliament. In 2015, he defended Merkel’s open border policy to accept refugees stranded in the Balkans. On Russia, however, he is more critical, calling for a new effort to re-engage with Vladimir Putin. Most recently, at the Munich Security Conference, he called for stronger Franco-German relations, and more support for the eurozone reforms proposed by Emmanuel Macron.

As CDU leader in North Rhine-Westphalia, Laschet has the strongest power base. He earned his political spurs there by winning the last state election in 2017, in contrast to Röttgen, who lost to the SPD and Greens five years earlier.

Röttgen, chairman of the Bundestag foreign affairs committee, is the surprise candidate. Once a Merkel favourite, they fell out when she sacked him as environment minister after he lost the North Rhine-Westphalia election. By throwing his hat in the ring, he has forced it to become an open contest. He is independent-minded and outspoken, but not as bitterly hostile to the chancellor as Merz, so he could be a compromise candidate.

Laschet is clearly the man Merkel would find it easiest to live with. The decision will be taken by a party congress, not a grassroots ballot, which gives him a better chance. But Merz is the most eloquent orator and seen as the best campaigner. The challenge for party members is whether they believe it is better to swing right and squeeze the AfD, or stick to the centre to hold onto voters tempted by the Greens, who have replaced the SPD as the second-most popular party in Germany.

The race is wide open. So is the future of the CDU. The only prediction one can make with much certainty is that as long as Merkel remains chancellor, any successor will struggle to get out of her shadow.