Angela Merkel as the leader of Europe

I agree with Josef Joffe on this:

Merkel the Mean is anything but. She has not turned against Europe, but against those whose extravagance threatens the euro. She is not breaking with the Kohl tradition, but reasserting the original deal. To save the euro, which has lost 10 per cent against the dollar on account of the Athenians, she rightly insists that the profligate must get their house in order instead of angling for multibillion-dollar handouts.
That is not anti-, but pro-European if you view the euro as one of Europe’s greatest feats on the way to a more perfect union. To draw the line against the worst offender, while Spain, Portugal et al nervously take note, should have an entirely salutary effect. The French have a phrase for it, taken from Voltaire: harsh punishment serves “to encourage the others” to remain virtuous.

We shall see, for little that Europe ever decides is cast in concrete — especially if Greece does default. But there is still the larger issue that vexes minds: have the Germans, almost in a fit of absent-mindedness, stumbled into a new role on the European stage? If they have grabbed leadership, the foot-stomping is defensive rather than aggressive, as in the ways of Wilhelm or, God forbid, Adolf.

It was about time that somebody played the role of the enforcer within the European Union instead of solely grandstanding.Chancellor Merkel is playing that role well, but is it enough it seems to me that for her leadership to matter, she is going to have to go beyond toughness on Greece and actually propose a way for Europe to move forward while keeping Germany at the center of everything.