Germany – like the rest of Europe – was relieved at the result of the Greek elections. The victor of the night was neither a radical leftwinger nor a political newcomer.Instead, the party that came out top, New Democracy, only wants to partially renegotiate the troika's austerity package. On the whole, politics and markets have been reacting positively. The question is for how long. The Spanish bailout, only a week ago, appeased markets for barely five days before speculators got troubled again.

Broadly speaking, there are three trends in the comments on the Greek election results in the German press: first, there are the cynics, with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung leading the pack, asking why an election that brought the party responsible for the country's economic and political mess in the first place back to power could possibly signify a game-change. The second trend is best described with a general softening in tone, possibly created by TV pictures of Greek soup kitchens, which have helped to raise a sense of responsibility amongst the public. The political expression of this softening of tone came in the form of a statement by the German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle, saying that the timeline for the Greeks fulfilling their debt obligations could be "discussed" again. The third trend, however, is by far the most common: "And now?".

It is beginning to dawn on many Germans these days that the real solutions to this euro crisis may go beyond what had been thinkable even only a few months ago: banking union and common European guarantee schemes for deposits; a European finance minister, Europe's own resources (meaning a European tax) and a newly constituted political system that provides the legitimate basis for all of this – "this" meaning the mutualisation of debt or eurobonds.

The murmur running through the press is the sudden realisation that what Germans call "political union" may be inevitable. Did we really promise that we would give up the nation state? Did we know that it would take us that far? Are we ready? Do we want it, now or ever? More integration means less sovereignty and more solidarity, but don't we need a European nation state to provide that kind of solidarity? It's beginning to dawn on ordinary citizens that the best – or worst, depending on how you look on European integration – is still to come, and quite soon.

Angela Merkel has repeatedly sketched out institutional designs for the EU that would profoundly change Europe's political architecture. The Greek (and the French) elections are the moment of truth, where these ideas are for the first time gaining momentum. The timeline for all this historical reconstruction of the EU is five to 10 years, Merkel says. But the Greek elections have definitely fired the starting gun. In this respect, the German press today is ahead of the press of many other member states. It is on an offensive to embrace the impossible: preparing the ground for quantum leaps in European integration. No more lies: if we do that, Europe, nothing remains as before.

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