The mother of all dilemmas

German local elections highlight EU's existential problem

The biggest political party in Germany, which is the European Union’s most powerful member, has suffered a setback, raising afresh concerns about the surge of nationalism in the West. Last week, the ruling conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat Union (CDU), lost its majority in the 180-seat local parliament for the first time since the end of World War II. The CSU's majority shrank to 37.2 per cent of the vote from 47.7 per cent in 2013, which translated into 85 seats (from 101 in 2013), some of it to