“Welcome to Berlin, Europe’s new capital,” the Financial Times headlined last week. As the article notes, the euro crisis has sparked a shift in critical decision-making from the traditional center of Europe to the heart of Germany. The critical state of the European financial system and the euro has all of Europe looking to Berlin instead of Brussels for the next bailout that will save the Union.

“[T]he fact is that Berlin is increasingly the de facto capital of the EU,” Rachman wrote. “Of course the EU’s main institutions—the commission and the council—are still based in Brussels. But the key decisions are increasingly made in Berlin.”

“Who does the International Monetary Fund call about the euro crisis?” Rachman continued. “The most important conversations take place with the German government and the European Central Bank in Frankfurt—not the European Commission.”

At the conference table of European countries, it is Germany’s voice that carries the most weight. Other potential players within the Union are either suffering economic woes themselves or they aren’t a part of the Eurozone. Or, like Britain, they are pulling away from the European combine.

Even France—which stood by Germany’s side throughout this recent economic crisis—is now lagging far behind the German powerhouse. As one top EU official said of the Franco-German partnership, “France needs Germany to disguise how weak it is. Germany needs France to disguise how strong it is.” If France enters into a significant economic difficulty itself, as some analysts predict, its dependence upon Berlin will become even more apparent.

“The price of German financial assistance is, increasingly, going to be the acceptance of rules and laws designed in Berlin,” Rachman predicted.

Herbert W. Armstrong predicted as far back as 1952 that Germany would once again become “the heart and core of the united Europe that will revive the Roman Empire.” He also said a world financial crisis would provide the spark to ignite Germany’s explosive rise to power.

As Trumpet columnist Ron Fraser wrote, German ambassador to the EU Wilhelm Schönfelder “declared that it would be the intention of the EU’s German presidency to deliberately sideline EU institutions (which his country has previously endorsed as a means to oversee the federalization of Europe), to ensure a fast-track approach to agreement on a European constitution.”

Such a move is to be expected from the one nation who holds the future of Europe in her hands. “So much for any hint of real democracy,” Mr. Fraser concluded. “We are witnessing a transfer of the power center of the EU from its capital of the past 50 years, Brussels, to that reviving capital of the German Empire, Berlin!”