Mark Carney’s speech at Davos was eloquent and sobering, and rightly praised. Yet Friedrich Merz’s address is likely to prove far more consequential in practice. I strongly recommend listening to it in full. “Germany has gotten the message.” That was the core signal. Merz deliberately spoke in his imperfect English to underscore it. Though more technical and dry than rhetorical, he projected a seriousness and resolve I haven’t heard from a European leader in years. Germany now appears determined to push and, if necessary, force through the European Parliament the key EU reforms laid out in the Draghi report. The goal: position Europe to survive and compete in the era of great-power politics. Read the speech sentence by sentence. Watch for concrete policy commitments, industrial targets, and fiscal priorities. The European revival agenda got off to a slow start and many wrote it off, but I think it may be accelerating now.