Germany has renounced any claim to leadership in shaping Europe’s response to the financial and economic crises and is acting purely nationally, Joschka Fischer, the country’s former foreign minister, said on Monday.

In an interview, Mr Fischer told the FT the government of Angela Merkel, chancellor, had played too passive a role in the debate over Europe’s response to the financial storm and was underestimating the severity of the coming economic crisis, “the like of which none of us has seen in our lifetimes”.