-Caveat Lector- http://www.iht.com/articles/80632.html
Copyright � 2002 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com News Analysis: In EU, France now leads and Germany follows John Vinocur/IHT IHT Wednesday, December 18, 2002 PARIS Once again, France and Germany are willfully pushing themselves forward as a team to lead Europe. This time, as in the days of Gaullist glory decades ago, France has taken the role of senior partner. So far, the results of the French-German leadership drive are inconclusive. For now, the rest of the European Union is largely reacting with caution to a series of working papers presented over the last two months that lay out joint proposals for the reorganization of the EU approach to defense, justice, internal security and taxation. At the same time, open contradictions and rivalries exist between the two countries, notably on economic policy and their performance in the area of defense. Taken together, they suggest that a perfect French- German embrace may be a wavering prospect. But what is becoming clear this time around is a new perception of who's in charge in the relationship. As the two countries restate with seemingly less rote recitation than at any time since German reunification that Europe cannot move ahead without their common effort, France appears to be leading a weakened Germany with few current alternatives other than to go along. This corresponds to widespread recognition among its allies of Germany's diminished diplomatic weight. As a result of its count-me-out stance on Iraq, it has undergone a near- total loss of leverage in Washington and the Middle East. Moreover, economically diminished Germany just does not have the ready cash that for decades bought it influence, relevance and, with reunification, the expectation that it eventually would lead Europe from Berlin. Over the past months, while Germany's policy choices were narrowed by its own doing, France seized an opportunity to enhance its international role. This year, it stilled a policy of reflex antagonism toward the United States and set a position of open options on Iraq, including a possible military role, that appeals to many of its European partners. The perception of renewed French predominance in the pair was clear at the EU summit meeting in Copenhagen last week when Turkey reacted in rage to a French-German document, put forward to serve as an EU basic position paper, that would have pushed off discussion of Turkish entry until 2005. For Prime Minister Abdullah Gul, it was not a Paris-Berlin axis at the root of the trouble, but France, with "the real blackmail coming from Chirac." Attacked as the EU's essential power broker, the French president, Jacques Chirac, reacted, in turn, exactly as if he were delegated to speak for Europe. He had no hesitation in lecturing the Turks on "the spirit of the community" and the EU's requirement of "behaving in a polite and civilized manner." Apart from Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's shaking Turkish leaders' hands after a three- way meeting with the French and Turks, Germany barely seemed a factor. Indeed, according to a post-summit meeting editorial in the conservative newspaper Welt am Sonntag, France showed it has become the "uncontested prime mover" in Europe. It is in this mood that the entire membership of the German Bundestag will head to Paris on Jan. 22 for a celebration with their French National Assembly counterparts of the 40th anniversary of the signature of the Elysee Treaty, reconciling France and Germany after 100 years of almost constant war, and creating a partnership presided over then by Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer. Apart from attempting to restore a sense of grand mission and national emotion to a relationship that stirs little passion in either country's population, the event is meant to send a strong political signal. Some diplomats think it may include a joint initiative bringing the two countries almost completely into line on the terms of a new European Constitution. This initiative would probably provide for a single, powerful EU leader and in the process create the appearance of France and Germany as twin pillars of the EU in its next phase of development. But if the neighbors on the Rhine seem content these days to cast themselves as equals in nominal terms, they are not necessarily so in their prerogatives. Instead, Anne-Marie Le Gloannec, a political scientist attached to the Marc Bloch Center in Berlin and to the international research unit of the Institut des Sciences Politiques in Paris, judges Schroeder's Germany as having "dilapidated its political capital." Even though it will join the United Nations Security Council in January for a vetoless, two- year rotating term, Le Gloannec said, Germany's position on Iraq deprives it of any maneuverability. Indeed, she said, Germany "projects its weaknesses onto the international scene - in terms of budgetary impotence because it brings up the rear in the EU on military expenditure. But there's its political impotence, too." Much of Schroeder's current reaching out toward France - for example, his willingness after his re- election in September to quickly settle Germany's long-standing grievance about EU support payments for French agriculture - may be because he reasons that Germany has no other solid means for sustaining its hand in international affairs. It is an exceptional turnabout. Two years ago, at the EU's summit meeting in Nice, by seeking greater voting rights than France, Germany sought to unlink itself from the de facto parity that had characterized official French-German relations in the EU since its inception. The effort fizzled. But Chirac recognized its gravity by referring to it as an attempt to "unhook" the French-German partnership, while officials in the then Schroeder government talked of an "emancipation" by a Germany no longer requiring the post-World War II French chaperone. A month later, Germany declared itself a fully re-established player in international affairs, ready to assume all responsibilities including military intervention beyond its borders. Now, while Schroeder's authority has been described as severely damaged at home through a series of broken election promises on taxes and economic performance at the borderline of recession, Chirac has held on to wide popularity. With France recognizing Schroeder's predicament in apparent isolation as an international player, it has been eager to offer him the opportunity to engage as a tandem in actively constructing the foundations of a new European Union. But the relationship is a series of linked parts that, taken one by one, do not make for an easy or exemplary fit. The defense plan, for example - pointedly announced Nov. 22 while NATO's chiefs of state were meeting in Prague - essentially has the feel of another French-inspired proposal for a European defense unit that could eventually act independently of NATO. It recommends that so-called pioneer defense groups, assembled from a handful of EU countries, be enabled to make decisions bypassing approval by the entire membership. Yet less than two weeks after the announcement of the plan, the couple's credibility as a beacon for an autonomous European defense force was challenged by a German decision in favor of major cuts in EU arms projects. They included a reduction in its order of Airbus transport planes, the biggest joint venture in military procurement in Europe, and a reduction in orders for two types of air-to-air missiles. The same disconnect was apparent in economic affairs. Last month, the French finance minister, Francis Mer, called for an initiative that would allow the two countries to effectively drive the EU's overall economic policy through closer coordination of their own planning. Instead of coordination, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin last week accused Germany "of following a rather brutal policy which risks weakening the whole of European growth." The remark came close to an admission of the near-incompatibility of the two governments' economic policies. While Germany is trying to comply with the EU's budget-deficit targets by raising taxes, perhaps stifling growth, France is liberally disregarding the EU's deficit rules to suit its own plan for cutting taxes to encourage consumer spending. With a senior partner's directness, and curtly short on the old respect for the greater size of Germany's economy, the centrist Raffarin seemed to be telling the German coalition of Social Democrats and Greens that its letter-of-the-law rigor was going to have an impact on France's relative prosperity. The German response: No change in course is planned. This situation has its parallel on Iraq, where the partners have different goals. The Germans want above all not to deepen the genuine rift that separates their position from the United States and has lamed them on a wide diplomatic front, and the French want to remain a factor in a post-Saddam Hussein Middle East by continuing to skillfully play the critical but reliable ally of the united States. All this does not make for what diplomatic communiqu�s call "a perfect identity of views." >From their current position of dominance in the couple, the French recall Schroeder's >lack of constancy toward the relationship, in particular the 1999 German-British declaration that presented, if just for a while, Prime Minister Tony Blair and the chancellor as ideological partners and leaders in seeking a Middle or Third Way for Europe. In the new year, if he were to find a formula for domestic reform that would give Germany the allure of forward movement, while time puts his Iraq-based trans-Atlantic problem behind him, Schroeder would be considerably less burdened by the constraints that have pushed him in France's direction. Now in his fifth year in power, the record demonstrates that the chancellor is a changeable man. Unmistakably, it also suggests the impermanence of an exclusive French-German relationship as the single solid basis for Europe's progress. 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