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In contrast, Merkel set out with a series of calculated gestures that seemed designed to reassure the world about Germany’s reliability, predictability and loyalty to its allies. She paid deferential visits to France, NATO, the EU and Poland immediately on taking office, and assiduously cultivated a good working relationship with President George W. Bush, and also made a point of meeting with Russian NGOs during her first state visit to Moscow.
Nonetheless, her foreign and security policy proved during her first term to be both cautious and selective. She was a front-runner on climate change, but after the financial crisis broke in late 2008 she unabashedly championed protectionist measures like the cash-for-clunkers scheme which seduced Germans into exchanging their old cars for new ones with the help of a juicy tax rebate. Deaf to pleas from NATO, German troops, still fettered by caveats, remained in Afghanistan’s less-dangerous north. After last September’s incident in which German troops called in an air strike on two fuel trucks hijacked by the Taliban in Kunduz, killing dozens of civilians, the opposition forced a Bundestag debate – and Angela Merkel’s first government policy statement on Afghanistan in four years. Many, including Germany’s military, wished that she had defended the mission as forcefully earlier on in her tenure.
Merkel for quite a while remained aloof from her fellow Germans’ near-unanimous adoration of Barack Obama. And while, unlike her predecessor, she did not cultivate Moscow, she left the running of Russia and energy policy mostly to her SPD coalition partner, and to the powerful “Eastern Committee” (Ostausschuss) of the German industry federation – thereby effectively preventing the formulation of EU-wide policies in Russia and energy. Merkel has left no doubts about the depth and sincerity of her commitment to the safety of Israel; but on Iran, an important trading partner for German industry, her government has preferred to avoid confrontation. On NATO enlargement and reform, German policy seemed to consist mostly of resisting whatever it was the Americans wanted. Finally, the deal to salvage veteran German carmaker Opel just before the election with the help of Russian financing (it has since fallen apart) was made despite the fact that it jeopardised thousands of jobs in other Opel plants elsewhere in Europe – a blatantly protectionist move which might have been invented by Gerhard Schröder.
Those who had been hoping for forceful and responsible German leadership on foreign policy issues have tended to blame Merkel’s cautious and tactical approach on the fact that she was hampered by the grand coalition with the SPD forced on her by voters 2005. And her own actions, together with those of her new Free Democrat (FDP) Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle after the new coalition government took office in early November, appeared to prove them right.
Coalition agreements and policy declarations are usually the first to be shredded by what Harold MacMillan famously called “events, dear boy, events”. They nonetheless remain instructive as declarations of intent, and useful as benchmarks to compare with later developments. Particularly when those markers are laid down with as much deliberation as by Chancellor Merkel and her new team.
Yet the messages they contained are oddly mixed. Germany’s European neighbours received unambiguous declarations of commitment. The Sarkozy-Merkel relationship has been mostly cordial on the surface, but fraught with policy disagreements; so the fact that Merkel went to France not just once, but twice – on the day after taking office again and then on Armistice Day (a first for a German Chancellor) – went down well in Paris. Similarly, when Guido Westerwelle chose Poland as his first stop (another first for a German foreign minister), he was received with real warmth.
On the EU, the message is rather more ambiguous. The October 24 coalition agreement promised a return to Germany’s traditional role as balancer between large and small EU countries, between western and eastern Europe, and between the older and newer members. Westerwelle described the integration of eastern Europe into the EU as the mission of his generation. On key issues like ESDP, enlargement and the neighbourhood policy, however, the agreement’s language ranges from politely measured to barely lukewarm.
But it was the new German government’s response to the opening up of the new EU top jobs after the ratification of the Lisbon treaty that disclosed its real priorities: no German was nominated for President or High Representative, although rumour has it that Berlin covets the top job at the European Central Bank). Meanwhile, Merkel’s nominee for the German Commissioner, is the prime minister of Baden-Württemberg, Günther Oettinger, a man who by many is not considered to have distinguished himself in that job.
As for transatlantic relations, the Chancellor, her foreign minister and her new defence minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, hotly pursued each other to Washington. Invited to speak before both houses of Congress in joint session (only the second German Chancellor to have been accorded this honour since Konrad Adenauer in 1957), Merkel gave a ringing speech in which she offered America “partnership in leadership” – thereby finally responding to an invitation issued in 1990 by George Bush Sr., which had never been answered. But the offer of partnership was strangely lacking in substance: Merkel threatened Iran with “harsh sanctions”, and reiterated Germany’s security commitment to Israel, but offered no policy initiative of any kind. Indeed, Merkel’s subliminal message might be summarised thus: In my second term, I do not need to come to America bearing gifts.
As for Afghanistan, zu Guttenberg was the first German defence minister courageous enough to admit that conditions in northern Afghanistan are “war-like” – but he is now embroiled in a brouhaha over responsibility for the Kunduz bombing. When the Bundestag mandate for the German contingent in Afghanistan came up for renewal in mid-December, fear of opposition and public disapproval kept the government from asking for more troops; both the Chancellor and zu Guttenberg made it clear that no more troops would be forthcoming until the January 28th strategy conference in London. Foreign Minister Westerwelle, meanwhile, threatened not to attend the conference if it became a “mere troop contributor’s meeting”, and instead demanded a “comprehensive political approach”. Given the scarcity of ideas in the German capital on precisely that topic, and the fact that the state of the economy remains fraught, it is hard to imagine that Berlin could contribute anything else than troops – but any such attempt will have to overcome massive public disapproval.
On Russia, too, the messages have been confusing, to say the least. In the aftermath of the Russo-Georgian war of August 2008, Merkel’s first government had discreetly dropped the label “strategic partnership” for Berlin’s bi-lateral relationship with Moscow; it was replaced by the term “modernisation partnership”, a none-too-subtle downgrading. The new coalition agreement also clearly describes a relationship that is selective and conditional, avoids “one-sided dependencies” and takes into account neighbours’ sensibilities. Yet on a recent visit to Moscow, Westerwelle referred once more to Germany’s “strategic partnership” with Russia. The rhetorical swingback was dutifully noted by the journalists accompanying the minister – but was there a meaning attached to the gesture?
Both conservative and liberal politicians in Germany have said repeatedly that they see disarmament and arms control as a key strategic priority, and enthusiastically endorsed the Global Zero initiative. Yet the only specific German initiative on offer is a demand that the U.S. should remove its remaining two dozen or so tactical nuclear weapons from German soil. The huge popularity of this idea is inversely related to the military value of these weapons – not least because so many Germans see the issue as one of morality.
The first steps taken by Angela Merkel’s new centre-right coalition show much that is interesting, but no real shift in strategic priorities. In her first policy address to the Bundestag, Merkel emphasised that dealing with the economic crisis – which she warns is far from over – will be her main preoccupation. Other priorities, distractions, a reluctant public and a pre-disposition towards the incremental and the tactical rather than the innovative and strategic may well come to mean that the foreign and security policy of Angela Merkel’s second term is to be much like that of her first. |