ANALYSIS-Schroeder seen as less European than Kohl
05:33 p.m Sep 27, 1998 Eastern
By Paul Taylor, Diplomatic Editor
LONDON, Sept 27 (Reuters) - If allied governments had had a vote in Germany's general election on Sunday, most would have preferred a grand coalition of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats to keep the quirky, ecologist Greens out of power.
They may yet get their wish. But with the Cold War over, even the possibility of a red-green coalition ruling Germany no longer sets alarm bells ringing in Washington, London or Paris.
Allied officials see Gerhard Schroeder, the centre-left challenger who swept veteran conservative Chancellor Helmut Kohl from power after a record 16 years, as a pragmatic Atlanticist but less of a European federalist than his predecessor.
In an interview with BBC World Service television after his victory, Schroeder said: ''We are not going to do everything differently...Germany will remain a reliable partner abroad, perhaps a bit more dangerous for its competitors on world markets.''
He also said: ''We have to think about a European reorientation.''
The SPD candidate went to the White House in August to assure President Bill Clinton that there would be no change in foreign policy if he won. But some U.S. officials, notably in the Defence Department, are still nervous.
''Some people in Washington regard the left-wing of the SPD and the Greens as dangerous for NATO, but from the point of view of basic American interests, there really is nothing to worry about,'' said Dana Allin, a specialist on transatlantic relations at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Germany would participate in NATO military operations in the Balkans even if the Greens, who voted earlier this year at a party congress for the dissolution of the alliance, were in government, he said.
Allin noted that Joschka Fischer, the Greens politician most likely to take a senior role in any red-green coalition, was a keen interventionist who supported Bonn's decision to send troops to the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Bosnia.
Sir Christopher Mallaby, a former British ambassador to Germany, said Schroeder was ''the ultimate opportunist.'' Foreign governments would feel more comfortable if experienced CDU figures such as parliamentary leader Wolfgang Schaeuble and outgoing Defence Minister Volker Ruehe shared power with the SPD, he said.
If such a grand coalition did not come about, Mallaby said Schroeder might well try to draw the economically liberal Free Democratic Party, junior partners in Kohl's defeated government, into a coalition within a year or two.
Mallaby said the new chancellor lacked Kohl's visionary enthusiasm for closer European integration.
But Dominique Moisi, deputy director of the French Institute for International Relations, said Germany had already been moving towards a more decentralised Europe in Kohl's last years.
''By pressing for European integration, Kohl delayed the consequences of German unification in 1990. But Germany is going to behave more like France in asserting its national interests and take a more British view of Europe -- pragmatic and less federalist,'' Moisi said.
''Germany is becoming a more normal country, and that is not comfortable for France,'' he said.
Schroeder has said he aims to turn the central Franco-German partnership that has driven the European Union for four decades into a more balanced leadership triangle including Britain.
That may explain the delight which British Prime Minister Tony Blair, with whom Schroeder is often compared, voiced within minutes of the first exit polls being broadcast.
A British source said Schroeder was likely to underline that message by flying to Blackpool on Thursday to make an appearance at Blair's New Labour party conference.
French President Jacques Chirac was also quick to invite the winner to visit Paris, this week if possible.
German and French analysts said Schroeder felt less affinity with the French than did Kohl, whose partnership with the late President Francois Mitterrand and former European Commission President Jacques Delors was central to the 1991 decision at Maastricht to create a single European currency.
''Britain stands to gain from this result. Kohl was the dominant figure of his generation in Europe, and his departure means Blair will be well placed to play a leadership role if he takes Britain towards joining the single currency,'' said Charles Grant, director of the London-based Centre for European Reform.
But both Moisi and Mallaby said Franco-German relations would remain central, if only because the institutionalised dialogue forced the two governments to seek common positions on EU issues.
Most analysts said Schroeder was likely to concentrate on the domestic economy and unemployment, spending less time on foreign affairs initially than his predecessor.
But Germany takes on the presidency of the 15-nation EU for six months in January with responsibility for concluding a major overhaul of the Union's budget, agricultural and regional funds. It will also chair the Group of Seven major industrial powers in 1999.
European diplomats said the SPD should find it easier to reform the EU's costly Common Agricultural Policy because it was less beholden to the farm vote than the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union.
They also said Schroeder might be less enthusiastic about the eastward enlargement of the Union because of the cost and concern about a flood of migrant labour from central and eastern Europe.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. |
