"Top-Level Talks Show France, Germany Divided on Many Issues"
By William Drozdiak
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 2, 1998; Page A34
POTSDAM, Germany, Dec. 1—A deepening policy rift between France
and Germany is threatening to paralyze efforts to reform the 15-nation
European Union and block its planned expansion to include as many as a
half-dozen new members, mainly former communist countries in the east,
within the next few years.
The divisions between Paris and Bonn, whose relationship is often
described as the motor that propels efforts to achieve European unity,
were laid bare today on a wide range of issues following a two-day summit that illustrated how competing national interests are pushing the two allies apart.
Despite grandiose rhetoric extolling the close friendship between their countries, French and German leaders found themselves sharply at odds over nuclear energy, plans for a continental arms industry to compete with that of the United States, Germany's demands to cut its EU payments and France's refusal to accept any reduction in farm subsidies.
In the past, German governments have been inclined to pay a disproportionate share of the EU bill and accept France's political primacy in return for reconciliation with its neighbors and steady progress toward European unity. But the arrival in power of Germany's first postwar generation, embodied by new Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, has signaled a clear break.
Meeting with German officials for the first time since Schroeder swept to power in September with a new ruling coalition of Social Democrats and Greens, French President Jacques Chirac and Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin discovered how the German government seems much less willing than its predecessors to defer to French wishes and continue funding costly programs that mainly benefit Germany's partners.
The summit brought together more than two dozen ministers to discuss
almost every aspect of the French-German relationship. But the declared purpose of revitalizing bonds between Europe's two leading nations seemed overwhelmed by their incompatibility on key positions.
Schroeder emphasized that Germany, which will assume the rotating
presidency of the EU in January, wants to achieve a major overhaul of EU programs known as Agenda 2000 by next March. But at the top of the list, he insisted, is Germany's demand for a significant rebate on the $12 billion annual net contribution it makes to the EU.
Germany also wants to curtail Europe's bloated farm-support program,
which eats as much as 70 percent of the EU budget, by having national
governments assume more of the burden. But France, which receives a
heftier share of farm subsidies than any other member, spurns any
reduction as politically unacceptable.
Schroeder and Chirac took pains to explain that they were united in their support for EU enlargement, but they refused to set any dates and acknowledged that further expansion must not take place until the EU carries out complex financial and institutional reforms to accommodate 20 or more members.
"France and Germany agree that Europe can't end at its eastern frontier," Schroeder said. "We want timely negotiation with the entry candidates and we mean timely." Chirac said that "reform of the institutions is a prerequisite, but that does not cast any doubt on our will to progress as rapidly as possible" with EU expansion.
While Chirac and Schroeder promised to wage a common fight to solve
Europe's jobs crisis and work more closely on European defense matters, they did not bother to conceal glaring differences on a number of other pressing matters.
Germany's announced intention to shut down its 19 nuclear power stations holds serious implications for France, which stands to lose lucrative waste-reprocessing contracts as well as joint investments in nuclear power that were agreed to in the past.
France also has expressed anxiety about Germany's questioning of NATO
nuclear doctrines, including a demand by Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer for an alliance debate over whether NATO should break with previous policy and pledge never to be first in using nuclear weapons. France, like the United States, has rebuffed Fischer's call, saying such a move would irreparably damage NATO's deterrence capability.
But Schroeder defended his foreign minister and said Germany would
exercise its right to raise the debate within alliance councils. He stressed, however, that Germany accepts the fact that NATO decisions are reached by consensus and will not allow the issue to call into question his government's loyalty to the alliance.
On immigration, Germany says it cannot afford to continue taking more
than half of the foreigners entering the EU and wants other countries,
including France, to accept a larger share of asylum-seekers and would-be immigrants. But France has rejected Germany's request because it fears accepting more foreigners would fuel racial tensions and push more French voters into the arms of the far-right National Front.
On the quest for a European arms industry, Germany says it wants to push ahead with a merger between British Aerospace and DASA -- the
air-industry wing of the Daimler-Chrysler conglomerate -- to create a
European rival to compete against American giants such as Lockheed
Martin and Boeing. But France wants the merger to include state-run
Aerospatiale, something Germany and Britain are loath to accept until the French company is privatized.
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