Kohl turns on Europe to fend off poll rival
By Marcus Warren
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GERMANY'S Chancellor Kohl, in a desperate attempt to improve his chances
of winning a fifth term in office, has launched a campaign of vitriolic
Brussels-bashing.
telegraph.co.uk
Trailing in the opinion polls and facing intense hostility for his role
as champion of the single currency, Mr Kohl has started deploying the
rhetoric of British Tories he once found so distasteful. He is still
committed to a vision of closer and deeper European union. But the
audacity - and many would say cynicism - of his new pose as a stern
critic of Brussels has astonished many observers.
The European Commission, Brussels bureaucrats, a "centralised Europe",
Germany's "excessive" contribution to the European Union budget;
everything, save monetary union, seems to be a target for Mr Kohl's
anger.
"On no account whatsoever do we want a centralised Europe," said the man
who has done more than anyone except Jacques Delors to enhance the power
wielded by Brussels. "We must help small business in its struggle
against bureaucracy," he told his party conference. "It is an urgent
necessity to counteract a new wave of bureaucracy on the part of the
European institutions."
In private, the German leader has also fulminated against the
commission, noting its "tendencies towards independence". Commissioners,
including the Belgian, Karel Van Miert, and the Austrian, Franz
Fischler, have felt the lash of Mr Kohl's tongue. Remarks by Mr Fischler
to the Austrian press that the 20-member commission was already a de
facto European government caused fury in the Chancellor's complex of
offices.
Repeated rulings by Mr Van Miert, the commissioner in charge of
competition policy, which Bonn regards as hostile to German industry,
have outraged Mr Kohl. The Chancellor faces the most dangerous opponent
of his long career in this autumn's elections, in the charismatic Social
Democrat, Gerhard Schr”der, and Mr Kohl's advisers have hit upon
Brussels-bashing as a promising, if desperate, way to rally support. His
metamorphosis - from proud Euroenthusiast to would-be Eurosceptic - has
astonished and unnerved the Bonn establishment.
One senior German official said last week: "I was astounded when I first
heard about this. It seems to represent a reversal of everything Mr Kohl
stood for in the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties, and most of the
Nineties."
The Chancellor's background is that of a long love affair with the idea
of Europe. A teenager when the Second World War ended, he has always
seen European union as imperative to prevent such history repeating
itself. In the past, he has always acted as a restraining influence on
German politicians seeking to boost their popularity with the sort of
Brussels-bashing practised by British Eurosceptics. Now, with his pet
project, the euro, ready for launching and Mr Schr”der widens his lead
in the polls, Mr Kohl says he is opposed to a "big Europe".
The Chancellor seems increasingly to be leaning towards the kind of
rhetoric favoured by his coalition partners from the Bavarian Christian
Social Union. They have been protesting about the huge size of Germany's
contribution to the EU budget for years. At an annual œ7 billion it is
by far the largest. "I want my money back," Theo Waigel, the German
Finance Minister and the CSU's leader, said recently, mimicking Lady
Thatcher's battlecry as she fought to win a rebate on Britain's budget
contribution.
Brussels still has its defenders, flying the flag for the cause of
European integration and trying to beat off the Eurosceptic offensive.
"We must not be allowed to sacrifice Europe on the election campaign
stage," said Klaus Kinkel, the Foreign Minister.
"A coalition partner [the CSU] which intends to score election campaign
points, with such constant carping, damages not only its own government.
It damages German foreign policy." Mr Van Miert, in remarks intended for
leading German Eurosceptics last autumn, said: "There are too many
Thatchers in Germany."
Now, someone else is pretending to be a Thatcher. But this version of
the Iron Lady stands more than six feet tall, weighs over 20 stone, and
used to be one of her most determined rivals in the battle for supremacy
in Europe. |
