berlin brief

There have recently been intense discussions in Germany’s EU partner countries over Berlin’s handling of the Greek debt crisis and its impact on the euro zone.

Has Germany fallen out of love with the European Union?

This is a question increasingly raised in Western capitals. Funny enough, Berlin seems to be immune to this debate. Over the last months, Germany’s “Europapolitik” was stuck in navel-gazing, either ignoring or not understanding the questions and criticism directed to the Merkel government from abroad.

A couple of new papers written by both German and European analysts have picked up the issue, aiming at explaining the “neue deutsche Europapolitik”.

Wolfgang Proissl, a journalist with Financial Times Deutschland who is currently a visiting fellow at the Brussels based think tank Bruegel, has written an excellent essay on Germany’s past, present and future role in Europe:

“Why Germany Fell out of Love with Europe”, Bruegel essays and lectures, Brussels, 1 July 2010.

Jacques Delors’ Paris based think tank “Notre Europe” has just published a compilation of papers of both German and European analysts, discussing “Where is Germany Heading?”:

“Where is Germany Heading?” (directed by Renaud Dehousse and Elvire Fabry), Notre Europe Studies and Research 79, Paris 2010.

How will the European Unon and its members accomodate the “new” Germany?

In the middle of the euro crisis and growing pressure from both the opposition and her own party about how to manage the German contribution to the Greek and possible future bailouts, Chancellor Merkel was hit by bad news this week.

On Monday, 31 May 2010, German President Horst Köhler resigned in a surprise move over comments he had made in a radio interview on the role of the German military. Having given an interview to a journalist from Deutschlandfunk on a plane taking the President to a visit of the German troops in Afghanistan, Horst Köhler was criticized for seemingly suggesting that the German armed forces should be used to defend Germany’s commercial interests abroad.

Köhler said his remarks were misunderstood and that he certainly did not mean Afghanistan, but was speaking about the support of anti-piracy missions to secure German trade interests, for example. In his resignation speech in Berlin on Monday, Köhler said he was stepping down because of a lack of respect for the dignity of his office as President.

Köhler’s resignation was criticized widely by the media, politicians and the Germans. The resignation is also putting more domestic pressure on Chancellor Merkel.

Take a look at the comments in the German and international media:

(more…)

Last week, Germany’s five major institutes for peace research presented their annual Peace Report (”Friedensgutachten”) at the Federal Press Conference and in an evening discussion on 18 May hosted by the Protestant Academy Berlin (Evangelische Akademie zu Berlin).

Panellists at the evening event at the French Cathedral on Gendarmenmarkt included Jochen Hippler of the Institute for Development and Peace at University Duisburg-Essen (INEF), a co-editor of the 2010 Peace Report; Almut Wieland-Karimi, the Director of the Center for International Peace Operations (ZIF) and an expert on Afghanistan; Winfried Nachtwei, a former MP of the Green Party as well as Sabina Matthay, the ARD’s correspondent in New Delhi. Free Democratic MP Elke Hoffe gave a keynote speech.

The event was jointly organized by the Protestant Academy and the German section of Women in International Security (WIIS.de).

An English summary of the findings of the 2010 Peace Report can be found here.

I want to draw your attention to Spiegel Online International’s Daily Newsletter.

Good way to catch up with what is going on in Germany; and it includes the “World from Berlin” press review.

The “World from Berlin” gives you access to opinions in the leading German newspapers like Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Financial Times Deutschland or Berliner Zeitung.

Take a look at the current issue of the “World from Berlin”.

Subscribe here to the daily newsletter.

The Lisbon Treaty has shaken the old rivalry between the Federal Chancellery and the Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Office) about who leads Germany’s European policies.

Interestingly, after years of quarrels over the entry into force of the new treaty, it looks like the Auswärtiges Amt is now taken by surprise by the new provisions that limit its representation in two of the European Union’s top institutions.

Did the Foreign Office not carefully read and anticipate the impact of the treaty? (more…)

It has been five years that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed that brought an end to decades of war in the south of Sudan and its adjacent regions.

However, the peace in Sudan is fragile. The CPA has not been implemented yet. Sudan is on the verge of another war. 2009 has seen the highest levels of violence since the CPA was signed in January 2005.

Now, in the last year of the transition period, general elections have been announced for spring 2010 and there is the plan to hold a referendum in 2011 that might create an independent state of South Sudan.

To draw the current developments in Sudan to the attention of Parliament, a number of NGOs, amongst them the Bonn International Center for Conversion, Oxfam Deutschland, Amnesty International and media in cooperation and transition, invited German MPs to a public panel discussion in the Bundestag on January 7 2010. (more…)

Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is still searching for a role. Squeezed between Chancellor Merkel and her glamorous Minister of Defence, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the leader of the Free Democrats still hasn’t found his place in the new government.

It is not a question of miles. Westerwelle seems to constantly spend his time on airplanes – but doesn’t hit the headlines. He lacks an agenda that would make him more visible in Berlin and abroad. (more…)

The parliamentary inquiry on the Kunduz airstrike in September 2009 starts in Berlin today. (For details on the case check the “Afghanistan” category in the middle column)

This morning, Spiegel Online opened with ten questions that the “war cabinet” of Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Minister of Defence Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg will have to face in the inquiry.

berlinbrief gives a translation of the questions:

1. Why did the bombardment happen at all?

2. Has there been a change of strategy of the German armed forces in Afghanistan; and how was it communicated?

3. Why did zu Guttenberg on the 6th of November initially describe the airstrike as “militarily suitable” and three weeks later fundamentally corrected his statement? (more…)

I want to write about an event at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) last week.

Cornelius Adebahr, a fellow on European foreign affairs at the Council, presented his book “Learning and Change in European Foreign Policy: The Role of the EU Special Representatives”. On this occasion DGAP hosted a timely event on current developments in European foreign policy.

Adebahr had a prominent commentator: Wolfgang Ischinger, the director of the Munich Security Conference and a former German ambassador to London and Washington DC. In 2007, Ischinger also served as the EU special envoy to the negotiations on the status of Kosovo. In his view, European foreign policy has developed at a remarkable speed over the last decade. (more…)

Apart from the discussions about whether Herbert van Rompuy and Catherine Ashton are suitable personalities to lead the European Council and Europe’s foreign policy (see e.g. the Economist of 19 November 2009), there has been a lot of talk in Berlin recently over the German government’s role in the distribution of Brussels’ new top jobs.

Some commentators believe that Chancellor Merkel did not get enough involved in the choice of the President of the European Council and the EU Foreign Minister. (see berlinbrief on 12 November, 2009)

Furthermore, it is argued, Germany will only get the energy portfolio in the new European Commission. Despite the promising title, it is considered less important than e.g. the internal market or the competition portfolio. And with Günther Oettinger, Merkel will send the minister president of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg who has no Brussels experience and not exacly the charisma of a leader to the Barroso II Commission. (more…)