Wednesday, 23 November 2005By James Mackenzie
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's new Chancellor Angela Merkel may have made bolstering relations with the United States a foreign policy priority, but she is following longstanding precedent by travelling to Paris on her first foreign visit.
Both her predecessors Gerhard Schroeder and Helmut Kohl began with visits to Paris, pledging to uphold the Franco-German axis that has underpinned postwar German foreign policy.
Merkel's brief visit on Wednesday, the day after her formal appointment as Chancellor, is intended as a clear sign that the tradition remains in place.
She will see French President Jacques Chirac for lunch at the Elysee Palace but with less than two hours scheduled for the meeting before she flies on to Brussels, the trip appears to be more about symbolism than serious discussion.
"The visit to France is an avowal of the closeness of the German-French partnership," new Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told German television on Tuesday.
In Brussels, Merkel will meet NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, in a move her advisers say is intended to underline the importance of Germany's trans-atlantic partnership with the United States.
She will also meet European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso and the head of the European parliament, Josep Borrell.
Steinmeier, one of Schroeder's closest aides, has said that German foreign policy will not undergo any radical shift under Merkel's new government of conservatives and Social Democrats.
While much attention has focussed on her pledge to boost ties with Washington after the turmoil of the Iraq war, pressing problems, like the need for a quick deal on the next EU budget mean the day-to-day partnership with France is as vital as ever.
URGENT ISSUES
However, the challenges facing Europe, after the failed constitutional referendums earlier this year left the European Union without a clear roadmap, will test the partnership that has driven the EU from its inception.
"There are urgent issues, such as the European budget or negotiations around the World Trade Organisation and agriculture policy," said Isabelle Bourgeois, a specialist in Franco-German relations at the University of Cergy-Pontoise near Paris.
"But the real issue and the real justification for the Franco-German axis is the construction of Europe," she said.
Without a vision of how Europe can respond to globalisation, overhaul its welfare system to cope with an ageing population and reshape its institutions now that it is a 25-strong bloc, high flown rhetoric will sound increasingly thin.
Significant progress in these areas is likely to be disrupted by the French presidential election in 2007, when Germany holds the rotating EU presidency as well as by real differences between member states including France and Germany.
Merkel, Germany's first chancellor from the former communist east, has already made clear that she believes many of the assumptions over the need for a strong welfare state that underpinned postwar policy in the west must be abandoned.
That on its own may set her apart from French leaders, who have vociferously condemned "neo-liberal" pro-market policies.
Much will still depend on the personal tone struck by the new Chancellor, whose sober, prosaic style contrasts sharply with her media-friendly predecessor Schroeder, who made great display of his close relationship with Chirac.
"I'm sure she'll want a very close and trusting relationship," said Andreas Schockenhoff, a conservative member of parliament and head of the German-French parliamentary group.
"Mrs Merkel has met Chirac many times, she has a good personal relationship with (Interior Minister) Nicolas Sarkozy. She knows the leading figures, she's been to Paris regularly. It's not unknown territory for her," he said.
Reuters via swissinfo
|
Wednesday, 23 November 2005
swissinfo.org
|
|
