Dr. Ulrike Guérot
Senior Transatlantic Fellow
The German Marshall Fund
Background paper: Merkel’s Foreign Policy
Aspen Institute Italy, Berlin: Transatlantic Dialogue
Hotel Adlon: February 24-25, 2006
Much to everyone’s surprise, the new Chancellor Angela Merkel had a glorious start in foreign policy. Within only a couple of weeks, she smoothed out the formerly strained relations with the U.S.-- signalling a palpable commitment towards improving transatlantic relations but at the same time taking a serious stance on some harmful dossiers: like for instance Germany’s concerns regarding Guantanamo and her constructive engagement towards Russia; avoiding the intimacy that former German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, has had. Merkel has sent clear signals to the small Baltic countries in the Russian neighbourhood, emphasizing that German politics vis-à-vis Russia have to be tied into a European framework. She initiated a new and fresh start with Poland, avoiding the Pandora’s box of nitty-gritty disputes over World-War II related issues that conservative circles in both countries cannot separate from. Instead, she is focussing on a geo-strategy for the EU and on German-Polish perspectives for Europe. In addition, she embraced France as Germany’s most important partner on the European continent, but without taking the devoted approach towards French ideas Gerhard Schröder has been criticized for. Thus, she has wiped off the mistrust and the suspicion that small countries, especially in the Eastern part of Europe, had voiced against the far too exclusive Franco-German co-operation in the past years. Last but not least, with some remarkable talent for mediation and a fine sense of balance, she helped Tony Blair to reach an unexpected agreement on the EU-budget at the December Council of the European Union meeting. In short: this is German foreign policy at its best! Merkel brought together country by country, employing a strategy that could be poetically called ‘tout azimuts’. Not even a hundred days into Merkel’s term, all the poisoned debates about a ‘Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis’ or a German seat in the UN Security Council are gone. Germany is again the consensus carrier and builder, the bridge-country in the middle of Europe that reaches out to all its neighbours. The signal is clear: Germany is back on the scene, on the European scene as well as on the international scene. Moreover: Germany is in the middle of things happening! From NATO-reform to a solution for Iran, from shaping ESDP to fresh initiatives for the Middle-East, Germany will, indeed, play a key role in the years to come. This is how Merkel has proficiently sketched out her foreign-policy program.
A revamped transatlantic partnership?
Without any doubt, Merkel is committed to improving relations with the US. The coalition agreement clearly states that the US and NATO remain the most important strategic framework for German security policy. Most recently, in her speech at the Security conference in Munich, Merkel stressed that the transatlantic friendship is the most important tool to cope with international problems and security risks of the 21st century - and she did so by refraining from any comment she may have about the positioning or the future of the current US administration. She suggested a primacy for NATO, becoming the most important consultation body for international security problems, including discussions about Iran or the Middle East. However, she has used the great diplomatic instrument of nuance in her speech. Her wording made it clear that consultation cannot mean US guidance, and that common analysis does not automatically lead to common action in the end. More importantly, Merkel reflected about NATO’s future in a world and a security environment that has profoundly changed. NATO, she argued, cannot do everything, from Afghanistan to peace keeping, from humanitarian intervention to protection of Olympic games; nor can it expand in an uncontrolled manner. Rather, quality should matter for NATO. Her proposal to rethink the strategic concept of NATO in a conference in either 2008 or 2009--ten years after the Washington NATO-Summit in 1999--was an invitation to bring forth new and constructive thoughts on how to restructure and re-organize NATO for tomorrow’s world, without being bogged down by nostalgia for the past and what NATO has once been. In a way, this part of her speech, in terms of contents, did not differ significantly from what former Chancellor Schröder has told the ‘Wehrkunde’-Conference in Munich just one year before. But it was pretty much the style, the intonation and the fluidity of Merkel’s speech that made her point convincing – and non-aggressive for American ears.
Europe matters
One of the most important points outlined was Merkel’s emphasis on the tasks and challenges Germany must accept in order to contribute to the development outlined above. First and foremost, Germany has to fix its economy, as a strong economy is the basic condition for a broader contribution to an international security policy. A second challenge will be to improve the efficiency, the capacity to act, and the military capabilities of the European Union; in hopes of fulfilling the long awaited initiative, stressed by the EU’s most trusted allies from the beginning of ESDP, on capabilities over structures. With such an agenda, she has shown so far to be the disciple of Helmut Kohl: Merkel is back to a German foreign policy, which encompasses a strong transatlantic partnership and a strong European Union, which are two sides of the same coin and where the one cannot exist without the other! Her ‘Wehrkunde’-speech, in this respect, was a courageous and sincere offer to the US to jointly develop a new geo-strategy for the European continent! Moreover a geo-strategy in which the European Union will matter. Merkel left no doubt that the European Union is the perspective for the Balkans and for the further stabilisation in the Eastern near-abroad of the EU. The latter emphasizes that Merkel is a woman for the ‘big picture’. Her discourse does not refer to a ‘core-Europe’ nor does it mention who – and who not – should be in an inner-circle. She just pointed to the success of the most recent ESDP mission in the Balkans and to the European responsibility for this region within Europe. She put the progress that has been achieved so far into a historical perspective, asked for patience, but showed astonishing determination that the European Union will maintain its commitment and find an appropriate solution. Especially with regards to her own party position on further enlargement of the EU, this is new and ambitious language. The message to the US is equally clear: Europe needs a constitution in order to be able to shoulder the challenge. Planting the seed for a European Constitution into US ears as a necessary step before shaping a new European geo-strategy and engaging in a NATO/ EU enlargement round was an important hint. Merkel, therefore, might be indeed the woman who, under German EU-presidency in 2007, could achieve the great synthesis between the ‘political union’ camp and the ‘geo-strategy’ camp that is dividing the European debate of today. She might succeed in the synthesis between the deepening and widening that Europe has been waiting for since basically a decade; from the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 to the failed Constitution. Germany always needed two prerequisites for being in this European broker position: a strong economy and American support for European integration. Both could be met in 2007, so that 50 years after the Rome Treaty conditions could be met to give Europe--with a strong German impulsion--a new spin for the 21st century!
Iran: clear wording – Germany will be reliable
A new style of Merkel’s foreign policy is also visible in the way she handles the difficult and complex Iran dossier. The message is that the German “Sonderweg-ambitions”
are over. Merkel closely consulted the big three EU partners on the negotiation strategy with Iran and voiced a determined and firm stance in accordane with the international community. There can be no doubt that Merkel is committed to take her share of responsibility to resolve the looming conflict and that Germany, this time, will not withdraw from engagement. Again, in her ‘Wehrkunde’-speech, she displayed strong and clear words that stood in sharp contrast to the German positioning on the Iraq affair three years ago. Not only did she clearly state that Iran has passed the red-lines that the international community has drawn regarding the enrichment of Uranium, she also made it crystal clear that the statements of Iran’s president, Ahmadinejad, refusing Israel’s right of existence and denying the Holocaust, are completely unacceptable. She left no doubt that Germany, considering its own past and experience with a totalitarian regime, would be committed to stop the Iranian nuclear ambitions from the very beginnings. This does not imply that all means towards a negotiated solution should be completely exhausted. But this is a language that especially the United States can understand as a sign that on Iran, the ‘West’ and the world community will stand united.
In combination with her clear engagement to invest in the Middle Eastern peace process, after her visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, this can be judged as laying the groundwork for a common transatlantic agenda. Merkel displays a keen understanding regarding how far one should pull on the same diplomatic strings in connection with the next steps in the peace process and the question surrounding how the international community should handle the newly elected Hamas-majority in the Palestinian parliament: cooperation yes, but clear guidance of what is allowed.
Europeanize Germany’s policy towards Russia
Russia equally will demand much sensitivity from Merkel. Russia is and will remain an essential partner for Germany, not only because of the highly intense energy connection, but also because of a long historical tradition. However, Merkel’s open words regarding Chechnya and the activities of NGOs in Russia, has shown a new break in the style and communication within the German-Russian discourse. Again, the message was clearly that Merkel knows that German policies towards Russia must be tied into a European framework. Be it energy dialogue or a strategic partnership, the European dimension of what Germany does with Russia – and how this impacts on countries like the Baltic States, Poland or even Ukraine – is crucial. Merkel’s foreign policy style promises the discovery of the notion of a European geo-strategy – and what a German role in it could be. One essential point of the latter presupposes that Merkel does not reduce relationships to a sole bilateral dimension. With Russia, she sought out solutions for Iran and herewith succeeded in engaging Putin constructively into an international solution on Iran.
It might well be her biggest strength that her sense for balance tells her that everyone needs a role and that providing ownership for all in the international crisis management is the best way to find internationally approved and consensus solutions. This might be the new female touch of German foreign policy – which is for the good!
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