Merkel's New Foreign Policy: What, if Anything, Will Change?
By Ulrike Guérot

If Angela Merkel is elected and put in the position to run a governmental coalition together with the liberals (FDP) - the only coalition that would allow real change in foreign policy - some things in German European and foreign policy may indeed change. However, given the current and increasingly intense speculation about what could happen, one should tackle this question perhaps with some more caution than some do. Some analysts basically foresee radical changes in Germany's foreign policy stance: Germany will have a much less intensive relationship with France, work much more with the UK in European affairs, and will become America's most favored junior partner again, to pick just three of the most widely-cited assumptions. The nervousness that comes with these assumptions and their potential consequences is significant: Merkel is not very well known by most of Germany's allies and in foreign countries in general. So what will she do? How much change does she want? And how much change is possible - or to what extent will proximity determine German foreign policy?

First, a Glance at Europe
Europe falls short in the party platform of the CDU/CSU; only four pages are spent on the EU and European policy, and they are vague. NATO takes priority over CFSP and ESDP; the rest is just half-hearted commitment to the goals and the importance of the European Union. The only precise point is that Turkey should not join the EU, but rather be offered a "privileged partnership." Ideas on how to shape the institutional architecture of the EU or how to solve the constitutional crisis are passed over. Europe is not en vogue in Germany, even if some 66 percent of Germans would still be in favor of the European Constitution, following the last "Eurobarometer" opinion poll. And therefore, Europe does not take precedence in Merkel's campaign; or in the campaign of the others, by the way. In all of the discussions about the necessary economic and social reforms, the EU is neither part of the solution, nor is it necessarily frame of reference.

Merkel is a newcomer in European policies. Yes, she has gained some experience on the European and international floor as Minister for Environmental Affairs in the early 1990s, but she has not been bathed and raised in the aura of the former Federal Republic, where every pupil intuitively had grasped that European integration is a sort of "raison d'état" for Germany. This is in compensation for lost national identity as well as when the Franco-German reconciliation and the engine function of the two countries for Europe were essential for the self-confidence of Germany.

Disconnect from France?
The fact that Merkel is not pre-conditioned may open her policies to new approaches, but inertia and gravity will also be at work. That Merkel will disconnect from France, is one of the most assured assumptions. It has been suggested that she would rather take the UK as a partner and follow Thatcher's path in terms of economic reforms; however, this is not likely. First, one should not forget that almost any newly elected French president - including François Mitterrand - and many German Chancellors - including Gerhard Schröder - all started by saying that Franco-German relations should be rebalanced by stronger Franco-British or German-British relations. Mitterrand himself, also in an attempt to distinguish himself from the Giscard d'Estaing - Helmut Schmidt friendship and achievements - spent more wording on the UK than on Germany, much to Germany's distress, in his inaugural speech in 1981. Only two years later, in 1983, he u-turned and it only then that Franco-German relations started to have a very intensive phase, realizing the European Single Act in 1986 and achieving the Maastricht Treaty and Monetary Union in 1992. And Gerhard Schröder presented, in the summer of 1998, a "Third-Way"-paper together with Tony Blair. He avoided, as the first Chancellor, to be present at the memorial festivities of Verdun on November 11, 1998, much to French criticism. Nobody, at this time, would have expected that he would be the one, only five years later, who would stand up together with France in an anti-Iraq-war alliance against the U.S.

This inertia will also be available for Ms Merkel. She probably does not like Jacques Chirac much, but she won't have a long way to go with him. And Nicolas Sarkozy, one of the potential next French presidents, is probably not appealing to her, as his pretty French-centered attitude, conveying everything that is dear to France - grandeur, nationalism - does not connect to her milieu and does not emanate any cultural affiliation. But she went to Paris in July and she knows that the relationship is strategically as important as it has been, and there is no alternative. Franco-German relations are still necessary, but no longer the sufficient criteria for progress in Europe. The point is not to weaken Franco-German relations. The point is to make them function as they have before for the benefit of the other EU-countries, not to their detriment. The essential point is to get back the triggering effect Franco-German relations always had for the whole EU, instead of making the others turning their head from France and Germany. Leadership must be merited - France and Germany cannot expect a leadership role when they both do not comply with the rules of the stability pact and offer the poorest economic performance in the European Union. And they cannot pretend leadership, when they, in a way, instead of tackling Europe's problems of the future - most importantly the necessity of stability export, the management of new enlargement rounds and the shaping of a European geo-strategy - took refuge in the small "Europe de Charlemagne," with the ambition to keep it exclusive. Merkel could be good for this, as she comes from the East, from former GDR, she is certainly emotionally less affected by self-pitied Westerners that are afraid of change and transition, and she should be in a position to reconnect with the East of Europe, keen to accept Germany as their most important partner, if only Germany would care. The problem may then not be Merkel, but her party.

Flirt with the UK?
Regarding the UK, relations may become more important, which would be beneficial for Europe. The UK is increasingly important for the whole EU, especially in terms of foreign policy. However, as long as the UK stays outside of the euro and the Schengen-zone, it will only be half in Europe, and therefore cannot be Germany's most important strategic ally. It is up to the UK to eventually change this. Merkel also cannot imitate Thatcher's reform path, even if she wanted to. Germany's party system, its coalition system and the Bund-Länder-Gemeinden triad, meaning the vertical stratification of power expressed through the strong position of the Bundesrat, the second chamber, and in addition a very strong position, protected by the basic law, of both, the trade unions and the employers when it comes to salary bargaining processes, are much too consensus-orientated to pass quick and radical reforms. It may be easier for Merkel than for Schröder, as she will have the majority in the two chambers for quite a while, but Germany is a slow-changing country. So, on the European level, Merkel will not build up a coalition with Blair for a "liberal" Europe versus the "social" one of France - which is a difficult way to put it.

What she can do, however, is to bridge between France and the UK, who are the two most important players in European policies, as Germany pretty much fell from that list over the past few years. This would be important as France and the UK in today's Europe constitute the most opposite poles with respect to which position Europe should take towards the U.S.; on the European Constitution (given that despite the "no" exit-polls show that French citizen want more and not less Europe, especially in the field of social policy); on important issues like further EU-enlargement, above all Turkey; and, of course, with respect to which economic and social orientation the Union should take. In a way, a Franco-British connection is today more important than a Franco-German one. And Germany could, indeed, bridge between the two. Merkel could, first, take the forthcoming EU-budget negotiations that will be on the table under the Austrian EU-Presidency starting 2006, to forge a necessary Franco-British deal. France will need to further renounce agricultural funding and to accept agricultural reform that would go beyond the 2002-Copenhagen agreements, and the UK will need to renounce on the rebate. She could, second, bring Germany back to the middle of the institutional reform process and - in the spirit of Helmut Kohl's European policy - be more demanding on France with regard to respecting the small countries, a strong Commission and a strong European Parliament (the only truly supranational entities of the EU). Her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, was more tempted by the French seduction than a strong Council (the intergovernmental branch of the institutions) and engaged himself in a Commission-bashing unseen in German European policy ever before.

Bridging between France and the UK would also and essentially bring back Germany as a key European player in European affairs and policy, something it has not really been much of since its attention has been given to the international arena, particularly the aim to seek for a permanent seat in the UN-Security Council. This has resulted in harmful consequences for the "European spirit of Germany" and the way other countries in the EU look at it.

In a way, she will reconnect with the most important parameter of CDU foreign policy that prevailed from Adenauer to Kohl which is that a strong transatlantic tie and a strong Europe are two sides of the same coin. She will, thus, rebalance the relationship between Paris and Washington, and put Germany back right in the middle as it always has been.

Closing the transatlantic gap
Merkel will try to bring Germany back into the position of the U.S.'s most important junior partner in Europe. That said, she cannot ignore that still an overwhelming majority in Germany is against the foreign policy of President Bush. Like Gerhard Schröder, she will therefore be not able to provide much help in the Middle East beyond the training of police forces for Iraq. If ever the situation with Iran and their nuclear program should escalate, it would be difficult for Merkel to withdraw from the European consensus on this issue, in particular the position of the "EU-Three."

The real problem could be the phenomena of a "post-honey-moon-depression," meaning that Merkel, despite her rhetoric, her ambitions, her wish to improve transatlantic relations, to make NATO perform better, and to bring Germany back in the position of the U.S. junior partner in Europe, she might not be able to deliver there, which is where the U.S. will seek it most: Hot issues for American foreign policy are Turkey and its EU membership perspective, Kosovo and the stabilization of the entire Western Balkans, and the democracy building process in Ukraine and other countries in the Caucasus neighborhood. This process is all too often linked to EU-membership perspectives from the American side, and this is where Merkel, given her party's position and resignation about future EU enlargement rounds, will most likely not be able to act much and fulfill American ambitions. A European geo-strategic perspective on these questions still needs to be developed, especially within the CDU/CSU. Therefore, U.S. foreign policy expectations regarding Ms Merkel should not be too high. It will rather be a difficult re-balancing act!


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Ulrike Guérot is a Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund.