The New Germany In the New Europe
German foreign policy has grown more assertive and less idealistic in recent years. Consider its current approach to Europe.
By Jeffrey Anderson
In
late April 2001, news reports linked German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder
to a memorandum drafted by his political party that called for comprehensive
reform of the European Union treaty framework. Editorial reactions in
neighboring countries revealed the ambivalence that many Europeans still
feel about the Germans. For some, the news item reaffirmed their belief
that Germany remains firmly committed to political integration into
Europe. Others reacted far less benevolently, portraying Schroeder's
interest in reforming the E.U. as further proof of Germany's primordial
drive to project power beyond its national borders. These contrasting
assessments of the chancellor's motives flowed from divergent historical
interpretations of Germany and the Germans.
Immediately
after the fall of the Berlin Wall, many Europeans feared that unified
Germany's political future would be patterned on its dismal pre-war
past, seeking parallels in the tragic experience of the Weimar Republic,
Germany's abortive attempt at democracy between 1918 and 1933, or the
calamitous trajectories of Second and Third Reich foreign policy. These
pessimistic predictions treated the four decades of peace and prosperity
in West Germany after 1945 as a period of historical remission, during
which Germany's predisposition toward aggression and instability was
pushed into the background to await the return of more permissive circumstances.
Such traditional ways of thinking are ill-equipped to illuminate post-unification
Germany and its relationship to Europe.
In
fact, there were good reasons to believe that four decades of stable
democracy, economic prosperity, and membership in western international
organizations like the European Community and NATO would bestow a weighty
legacy on unified Germany. Rejecting historical templates of instability
and aggression, one might have predicted a continuation of two hallmarks
of West German foreign policy: a reflexive multilateralism (or, put
another way, a distaste for solo initiatives); and an innate willingness
to transfer national sovereignty in order to advance joint initiatives
at the European and international levels. Similarly, one could have
made a strong case for foreign policy continuity after unification,
given long-standing German commitments to free trade in manufactures,
agricultural support programs, and ambitious environmental protection
standards, to name just three.
The
decade since formal unification confirmed the difficulty of making predictions
about unified Germany's political future based on the country's post-1945
history. There have been no radical departures in policy rhetoric and
action. This is not to suggest, however, that the Germany we observe
in 2001 is simply an older and larger version of the stable democracy
anchored in Western Europe at the end of the 1980s. German foreign policy
has grown more assertive and less idealistic in recent years because
unification created new political and economic challenges for the country.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in Germany's approach to Europe.
Germany
in Europe
Elected
governments of the West German republic, both left and right, forged
and sustained productive, even symbiotic, relationships with the European
integration project. For West German political elites, joining a Europe
committed to multilateral cooperation and democratic principles dovetailed
neatly with their intent to rebuild democracy at home and to rehabilitate
the country's ruined international credentials. Moreover, European integration
provided a ready vehicle for achieving specific policy objectives they
considered vital to the success of the German economy, such as protecting
domestic agriculture, securing access to neighboring markets for manufacturing
industry, and promoting free trade with countries outside Europe. Unification
threatened this productive equilibrium by throwing both the country's
European objectives and its domestic economic policies into a state
of potential disorder.
The
German government adopted a unification policy aimed at nothing less
than the wholesale transfer of the "West Germany in Europe" model to
eastern Germany.
Amid
the chaos and uncertainty unleashed by the process of unification, there
is no evidence that mainstream political elites reassessed the utility
of institutional memberships such as NATO, the European Community, or
the United Nations. This suggests that German support for multilateralism
had become part and parcel of the German definition of national interest,
and the question entertained by policy-makers in 1989-1990 was not whether
to remain ensconced in Western multilateral institutions, but how to
reconcile unification to the obligations of membership. At the same
time, German leaders called on international organizations in the region
to reform in ways that acknowledged changed realities in a post-Cold
War Europe; in the case of the E.C., enlargement took on a greater urgency.
The
post-unification period soon exposed flaws in Bonn's plan to extend
the "West Germany in Europe" model to the former East Germany. Almost
immediately, tremendous social and economic problems erupted in the
new federal states (Laender) and spilled over into the rest of Germany.
Countless eastern German firms, many of them dependent on export markets
in the former eastern bloc that were rapidly approaching a state of
total collapse, went under, generating regional unemployment rates that
soon rivaled those registered during the Great Depression. As a more
detailed picture of the truly decrepit state of the eastern regional
economy took shape, the federal government's bill for reconstructing
the former German Democratic Republic ballooned.
Eastern
German actors, emboldened by the failure of the federal government to
replicate the post-1945 formula for economic success in their region,
began to question basic principles underpinning many West German economic
policies. In particular, they challenged the official faith placed in
market mechanisms and processes, as well as the general bias against
direct government intervention in the economy. Because many existing
European Community policies supported these and other traditional West
German economic precepts, unification fed a debate over European integration.
The
"New" Germany and the "Old"
More
than ten years after unification, this debate has resulted in an intriguing
pattern of continuity and change in Germany's policies toward the European
Union. Many signature characteristics of the "old" Germany's policies
toward Europe, such as a fundamentally pro-integration orientation and
a clear preference for collective approaches to problem solving, remain
in place. However, with the costly addition of the poorer regions of
eastern Germany and mounting public concern over who will foot the bill
for Europe's grand plans, there is newfound sobriety in the "new" Germany
about the future trajectory of the integration process, as well as a
new assertiveness in defending national interests -- some of which have
changed appreciably with unification.
The
old Germany's approach to the E.U. is still recognizable in several
policy areas; for example, Germany's desire to secure the free movement
of goods, capital, services, and people within the existing boundaries
of the E.U., as well as its consistent support for free trade in manufactures,
remain largely unchanged. However, there have been subtle shifts in
Germany's stance on policy issues linked to the costs of unification,
which were prompted by concern in the business community over the worsening
investment climate in the country. Specifically, the German government
has adopted a more market-oriented approach to energy policy, with an
eye to reducing energy costs for domestic manufacturers; in the mid-1990s,
Bonn became a late convert to the European Commission's initiative to
liberalize electricity and gas markets throughout the E.U. On environmental
matters, the Germans have proceeded more cautiously -- or perhaps better
said, with less fervor -- on several European initiatives that would
raise the costs of doing business in Germany, such as an "energy tax"
designed to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions.
More
dramatic changes in Germany's European policies are the direct result
of the addition of the eastern regional economy, with its socialist
legacies and post-socialist peculiarities. Germany's objectives for
the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), a complex assortment of price-support
mechanisms and programs designed to assist in the restructuring of farm
enterprises, today recognize the needs of larger, competitive farming
units -- a clear departure from pre-unification days, when Bonn focused
exclusively on small family farms, the staple of the West German agricultural
sector. This policy shift resulted from the addition of the vastly larger
farms of the former German Democratic Republic in 1990. Germany's new
CAP policies have moved the German government somewhat closer to the
efficiency-oriented agricultural camp in the E.U. (e.g. the Netherlands,
the U.K.), which seeks to reform the CAP by, among other things, eliminating
expensive price-support programs, thereby favoring larger, more competitive
farms. The German shift on agriculture comes at a time when the CAP
framework is undergoing intense review in the run-up to eastern enlargement,
and at a minimum opens up additional options for market-oriented reform
proposals down the road.
On
the issue of industrial subsidies, the Germans showed a much greater
willingness in the 1990s to prop up inefficient companies than they
had prior to unification because they needed to preserve jobs to avoid
social unrest in the eastern region. This carried serious implications
for E.U. competition policy, which is designed to limit market distortions
caused by illegal or excessive subsidy practices of the member governments.
West Germany historically had been one of the most vocal supporters
of a strict E.U. line on industrial aid, but in the absence of German
backing after unification, E.U. competition policy weakened over the
course of the 1990s, despite aggressive efforts, under the leadership
of Competition Commissioner Karl Van Miert, to reduce and even phase
out many subsidy programs popular among the member governments. Today,
under new leadership, the Commission has halted its drive to eliminate
coal and shipbuilding aid for European producers, without even the tiniest
objection from the Germans.
The
German approach to E.U. policies designed to assist underdeveloped regions
and declining industrial areas -- cohesion and structural funds -- has
also changed dramatically. After unification, Bonn found itself in possession
of some of the poorest regions in all of Europe, and it quickly moved
from disinterested yet austere paymaster, contributing many more Deutsche
marks to these E.U. policy endeavors than it could ever hope to receive
in return, to ardent supplicant, concerned with getting a fair share
of Brussels' resources to cope with the difficult economic situation
in the eastern German region. This in turn generated a difficult dilemma
for the German government: It was asking for expanded benefits through
the structural funds for its eastern region on the one hand, but on
the other, it continued to demand strict limits on overall E.U. spending,
and by extension on its own financial contributions to the E.U.
Larger
Integration Objectives
Lifting
our gaze from concrete policies like trade and energy to the general
process of integration in Europe, Germany's approach to the E.U. since
unification reveals a blend of old and new as well. Berlin remains an
ardent proponent of the long-term E.U. goals of widening (eastern enlargement)
and deepening (institutional reform). The government's approach to foreign
policy is still that of an inveterate multilateralist. For example,
along with Britain, Germany has been in the forefront of the drive to
extend and develop the E.U.'s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)
and to develop an E.U. military arm that is capable of conducting operations
such as peacekeeping and humanitarian and rescue missions within the
European space.
However,
new accents in Germany's approach to the E.U. are unmistakable. Since
unification -- and for the first time in decades -- European integration
has become the subject of political controversy in Germany, particularly
where economic and monetary union, national contributions to the E.U.
budget, and enlargement are concerned. Berlin's commitment to fiscal
conservatism in Europe is a direct result of mounting fiscal pressures
at home, in no small part due to the debt overhang associated with unification
and the budgetary rigors of joining the single currency. The German
political leadership now displays a more balky attitude to eastern enlargement
born of a greater awareness of the financial costs of admitting populous,
poor members from Central and Eastern Europe. Although German political
and business elites still support enlargement, they are no longer in
a rush to see it through. More broadly, elites and the mass public in
unified Germany now have a keener sense of the limits of political integration.
For several years now, there has been no starry-eyed talk of a "United
States of Europe," at least not at the official level.
Last
December, at an E.U. summit in Nice designed to prepare the European
Union institutionally for enlargement, the post-unification blend of
continuity and change in Germany's European policies was on full display.
Summit participants grappled with a contentious agenda: Decision points
included a firm date for E.U. enlargement; the size and composition
of the European Commission; the voting weights assigned to members in
the Council of Ministers; and the size and composition of the European
Parliament.
At
Nice, the Berlin government appeared intent on living up to the country's
long-standing E.U. commitments. For example, Chancellor Schroeder deferred
to key French demands, including continued parity in Council voting
weights for France and Germany, out of respect for the Franco-German
partnership and because he feared the consequences of a failed summit.
The Nice agreement held the door open to the east, something that the
Berlin government, despite increasing doubts, still supported. On these
and other policy questions, the "old" Germany was clearly visible.
However,
the "new" Germany sought unabashedly to secure a privileged institutional
position, along with the other large member states, in an enlarged Union.
Schroeder refused to endorse the "double majority" formula for making
Council decisions (a majority of member states representing a majority
of the E.U. population must agree for a decision to be binding), a proposal
backed by the European Commission and the smaller member governments.
Instead, Schroeder insisted on a new threshold for Council decisions
(Council majorities representing less than 62 percent of the E.U. population
will not carry), which puts Germany in an advantageous veto position.
Berlin also demanded a follow-up summit to Nice, which will aim to establish
a clear division of responsibilities among the various levels of governance
in the E.U.
A
New Germany in Europe
Unification
failed to launch a sweeping reevaluation of Germany's place in Europe.
Still, to describe the united Germany's relationship toward Europe in
terms of seamless continuity would be a gross overstatement. In the
past, West Germany consistently evaluated Community decisions in terms
of the integrity of existing rule frameworks, rather than "who got what."
This was less true in the 1990s; increasingly, Bonn is paying attention
to the bottom line in Brussels.
Unification
transformed the domestic context in which European policy is made, making
it impossible for the German government to satisfy domestic constituencies
with its traditional policy priorities at home and in Brussels. The
sum total of the mix of policy shifts and policy continuity constitutes
a new Germany in Europe, one that is normalizing.
The
implications for Germany and the European Union have yet to sort themselves
out. One thing is clear -- they have complicated immensely the process
of widening and deepening the European Union. The simultaneous achievement
of these objectives will depend, as it always has, on the ability of
the member governments to agree on expensive side payments to the prospective
losers. Germany's weakening inclination to foot the bill, coupled with
a less starry-eyed approach to Europe and a growing interest in securing
a fair return from E.U. policies, has complicated interstate bargaining
over integration, slowing the pace of progress, lowering the sights
set by European leaders, and raising the level of discord among the
member states.
Jeffrey
Anderson is a professor of political science at Brown University and
Director of Studies at the American Institute of Contemporary German
Studies in Washington, DC. He is the author of German Unification and
the Union of Europe (Cambridge, 1999).
