Germany tries to build new bridges

Date: 12/10/1995

By Rory Watson

Germany's governing Christian Democratic party is trying to put the Franco-German alliance on a more even keel after the bilateral upheavals of recent months.

The initiative comes as both governments are preparing to step up ministerial and official contacts and stake out common ground in the run up to the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) on the Maastricht Treaty.

The Christlich Demokratische Union (CDU) and its allies the Christlich-Soziale Union (CSU) have created a 19-member Franco-German study group under the chairmanship of Dr Andreas Schockenhoff and are urging their French opposite numbers to establish a matching team. The group reflects a wide range of interests with expertise in cultural matters as well as foreign policy and economics.

Exploratory talks have already been held with France's Union pour la Démocratie Française (UDF) and a similar meeting is being held in Bonn today (12 October) with a delegation from Rassemblement pour la République (RPR).

Impetus for the joint parliamentary approach has come from Karl Lamers, CDU foreign policy spokesman, after a summer of incidents confirmed that the normally smooth running Franco-German tandem was becoming distinctly unsteady. Rows over nuclear testing, France's ability to meet the criteria for a single currency and illegal immigration and confusion over French President Jacques Chirac's view of the European Union have all fuelled tension.

In a remarkably frank nine-page report released on Monday (9 October), Lamers refers to the latest disputes and calls for relations between the two to be placed on a new qualitative level, arguing that the duo have the main responsibility for the decisions facing the EU in the coming years. It suggests future dialogue should focus on the Union's enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe, future financing of EU policies, Europe's relationship to the US and NATO and monetary union. His proposal for the new joint parliamentary body is designed to reduce the scope for misunderstandings and friction.

“We can see so many potential problems ahead and we have experience of misunderstandings in the past that we want to do what we can to minimise them. There are many bilateral governmental contacts, but fewer at the parliamentary level,” explained a CDU official.

Lamers, whose pronouncements have repeatedly stimulated debate on the EU's future, sees the parliamentary group's first goal as coordinating a joint Franco-German stance on all items on the IGC agenda before addressing the longer-term challenges facing the Union.

In a parallel development, the two governments are upgrading their ministerial contacts. Both foreign ministers are preparing to meet soon in Paris to draft a common position before the opening of the IGC. Similar preparation took place before each of the last two IGCs - on the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty. But this will be the first since the end of the mutual understanding between former French President François Mitterrand and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

With the fall-out from France's controversial nuclear testing programme continuing to dog relations across the Rhine, it remains to be seen whether sufficient identity of interest on Europe's future exists between Kohl and Chirac to ensure current disagreements do not deter them from mapping out a coherent path for the Union.

As Germany attempts to reinforce its relationship with Paris, observers are already speculating concrete Franco-German initiatives on both the bilateral relationship and the EU will emerge before the end of the year. A suitable date might be in early December at the next Franco-German summit in Baden-Baden. The German town was the genesis of the Franco-German Friendship Treaty signed over 30 years ago.