Political innocents start to wise up

Date: 10/12/1998

The new German government has upset several EU apple carts since taking office thanks to a series of unguarded comments by ministers. At this weekend's summit in Vienna, Gerhard Schröder will be anxious to mend a few fences. Tim Jones reports

ONE of the most touching sights in Nineties politics is that of a new, left-leaning government as it careers enthusiastically on to the European stage.

Middle-aged radicals who have spent their formative years in seemingly eternal opposition suddenly find themselves clad in dark, conservative suits and chauffeured about in purring luxury cars.

Politicians who, until their elevation, had to rely on newspapers and party staff for their information are now surrounded by the nation's brightest educational achievers ready to draft their whims into legislation.

For a few weeks - or years, in the case of Tony Blair's administration in the UK - they actually believe they are saying something startlingly new. Jobs and the environment will go right to the top of an EU agenda for too long dominated by internal squabbles and Europe will be brought down to the level where it should be - "closer to the citizen".

The UK and France went through it last year. The latest victim of new-boy syndrome is Germany's first ever Social Democrat/Green coalition, led in theory by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and, supposedly in practice, by his Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine.

Following its historic and largely symbolic first cabinet meeting in Berlin since 1945, the German government announced that when it took over the presidency of the EU in January, it would campaign for a new employment pact, reform of agricultural spending and - wait for it - Europe to be "brought closer to its citizens".

Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer will be dispatched on a whistle-stop tour of the Union's capitals next week to outline his government's original plans for Europe.

The Franco-British change in governmental attitudes last year did not matter so much. The arrival of Blair generated mountains of political goodwill in the EU after nearly two decades of mutual suspicion. The surprise return of the French Socialists after a brief vanishing act was made easy by the determination of Schröder's predecessor, Helmut Kohl, to give Paris whatever it wanted in the run-up to economic and monetary union. Moreover, in their attitudes to economic, monetary, industrial policy, trade and defence, the French right and left might as well be the same people.

French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin turned out not to want very much. His call to arms over employment was silenced by the now-forgotten 'Amsterdam protocol' to the stability and growth pact and vague talk about "economic policy cooperation".

The German Social Democrats have proved trickier to accommodate. After years spent quashing French demands for some political influence over monetary policy, a 'competitive' euro and a protectionist approach to industrial liberalisation, Bonn suddenly finds itself outflanking Paris on the left on a variety of issues. Everything suddenly seems wobbly. The stability that Kohl embodied has gone.

As if being the most left-wing administration in the Union were not enough, the Schröder team has confused matters further for their colleagues in the EU by failing to sing from the same hymn-sheet, and talking first and asking questions later.

Fischer was always expected to be a loose canon. On his first visit to Brussels at the beginning of last month, the Green leader with a history of pacifism and of wearing jeans admitted that his protocol officials were "highly nervous".

Since then, his performance has justified their fears. Within weeks of taking over at the foreign office, Fischer told the central and eastern European candidates for membership that they would have to wait until his government's 'over-payments' to the Union budget were cut.

It was less what he said than the way he said it. "If there isn't a reform, then tell me how expansion is supposed to work if we have to keep on shouldering more than our share of the burden," he told the German parliament bluntly.

At the end of last month, in a dangerously open interview with the German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau, he said: "Just as we worked together on the first real transfer of sovereignty in the field of currencies, we ought to work on a common constitution to turn the European Union into an entity under international law. That is my goal. It is the decisive task of our time."

This may play like an interesting policy seminar at home, but it is guaranteed to drive the British and Danish press wild - mostly, it has to be said, with delight that they have something to write about.

As everyone must now know by now, Lafontaine has been demonised in the British press for daring to suggest that the EU's business taxation regimes should not differ too much from each other.

His off-the-cuff suggestion that tax policy decisions in the Union could be taken by majority votes rather than unanimously was a dream for the British journalistic pack. They all gathered around the one German speaker in their midst and compared notes.

When it turned out that French Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn had said something similar down the hall, the conspiracy theorists were ecstatic. The fact that both men had been specifically asked the same question and were repeating long-standing Franco-German opinions was ignored.

The new Bonn government's views on the use of force abroad is still unclear two months after the election.

Fischer was very unhappy with the US-UK build up to the use of force against Iraq after United Nations weapons inspectors were again hindered in their work. "Missiles would not end Saddam Hussein's rule nor would they prevent him from producing weapons of mass destruction and it would be a long time before UN weapons inspectors could return to Iraq," said Fischer at the time.

Schröder, on the other hand, has kept quiet and is thought to be keener on ingratiating himself with President Bill Clinton and Blair. Confused everyone may be, including many of Germany's diplomats in Brussels, but they should not take the issue too seriously. They should also exercise a little bit of hindsight.

The well-oiled Clinton machine was renowned for its chaos in the first months of the Arkansan's rule in 1993. Officials and even cabinet secretaries did not talk to each other and talked too much to the press. At the Group of Seven summit in Naples, reporters ran after National Security Adviser Tony Lake for a market-moving quote about the appropriate rate for the dollar - and they got one.

The German red-green coalition is just as naïve. Bonn does not enjoy making life difficult for Blair or Rasmussen. Indeed, this is a large part of the coalition's charm. In his infamous Frankfurter Rundschau interview, Fischer was actually trying to make Europe loved by the sceptical British.

When he suggested a second chamber for the European Parliament, he was talking about filling it with national politicians to keep an eye on the Brussels 'natives'. His suggestion that the European Commission could be replaced by a cabinet, built on the Council of Ministers, was meant to appeal to British concerns.

"They will not give up their wonderful House of Commons, which expresses not only architecturally the self-confidence of a centuries-long struggle for freedom against the absolutist claims of the British king, for the sake of some functional building on the continent," he said.

The ensuing furore will teach him to be less thoughtful in future.

The government is beginning to tighten up its act. Lafontaine is already showing signs of becoming a lot more street-wise and Schröder has bumped up the powers of his chancellory under political fixer Bodo Hombach.

All they need now is someone who understands the non-German press to keep them from speaking their minds. It will make for smoother-running politics, but it will be a sad day when it comes.

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