Pragmatic negotiator

Date: 17/12/1998

Germany's new Agriculture Minister Karl-Heinz Funke could hardly be more different from his predecessor.

Where the Christian Democrat Jochen Borchert looked and acted like a bureaucrat and, it is said, largely did what his bureaucrats told him, Funke looks every bit the farmer.

It comes as no great surprise that he has his own mixed farm in the northernmost German state of Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony), where he ran the agriculture ministry before being asked by new Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to move with him to Bonn.

Big, ruddy-faced and jovial, Funke prefers to wear his heart on his sleeve. Not for him the attention to detail and head-in-the-sand conservatism for which Borchert was renowned. Funke is a pragmatist, an important gift for the man who will chair meetings of EU farm ministers for the next six months, tasked with steering through the reform of the Common Agriculture Policy which is a crucial element of the Agenda 2000 proposals.

There has been a sea change at the German farm ministry since Funke's arrival. Surprisingly for a man who runs his own farm, he and his party are much more positively disposed towards Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler's reform proposals than was Helmut Kohl's conservative government.

In March, Fischler proposed cutting guaranteed minimum prices for beef by 30&percent;, for grains by 20&percent; and for milk products by 15&percent;, offering to pay farmers higher direct aid in compensation.

The Commissioner argued that his was the only way to reduce the EU's dependence on export subsidies, which face further curbs in the next round of world trade liberalisation talks due to begin late next year. How else, he said, could the EU seriously enlarge eastwards without breaking the bank?

With Borchert ensconced as farm minister, there was little prospect of much movement, as evidenced by the long hours of meaningless negotiations at Council meeting after Council meeting throughout this year.

With the ultra-conservative Bavarian farmers uppermost in his mind, not to mention Bavarian-based Finance Minister Theo Waigel, Borchert's approach was 'no no no'.

All that has changed over night. Handing over the ministry keys to his successor in October, Borchert seemed almost relieved to be getting out when he was and gave a hint of the intense problems Funke will face in trying to please everybody.

“I wish you the fortitude to withstand the pressure which will be put on you,” he warned.

One major advantage Funke will enjoy as he faces the challenges ahead is his relationship with Fischler. Where previous Council presidents such as the UK's Jack Cunningham had to resort to old-fashioned charm to ingratiate themselves with the Commissioner, officials talk of the “excellent and real personal chemistry” between Fischler and Funke.

This is crucial because it is they who will have to put their heads together at some ungodly hour of the morning at the end of long and tortuous negotiations and draw up a compromise to satisfy the whims of 15 governments with very different concerns.

In Lower Saxony, there are even suggestions that Fischler twice telephoned Funke to persuade him to accept Schröder's offer to move from regional to national farm chief.

Funke has said openly that he favours the introduction of greater market forces into the long-cushioned EU agricultural market and can support the Commission's approach “in principle”. After all, he says, Union heads of government agreed unanimously to continue the process of reform, so who are the farm ministers to argue? But Funke's greater enthusiasm for reform does not mean that he will be a soft touch, according to those who have seen him at work in Lower Saxony over the years. Nor does it mean that he will be happy to roll over and accept Fischler's plans just like that. “Believing in Father Christmas is more likely than that,” he said in typical homespun style.

While describing himself as a “liberal”, he has made it known that Fischler's proposals cannot be accepted without cast-iron guarantees that compensation will be commensurate with the price cuts.

As minds focus on the Union's self-imposed March deadline for polishing off the Agenda 2000 reforms, Funke will enjoy another significant advantage over the other German politicians who have preceded him in the hot-bed of EU farm reform.

Where those that went before had to answer to the whims of the Bavarian farm lobby and dared not do anything which might lose the centre-right coalition any votes, Funke knows that farmers are a lost cause as far as the Social Democrats are concerned. In September's election, less than one in six farmers voted red and just one in five for the Greens.

The whole picture has also changed almost beyond recognition over the past few weeks, as German calls for cuts in its budget contribution have found resonance elsewhere, with France reportedly prepared to accept the gradual reduction of farm aid payments as the only way to prevent some CAP money being “renationalised”.

Germany, which together with France dictates the direction of farm policy, can be guaranteed to defend its interests with determination, even though Funke will be forced to play the role of honest broker from the chair.

“When he wants something, he is a pretty dogged character,” says a German farm lobbyist. “He maybe doesn't worry so much about the small details, but he is a very skilled politician.”

That skill was highlighted during recent debates over tax reform in Germany. With Bonn's controversial new Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine pushing for an end to the special exemptions enjoyed by the farming industry, Funke bravely stood his ground, winning concessions for a lobby which was beginning to fear it had lost its once considerable influence over Germany's power-brokers for ever.

In the run-up to the election, Funke admitted that he was not entirely sure what was in the Social Democrats' party programme. Despite this, he was in total control of the agriculture brief during lengthy coalition talks with the Green Party, which was pushing for a more radical shake-up of the CAP to give it a more ecological edge.

Funke's disarming openness and ready humour have not always endeared him to the more left-wing Greens, with whom the Social Democrats used to govern in coalition in Lower Saxony. “Politically correct he isn't,” said one German official.

On one occasion, he was heard to sing the praises of one of his region's foremost agriculturalproducts. “Oldenburger Butter hilft dir auf die Mutter” is an expression suggesting unconventional uses for dairy spreads in the ancient town of Oldenburg.

The Greens were outraged, even if the controversy did Funke little harm among his farming constituents.

“Apart from showing his more irreverent side, I think that incident showed why he is so successful,” says a German political journalist who knows Funke well. “He amuses people and keeps them on his side, so they want to do business with him.”

But there are those who fear this spirit of cooperation will not necessarily last in his relations with his Green coalition partners.

In a country where the green movement is so influential, the smart money is on a clash sooner rather than later with Green Party Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin over the future direction of rural policy, and few would be surprised if the farm minister came off second-best.

Away from the negotiating table, Funke does have one thing in common with Borchert - a love of hunting. If he has one regret about his recent promotion it is that he will be unable to find as much time as before to indulge his passion.

In the hunt for a compromise on perhaps the most radical ever shake-up of the CAP, Funke may have no option but to place a gun to the heads of his more stubborn EU colleagues.

BIO