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“The success of a presidency is decided
long before your own term starts,”
explains an official with extensive experience
in European Union affairs. German
Chancellor Angela Merkel has taken this
view to heart in the months that she has
been preparing for her first turn in the
EU’s rotating presidency starting in January.
On the one hand, she has deliberately
sought to play down expectations
about how much can be accomplished in
Germany’s six months in the job. And on
the other hand, German diplomacy has
been busily laying the groundwork for
some tangible achievements under German
leadership.
This approach is obviously colored
by the often-exaggerated sense of anticipation
that started building up last
spring about the German presidency and
its potential to change conditions in Europe.
A bleak mood reigned in Europe
(then as now), stemming from the deadlock
over the EU constitution and
fuelled by what seems to be general
growing antipathy toward the EU itself.
Suddenly, Germany – and Merkel –
started being touted as the savior capable
of bringing solutions to all these problems.
One reason for the high expectations
was the impressive start of Merkel’s
chancellorship, a performance offering a
sharp contrast to the often-devastating
political situation in neighboring major
European countries. For example, only
weeks after she came to power in October
2005 Merkel emerged as one of the
key players in finding a compromise on
the EU financial package in December.
Suddenly, the dark sky over Europe
seemed to lighten at least a bit, and she
got credit for part of that change.
At first, top officials in Berlin were
flattered. But their mood changed as
more and more requests came in for action
to solve major problems on Germany’s
watch. By the time of the EU
summit in Brussels in June 2006, they
were relieved by the cautious final statements,
which were seen by many Europeans
as a downright failure. That outcome
cleared the path for a more
realistic perspective, at least on the question
of the EU constitution. The timeframe
for a solution now extends far beyond
the end of the German term in
June 2007.
Merkel herself has prepared and positioned
herself carefully for her entry
onto the European stage. As the opposition
leader and chief of the Christian
Democratic party (CDU), she regularly
met with other conservatives from other
EU countries. And she carefully positioned
herself in the center – between
France and Great Britain, between big
and small EU countries. Coming from
East Germany she was – and still is –
considered to be much more sensitive to
eastern European concerns – even
though it was the previous chancellor,
Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder, who
actually drove the entry of the eight
Eastern European democracies into the
EU (against initial French opposition).
So Merkel looks like the ideal power
broker. In international and European
politics, strength is measured in relative
terms, and all her major partners seem
to be weak at the moment: Jacques
Chirac and Tony Blair are lame ducks, so
they cannot afford to support controversial
initiatives on the European level.
Poland under the nationalistic Kacynski
twins (President Lech Kacynski and
Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kacynski)
seems to be moving into isolation even
within Eastern Europe. Among the bigger
member states, only Spain and perhaps
Italy to a lesser degree have domestically
unchallenged pro-EU leaders at
the moment.
Domestic politics has already taught
Merkel how painful it can be not to be
able to live up to high expectations. In
opinion polls, her governing grand coalition
is losing support after decisions to
raise taxes and reform the health system.
In Europe, where the presidency depends
for success on 24 partners, the appetite
for change seems even smaller. So
“our mission is Erwartungs-Management [management of expectations] at the
moment,” admits a top official in the
chancellor’s office. Of course, he adds,
Germany wants to live up to expectations
of seeing Germany play a leading
role in constructive EU developments.
And the German record is not bad in
this respect.
When Germany held the presidency
the last time in 1999, Berlin brokered a
major EU deal on financial perspectives
and got consensus on “Agenda 2000” –
an action program aimed at giving the
EU a new financial framework for the
period 2000-06 with a view to enlargement.
It was no mean feat considering
that the rising costs associated with taking
in new member states had to be reconciled
with France’s interest in keeping
its farm subsidies under the Common
Agricultural Policy. The German government,
then a coalition of Social Democrats
and Greens, also managed to lead
European nations into the Kosovo war
without doing too much damage to relations
with Russia, which was opposed to
outside intervention.
This time, though, there are particular
difficulties, including electoral calendars,
that will make it hard to get decisions
on the single most important issue
on the agenda: the stalled EU constitution.
After the failure of the referendum
on this issue in France, only a newly elected
leader in Paris can take decisions
on how to move on. But the French presidential
elections will not take place until
May, leaving only a month before the
German presidency runs out. This view
of the French situation is shared by all
EU governments – hence their agreement
at the summit last June to push
back any formal deadlines. On this and
other issues, Merkel always has to bear in
mind her domestic situation as the head
of a coalition government in which she
has to work within the terms of the coalition
contract that her Christian Democrats
signed with the Social Democrats.
On a more positive note, what the
German government thinks it can do in
its presidency on the constitutional
problem is to start paving the way for a
breakthrough later on. The declared aim
is still to save as much as possible of the
draft constitution. As German officials
constantly repeat, the majority of EU
states have ratified the proposed constitution,
so over time pressure will build
on those states that have not ratified yet
or are not willing to try to. Even Romania
and Bulgaria, which join the union
on January 1, have ratified the draft. In
her thinking, Merkel sees a fresh opportunity
in the planned “informal summit”
on March 25 – commemorating the 50th
anniversary of the treaty of Rome in
1957 – to raise awareness of what binds
Europeans together and thus reinforce
the point that the constitution is necessary.
Even, Berlin hopes, ratification reluctant
governments will be inclined to
try moving ahead. And the German
presidency hopes to be able in June, as it
hands over the EU presidency, to bring
out a roadmap for the constitution that
could lead to a decision during the
French presidency of the EU – in the
second half of 2008.
Until then, even Merkel now stresses,
it is unlikely that a decision can be
reached. This new view may not sound
ambitious, but the German government’s
recent experience with this issue has convinced
Berlin that it will be a success to
just keep alive the idea that the EU needs
a constitution. Berlin clings to this vision
even though both Nicolas Sarkozy and
Segolene Royal, the two leading candidates
in France, have both already made
it clear that they want major changes in
any new draft constitution.
In comparison to the constitution
impasse, other foreseeable items seem
secondary on the German agenda. Normally,
a country holding the EU presidency
can be expected to look for ways
to improve its image, usually by pushing
a major new “directive.” But directives
take years of preparation by the European
Commission before any decision
can be reached, and right now the
pipeline of new EU regulations is rather
empty. Under President Manuel Barroso,
the Commission has been reluctant to
launch initiatives on new directives. For
many leaders, this might seem problematic,
but Merkel is determined to turn it
into an advantage for her policies.
Domestically, she has declared that
the reduction, not extension, of state regulation
is one of her major aims – and
public opinion appears to have reacted
favorably to this. Extending this approach
to her EU role, the German government
pressed hard at the EU summit
meeting last June and succeeded in getting
agreement on tasking the Commission
to report on ways of cutting red
tape in the EU bureaucracy in order to
make the European project more popular
with Europeans. Unfortunately the
EU Commissioner charged with the
Bürokratieabbau – a German, Günter
Verheugen – recently blotted his copy
book in Brussels with a controversial
(some people say unwarranted) attack
on the overall quality of EU employees.
Germany also wants to launch a general
debate on what programs need to be
completed to put in place an integrated
EU as planned. The Commission has
been told to present an inventory of
what has been done and what remains to
be done to implement the already agreed
blueprint for a fully integrated
single market. This exercise, involving a
review and some recommendations, will
provide an opportunity for a deeper debate
on where the EU wants to go and
what it still hopes to achieve.
Similarly, Berlin has asked the Commission
to schedule several reports for
completion in the first half of 2007 while
Germany is in the chair. For example, a report
on energy policy is due at the spring
summit: that calendar allows time before
the EU summit in June (marking the end
of the German presidency) for Berlin to
assume leadership in planning a European
strategic energy concept that addresses the
challenges of security of supply and the
right mix of fuels in EU energy consumption.
Here the German government is
heading for a conflict with the Commission,
which is pressing for more European
regulation in energy against the objections
in Berlin to the emergence of an EU-wide
regulatory authority.
Energy has special relevance to the
German presidency because of the singular
German-Russian relationship on
energy and Berlin’s role as the main interlocutor
on this subject with Moscow.
Merkel’s entourage project confidence
that she is the European leader who can
find a compromise on this thorny topic
with Moscow – a possibility that is probably
enhanced by the fact that Germany
also holds the G8 presidency starting in
January, 2007.
Although she is well-placed in these
respects, Merkel will find her room for
maneuver restricted by political factors
that limit her options. There is intense
debate these days about the efforts in
some countries to foster national champions,
particularly in the energy sector.
On the question of nuclear energy,
which is finding new supporters in many
countries, Merkel is bound by her government’s
coalition agreement with the
Social Democrats to maintain course on
the “nuclear exit” strategy set by the previous
German government. So this German
domestic commitment is liable to
limit her flexibility about possible accords
on energy in the European Union
and the G8.
All these preparations for a quietly
constructive, rather low-key presidency
may be shot to pieces by foreign crises
that boil up on the EU during Germany’s
watch. The situation in Serbia may deteriorate
as pressures build up to decide
the future of Kosovo. Iran and its controversial
nuclear program are very much
on the agenda, possibly with escalation
in view if the UN Security Council imposes
sanctions on Tehran. Nobody
knows if the UN mission in Lebanon
(UNIFIL), in which the EU is heavily involved,
will stay as calm as it is now.
An even trickier matter could be the
current uneasy compromise with Turkey
(to “freeze” eight chapters of the 28 involved
in the accession negotiations).
For the German presidency, this matter
– like energy questions – has sensitive
national overtones. The question of
Turkish membership in the EU is by far
the biggest difference on EU policy between
coalition partners in Berlin. Since
Merkel is opposed to Turkey’s membership,
her actions as EU president will be
scrutinized with care (and even suspicion)
by her coalition partner in Berlin,
the Social Democrats, who favored the
start of accession talks. Merkel has always
maintained that she will abide by
EU decisions taken before her election as
chancellor – theoretically including a favorable pursuit of the Turkish accession
process. But she stills favors “privileged
partnership” with Turkey – a status short
of full membership.
In practice, the German government
would like to reframe the Turkish question
in a broader context about the capacity
of the EU to absorb more new
members. There is growing resentment
against further enlargement of the union
– the phenomenon of “enlargement fatigue”
mentioned recently by the president
of the Commission. Merkel wants
to intensify the debate about the EU’s absorption
capacity, a goal she will probably
pursue indirectly by proposing that
the EU overhaul and intensify its “neighborhood
policy” dealing with nations
that do not get membership in the EU. In
addition, the EU is aware that it desperately
needs a strategy on the Black Sea
region, on Georgia and throughout Central
Asia.
The chancellor is warily conscious of
the need to keep a balanced approach: If
Europe looks East for a “strategic partnership,”
it has to look west as well to its
true and first partner – the United States.
Merkel slowly warmed up to the idea for
talking about a transatlantic free trade
zone, at least as a distant perspective.
More short term is the aim to at least
link up with Washington on regulatory
questions on standards and other non-tariff barriers to trade (and investment).
And, of course, there will be a related
push to save the stalled Doha talks on
global trade liberalization.
An experiment in this presidency
will be a strengthened “troika” practice
in the form of tighter, stronger coordination
with the two presidencies that will
follow: Portugal and Slovenia. The goal is
a more stable EU agenda, which shifts
less every six months with the leadership
of a country that has its own regional
and national preferences. To implement
this more stable approach, German officials are already in talks with their counterparts
in Ljubljana and Lisbon. A first
outcome is a work-share in the “neighborhood
policy”: Berlin will concentrate
in its term on the contacts to the eastern
frontier of the EU, Portugal will then follow
with the southern frontier. In these
contacts, Germany, given its exceptional
size and geo-economic weight, has to
tread tactfully in order to avoid giving
the impression that it aspires to a de facto
18-month EU presidency.
One crystal-clear point about the
playbook for the German presidency:
Merkel is determined to avoid letting
Berlin monopolize all the attention. She
wants to use the limelight to play up
German regions. Many council meetings
will be held in other parts of Germany,
no doubt a lot of them in cities in eastern
Germany, where Merkel was born. She
started her political career in what was
then East Germany and last year took
President George Bush to her Baltic Sea
constituency in the eastern German state
of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania –
where she has already scheduled the next
G8 summit talks. EU meetings in this region
will also signal to other nearby new
democracies that Merkel wants to see the
center of the EU shift eastwards.
In making such meticulous preparations
for a smooth EU presidency,
Merkel is taking a very workmanlike approach,
both to the potential domestic
benefits and to her international role as
the EU’s titular leader during the first
half of the year.
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