GERMANY
82. The prospect of an enhanced ESDI, in the context
of the articulation of new military missions for NATO, is also
likely to sharpen some key differences of emphasis as between
the UK, France and Germany on the future orientation of the Alliance.
One view, generally favoured within Germany and sometimes expressed
by the new German government, is that NATO should remain firmly
a regional organisation—capable of more effective, multilateral,
military deployment and crisis management, but applied only within
Europe. At the Munich Conference on security policy in February
1999, German leaders expressed considerable concern at what was
perceived as the tendency of the US to seek unilateral military
solutions to security problems that affected all Europeans. Gerhard
Schröder, the German Chancellor commented that—
... there is a danger of unilateralism, not by just
anybody but by the United States.
The German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer added
that the "growing tendency to avoid multilateral solutions"
should be seen by Europe as "a challenge to build up its
own political authority".[176]
However, in the four months in which the new government has been
in office, its foreign and security policies have also emphasised
continuity with the previous administration—despite the
presence of the Greens in the coalition, membership of NATO has
not been a debating point. The new government has also announced
a Force Structure Commission to look at the structure of the Bundeswehr,
but we were told that it will not be appointed until after the
Washington Summit, and our impression was that there was not much
sense of urgency about its work—by the time it was due to
report the next election would be looming, and little concrete
action can therefore be expected for at least four years.[177]
83. Our perception from our visit to Bonn in March
was that the government supported the moves in the direction of
a 'new' NATO, but were perhaps more conservative than the UK about
the new missions. The main Green/SPD tensions were demonstrated
in Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer's call for a 'no first use'
of nuclear weapons policy to be adopted by NATO which we discuss
elsewhere in this Report.[178]
We also found that the change in attitudes towards overseas deployments
of German troops had been slow but deep.[179]
At the time of our visit, Germany had 1000 troops already deployed
to the Kosovo region (in FYROM) and had assembled a further 4,500
(plus 500 reserves) ready to go if a peace deal was struck. While
overseas deployment had been ruled by the Constitutional Court
to require an authorising vote of the Bundestag, approval for
the deployment to Macedonia had been by an overwhelming majority.[180]
84. Like the UK, the German government does not wish
to see governments becoming over-involved in defence industry
rationalisations and mergers. But at the same time they also saw
a rationalised and competitive industry as a cornerstone of ESDI.
For the German government, ESDI has three essential elements:
the military; the political; and the industrial. They see the
creation of a unified European defence industry as an essential
third element of the ESDI (alongside the military and political
integration). All our interlocutors whom we met on our visit to
Bonn, whether from government or industry, emphasised this element.[181]
While the German government accepts that in the end the institutional
structure of the ESDI would have to be that on which all the participants
could agree, and that the military redesign should take precedence,
they made it clear that once that process had begun, and political
control of European defence had moved to within the EU, the WEU
will cease to be needed. The German Defence Minister made clear
that they believe that this process of assimilation should be
completed sooner rather than later, as he told the 50th Anniversary
Conference—
It is obvious that we Europeans must increase our
foreign and security policy influence in international affairs.
Europe should speak with one voice and should exercise its global
responsibility ... It will therefore be very important to implement
the decisions of Berlin at the summit in Washington. However,
it is also important to realise as quickly as possible the concrete
perspective of developing a European defence and security policy
as stipulated in the Treaty of Amsterdam. This includes the appointment
of a High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy
as well as instruments enabling the early detection of crises,
including strategy planning and early warning structures. But
it also includes integrating the WEU into the EU soon. Concrete
ideas on how this could be done should be developed in the near
future so that they can be implemented soon, which, means within
a time frame of two years to a maximum of four years ... However,
the military command structures and the armed forces structures
must clearly remain elements of NATO. We do not want to have dual
military structures ... These should supplement the corresponding
US capabilities within the integrated NATO structure. The rapid
merger of WEU and EU would provide a guarantee and would be an
essential precondition for an effective and efficient European
security and defence policy.[182]
85. Germany currently holds the presidencies of both
the EU and the WEU, and it is clear that one of its aims is to
use this dual mandate to produce a firm programme for the development
of the ESDI at the WEU ministerial meeting at Bremen, to be followed-up
at the Cologne EU Summit. Despite this vigorous support for the
development of the ESDI, the Germans nonetheless appeared to have
been taken by surprise by the UK initiative at Portschäch,
as they had been disconcerted by the Austrian initiative in convening
(under its EU Presidency) an informal summit of defence ministers
at Vienna which followed-up the Portschäch initiative. However,
while having obviously been caught on the back foot by Portschäch
and St Malo, it is evident that the German government are determined
to seize the initiative once more in the ESDI debate. They are
pushing hard to have decisions made at the Cologne Summit which
will spell out the end of the WEU and its absorption into the
EU/CFSP. They have now become the pacemakers in the run up to
institutional change, and for them the death of the WEU is foretold.
86. There is a large measure of agreement on the
aims of a strengthened ESDI though there are differences of emphasis
between the main players. It will be necessary to reconcile the
industrial, political and military elements whilst maintaining
transatlantic cooperation. In addressing the industrial restructuring
element, close attention will need to be paid to security of supply
issues.
176 Quoted in New York Times, 15 Feb 1999 Back
177 Meeting
in Bonn, 4 March 1999 Back
178 Paras
36-40 Back
179 Embassy
Briefing, Bonn, 4 March 1999 Back
180 Meeting
with Bundestag Defence Committee, 14 March 1999 Back
181 Meetings
at MoD, Foreign Office, Bonn, 4 March 1999 Back
182 Speech
at the Royal United Services Institute, 9 March 1999 Back
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