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				Anger Over German Plan To Unite Europe

By Tony Paterson in Berlin, June 5, 2000, IHT

THE call by Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister, for a new thrust towards European political union with France and Germany, applauded in its immediate aftermath, appeared by late last week anything but the carefully-coordinated plan it was originally claimed to be.

Not only did Jean Pierre Chevènement, France's interior minister, accuse Germany of pursuing latent hegemonistic designs over Europe, but Spain, Denmark and Poland, the largest and most significant candidate waiting for European Union membership, expressed alarm over the idea of further political integration.

Aleksander Kwasniewski, the Polish President, dismissed Mr Fischer's speech as an "attempt to create new dividing lines in Europe". Adam Michnik, one of Poland's most prominent intellectuals and senior government adviser, said he wanted to remain "a citizen of an independent Poland until I die".

Bronislaw Geremek, the Polish foreign minister, articulated the concerns of most of his countrymen in pointing out that as a citizen of a country "that had only recently regained its sovereignty", he was not prepared to support the idea of Poland being subsumed by a "fully federal Europe".

Apart from the issue of national sovereignty, eastern European candidate countries for EU membership are seriously concerned by Mr Fischer's vision of a two-speed Europe. In his speech at Berlin's Humboldt University two weeks ago, Mr Fischer said that France and Germany should be on a fast track to full integration with other member states opting in later.

But eastern Europe sees the two-speed approach as a barrier that would exclude them from an inner circle when they join the Union over the next few years. Opposition to Mr Fischer's views on similar grounds is also shared by Britain and Spain. Poul Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister, challenged the proposal saying: "I see no need for a federal Europe. I see the need for closer co-operation on the basis of our current agreements."

Instead of giving the languishing Franco-German alliance a desperately needed boost, Mr Fischer's speech appears to have had the opposite effect. Germany had banked on being able to revive its flagging relationship with its most important European partner in the run-up to France assuming the EU presidency in five weeks' time.

The speech appears to have gone too far. "Germany is still dreaming of the German Holy Roman Empire. It has not yet healed from the historical accident of Nazism," said Mr Chevènement. The normally pro-Left Der Spiegel magazine castigated Mr Fischer for "juggling with the catchword federation" at the worst possible moment.

"For EU member states it is like a red rag to a bull," said the editor, Rudolf Augstein. "Old skeletons are being dragged out of the cupboard which suggest that Germany will dominate because of its size and act purely in its own interests."

An embarrassed French government sought to play down the significance of Mr Chevènement's outburst last week by praising Mr Fischer's speech. Hubert Vedrine, Mr Fischer's French counterpart, had clearly not read his brief when he appeared nonplussed by the German initiative.

Referring to the forthcoming French presidency, Mr Vedrine said: "France is not expected to produce intellectual concepts reaching far into the future but a joint response to concrete and practical questions." Claims that the Fischer speech was worked on in close co-operation with France appeared to bear little substance.

It emerged that President Chirac was not informed of its contents beforehand. The German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was given only an outline of the speech. He later dismissed it as "too far-reaching". Part of the problem lies in the personal dislike between Mr Schröder and Lionel Jospin, the French Prime Minister. In the past, personality clashes were overcome by German and French diplomats.

But Mr Fischer has lost the respect of his foreign ministry, whose staff see him as a chaotic worker who hates to read his briefs, preferring to rely on his intuitive intelligence, and fails to communicate or discuss policy with them. His budget has been cut and his diplomatic staff levels have fallen to below that of France.

The end result is that Germany lacks the dynamism in Europe that it had under Chancellor Kohl and his foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher. Mr Fischer is regarded as the most Europhile politician in Germany's Social Democrat-Green coalition government.

He does not share Chancellor Schröder's more pragmatic approach to European affairs. More significantly, his blueprint for a future European order has been seen in Germany as an attempt to put both himself and his party back into the political limelight.

Until only a month ago, Mr Fischer rated as the most popular politician in Germany. The butcher's son turned student radical who went on to become foreign minister, enjoyed a following far larger than that of his own environmentalist Green Party. His account of the way he jogged himself from being a Helmut Kohl-sized gourmand into a skinny teetotaller after the break-up of his marriage is a bestseller.

But his fortunes are on the wane. Mr Fischer's lead has slipped by seven percentage points in the opinion poll popularity stakes, placing him behind Mr Schröder and Angela Merkel, the new leader of the opposition Christian Democrats, His Green Party's fall from grace has been far worse.

Since becoming Mr Schröder's partners in his coalition government 18 months ago, the Greens have suffered defeats in almost every significant regional election in Germany. The party's failure to sell its policies and a lack of fresh ideas have caused young voters to desert in droves.