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Europe's Strategic Interests the Role of German Foreign and Security Policy En Route to European Self- April 2007 Determination and Global Responsibility

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Europe's Strategic Interests the Role of German Foreign and Security Policy En Route to European Self- April 2007 Determination and Global Responsibility BRUSSELS FOCUS EU-Office Brussels 38, rue du Tacitume B-1000 Brussels Tel: 00 32 22 34 62 80 Fax: 00 32 22 34 62 81 [email protected] www.fes-europe.eu Europe's strategic interests The role of German foreign and security policy en route to European self- April 2007 determination and global responsibility Egon BAHR EGON BAHR, born 1922, professor and former minister of the Federal Republic of Germany was, together with Willy Brandt, the architect of the policy of détente in the 1960s. He is the SPD's most important foreign policy mentor. This text is based on a speech he gave at the 4th Willy-Brandt-Forum of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in Brussels on March 29, 2007. Egon Bahr celebrated his 85th birthday on March 18 of this year. Europe does not threaten anyone, Europe is geared There are three overriding factors which gov- to stability; Europe has no enemies nor does it have ern the orientation of German foreign and any territorial aspirations. It could be a heavy- security policy: America, Europe and Russia. weight force, but Europe as a whole is still reluc- tant to accept its role as a global player. Germany In all this, I believe that the element of paramount should concentrate all its efforts towards ensuring importance is to establish clarification about our that Europe becomes the fifth pole in a multipolar relationship with America. The reasons are simple: world. America is the only superpower, America is the leading power in NATO, and it is thanks to Amer- Discussions about our foreign and security policy ica's credibility and steadfastness that the Cold interests are taking place in a favourable environ- War was brought to a satisfactory conclusion. We ment; there is no current controversy to muddy the are linked to America through principles, some waters. No-one is expecting ground-breaking inno- shared, some not. vation on European issues until the political situa- tion in Paris and London has been resolved after Without claiming that this is a comprehensive view, the presidential elections and the change of leader- I would like to begin with the values we do not ship in the Labour party. On the other hand, we do share. America's values include the death penalty, not need to take account of the successors to ei- the right of private individuals to bear arms, the ther Putin or Bush, since no-one can say who they power of the president to declare war and deploy will be. Quick-fire solutions to the Kosovo negotia- troops without the agreement of the nation's par- tions are not in demand. This is therefore an al- liament, a penal system primarily free of rights for most ideal starting point for an open exchange of the incarcerated where the state decides what views between people from the fields of science, constitutes torture and what does not, illegal kid- government and policy. I mean openness in a dual napping of foreign nationals and the refusal to sense of allowing new initiatives and arguments allow US citizens to be placed under the jurisdic- into the equation. I will attempt to justify my point tion of the International Court in The Hague. The of view and to distil it into a few salient points. USA's refusal to sign up to international treaties continuation Brussels Focus page 2 goes hand in glove with its assumed right to cancel infancy when it comes to achieving a global role. contracts with which America no longer agrees America already has an established identity in this and to wage preventive wars whenever America field, while Europe is still looking for one. stands to gain. The national consciousness and sense of mission are inextricably linked. This amal- An analysis suggests two possible conclusions: one gam represents a moral standard which is non- is that the bond that we experienced between negotiable. The perception of nation and state will Europe and America during the Cold War cannot remain very diverse on both sides of the Atlantic; be reconstituted; and the other is that Europe's these are cultural differences which have devel- self-determination can only be achieved through a oped in the course of history. process of emancipation from America. All of us can name shared principles such as de- America's emancipation from Europe mocracy and pluralism. As the foundation of our alliance with the US, they remain strong enough, Basically, this development began with America's quite apart from the existential economic links; yet own emancipation from Europe. That was set in anyone who unthinkingly invokes a community of motion during the Cold War when the superpower shared values must know that this could produce a observed how its European protégé strove in vain formula of subjugation if our own values are no for decades to achieve its goal of self- longer clearly represented. Without the right to determination, of speaking politically with one assertion of our European principles, we are on the voice. America learned not to take Europe seri- path from protectorate to colony. ously; instead the superpower acted on its own responsibility and in its own interests. It could not and should not have acted any other way. The It is Europe's responsibility to make "co-operation" often-heard complaint of the Europeans of not the buzzword of the century. being informed or even consulted was equally However, there are two points which cannot be often assuaged with assurances that the Americans denied. America would not be the power that it is would mend their ways. One only has to take ac- today without those principles and those principles count of how today's Europe is viewed by Wash- will still apply, whoever becomes the 44th Presi- ington to realise there is no other conclusion to dent of the USA. The fact that those principles are arrive at: there is still no serious date in sight on not shared by Europe could be due - to put it in a which the EU will be able to speak with one voice. somewhat unkind way - to the fact that the Euro- pean states now lack the power which, when they One important step in America's emancipation was did have it, they were not loath to use. The history marked by the inauguration of the present admini- of colonialism remains fresh in people's minds. stration. Although the USA emerged as the victor Conversely, it could be argued in a more favour- of the Cold War, was in a militarily superior posi- able, though honest way, that Europe has learned tion and was not threatened by any other state in the painful and agonising lessons of the dreadful the world, the country embarked upon a gigantic history of its many wars and has made its military rearmament programme, on land and water and in weakness into its strength: Europe's miraculous the air, including new atomic weapons and the recovery, present living standard and attractiveness militarisation of outer space. Any and every state or are the result of peaceful co-existence. Anyone group of states was to be discouraged from even who looks at the great problems of this century - entering an arms race with America. After the the environment, tension between Christianity and humiliating shock of the attacks on September 11, Islam or overcoming terrorism - will have to admit 2001, which were not initiated by any nation state, that this cannot be addressed by the power of the programme was practically nodded through by military hardware, but rather by peaceful co- the Senate and House of Representatives without operation. It is a European responsibility to make discussion and is still being implemented. This set "co-operation" the key word for our century. The in motion an avalanche of arms procurement different perceptions on each side of the Atlantic which went as far as Asia and did not exclude Rus- regarding the perception of nation and state are sia. This process will be limited not by treaties but part of that different culture which represents an by the financial and technical means at the disposal unchangeable result of history. of the individual countries in question. Monitoring of armaments is therefore effectively off the inter- Yet this fact does not need to pose such a big hur- national agenda. dle for fertile co-operation in the future as it did in the past. Based on the aforementioned solid foun- One truly disastrous step in the direction of eman- dations, the awareness of joint similar or divergent cipation was seen in America's response to interests will be of key importance. America has a Europe's unqualified demonstration of solidarity. global responsibility and is indispensable when it The feelings of loyalty following September 11 comes to providing a policing role. Europe is in its were free of any political calculation, after the united front against terror was born and the UN continuation Brussels Focus page 3 mandate for action against the terrorists in Af- and the Alliance in the Iraq crisis. It could well be ghanistan had followed. For the first time in its that we are witnessing a partly cautious and partly history, NATO offered to invoke Art. 5 of the NATO reluctant methodic adjustment of American policy treaty for collective self-defence. Washington's to the realisation that month by month China and polite gratitude and its decision to choose between India are becoming stronger and Russia is not the Willing and Unwilling (those "for" and growing weaker; in other words, that an American "against" us), split the NATO alliance, and its dif- orientation towards multipolarity has become inevi- ferentiation of "old" and "new" Europe divided table.
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