BERLIN, Sept. 20 (UPI) -- France and Germany -- for years this meant one of the strongest alliances in Europe. Yet the skies between Berlin and Paris have become clouded ever since President Nicholas Sarkozy took over.
To see what has changed, all you need do is compare the two past French rulers: There is Jacques Chirac, Sarkozy’s predecessor, who in his last years in office came across as the polite grandfather of European politics; (almost) always diplomatically cautious in his speeches, gallantly kissing the hand of German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- a charmeur, as the French say.
And then there is Sarkozy: He has also kissed Merkel’s hand, but this is where the similarities end: Sarkozy resembles a political dervish: Highly energetic and ambitious, some say bullish and reckless in his diplomatic initiatives.
Sarkozy’s latest initiative took Berlin by surprise -- to put it mildly.
German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that the French president at a bilateral meeting in Germany earlier this month left Merkel and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier “speechless” when he offered them cooperation in the French nuclear weapons program. Steinmeier then politely refused, saying that Germany had no ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons.
“Sarkozy bewilders Berlin every week anew,” the magazine writes. "The plan to sit out the newcomer's initial rage has not come together.”
The conflict with Iran over its nuclear program has especially sparked some disagreements.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner shocked Europe when he said the world needed to be prepared for “war” with Iran if it did not refrain from its nuclear ambitions. The remarks as well as Paris’ initiative to call for European Union-mandated sanctions against Iran if the United Nations didn’t agree on them didn’t resonate well in Berlin.
Merkel’s spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said earlier this week it would be “totally wrong” to launch “war threats.”
Germany and France have in the past cooperated on negotiations with Iran; the latest initiative, however, was not coordinated with close ally Germany. Neither was Kouchner’s trip to Baghdad, where the French foreign minister demonstrated closer ties with Washington.
Paris, it seems, is eager to score individual diplomatic victories like the one in Libya, when Sarkozy’s wife, Cecilia, managed to free five Bulgarian nurses -- without informing its EU partners beforehand.
France’s new Iran course also reflects the closer ties with the United Kingdom and the United States; both London and Washington would like to see sanctions in place sooner rather than later, and leaders in the three capitals seem to have lost hope of convincing Russia and China, both U.N. Security Council members, to agree to a further round of sanctions -- so EU sanctions seem to be the only alternative. It is unsure, however, if Berlin would play along with such a plan. And experts in Germany aren’t ecstatic about bypassing the Security Council by launching EU sanctions.
“I am not sure if this is the right way,” Martin Koopmann, France expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations, a Berlin-based think tank, Wednesday told United Press International in a telephone interview. “Berlin should explain Paris the added value of a European diplomatic way that is closely tied to a U.N. process.”
France, however, also has its problems with Germany’s position toward Iran.
Recently, Sarkozy has criticized the fact that several German companies do business in the Islamic Republic. And indeed, Germany is Iran’s No. 1 trading partner; several hundred firms invest in Iran or export goods there, including giants such as Siemens and BASF.
However, trade has dropped in 2006 and 2007, and several German banks have pulled out of the country.
Koopmann said Sarkozy’s different style does not necessarily have to be bad for French-German relations.
“It paves the way for a less exclusive, more EU-open relationship between the two countries,” he said.
