Speech
before the Los Angeles World Affairs Council on April 10, 2001:
His Excellency Kurt Biedenkopf
Minister President of Saxony and Senior Member
of the Christian Democratic Union Party
“Germany’s Role in Europe”
Thank you, Mr. President Mack. Thank you very much for inviting me. Thank you all for coming to this lunch and giving me an
opportunity to make a few remarks on the subject matter of the role of Germany
in Europe. Before I do so, I want
to express my deep gratitude for the preparation of this get-together to
Professor Schnauber and to our Consul General.
You have been very kind in taking me in, and it was really at the
suggestion of Professor Schnauber that I’m here. He came to visit me in Dresden and we talked about the
possibility, not only of visiting the Shoah Foundation, which we will this
afternoon, but also of using this opportunity to address the World Affairs
Council in Los Angeles. To me,
I’ve been in many places in the United States for the last fifty years, but
it’s the first time I’m in Los Angeles, and so I can fill a very important
gap in my general education.
In speaking about Germany’s role in Europe, we will first have to decide which
Germany we’re talking about. Are we talking about the united Germany?
Of course, we are--from now on. Or
the last ten years and into the future. Or
are we talking about the divided Germany? The
role of Germany was first defined during a period--and that was by far the
longer period so far since 1950--by a divided Germany in Europe.
It was Helmut Schmidt who many years ago before the end of the Cold War,
in the early 80s, said that Germany was an economic giant and a political dwarf.
What he was trying to say was that Germany—the divided Germany, and we
are talking about the western part of the divided Germany with about 80 percent
of the German population—Germany was, indeed, after the reconstruction after
the Second World War a very strong economy, making a very significant
contribution, not only to the well being and development of its own population,
but also to Europe’s.
On the other hand, not only the division of Germany, but also the past of
Germany, the first half of the 20th century in particular the Nazi
regime and the terrible terror it exercised in the Holocaust, the unfathomable
crimes that were committed, were burdening Germany’s role and, of course,
defining it at the same time.
Germany was very adamant not to exercise any significant political influence on
its own. Germany was hesitant in
defining its own national interests. As a matter of fact, for a long period of time even after
Germany was united, the definition of national interests by the German
government was rather hesitant, if it took place at all Germany wanted to be in
the mainstream of European politics for many reasons.
Hans Dietrich Gensetter, when he was once asked before he left the office
of foreign minister about German national interests, said that there was no
difference between the interests of Europe and the interests of Germany.
So, Germany was very instrumental in bringing the Europe about that we call
Europe--and what we really mean is the European Union, or what then was the
European Economic Community. [Germany]
was instrumental not only because it participated in the process, but also
because it pushed the process along. It
was indeed in the very prime interests of Germany, the post-war Germany, the
divided Germany, to participate in the process that was put into motion by
Schuman, deGaspeie and Adenauer, and it was really signaled by a most famous
speech of Churchill in 1946 in Zurich, when Churchill for the first time after
the Second World War talked about the possibility of an integration, a political
integration, of Europe as a final step to securing peace in Europe after
European nations had been at each other’s throats for so many times and for so
many centuries.
One of the first moves to do that was to integrate the coal and steel industries
of Germany, Belgium, Holland, France and Luxemburg as a move to make future wars
in Germany impossible. Today we would think after 55 years of peace in Europe, we
would think that this was really a very unusual way to do it because coal and
steel today do not define the strength of a nation.
But at that time it did define the strength of nation, whether it
had steel and coal as the base for the production of weaponry or for economic
power. From the coal and steel
community emanated the first real step into European integration that was again
pushed forward very substantially also by West Germany, and that was the
European Economic Community based on the so-called Rome Treaties from 1957.
From that time on, the first ten years with a German president of the
Commission, Walter Haustein, from that time on Germany was very instrumental in
bringing about integration. The
goal, the final goal, was always political, and not only economic integration.
For Germany that was much easier than for the other participant countries,
because Germany had a desire, the German population had a desire, of getting
away from questions of national identity and, rather, trying to replace or to
substitute national identity by an idea of a European identity and a European
citizenry. Now, that was almost
Utopian at the time when it started, but today it looks much more likely.
The further enlargement of the European Union by the entry of Britain and
then Spain and Portugal, Greece and others relativated to a certain extent the
economic weight of Germany, but Germany remained on the basis of its size--it
has 82 million inhabitants today and West Germany had about 64 million before
unification--on the basis of its population, and its economic power [Germany]
did have a very substantial economic weight.
And in a community that defines itself by economic criteria the European
Economic Community, of course, the weight of Germany in Europe was rather
significant.
Now, unification was much more than an enlargement, as Mr. Mack said.
In 1991, the Koenig’s Winter Conference, which is a
German-British enterprise, for now 51 years, met for the first time outside of
Cambridge-Harvard, in Dresden. I
was hosting a meeting, and in my remarks I said that the united Germany is not
an enlargement of West Germany, but …something different, something new, which
greatly irritated the British ambassador, who didn’t like the idea that the
united Germany would be something different.
But indeed it was something different.
And this being different was a problem that Europe had to cope with.
I think it coped with this problem in a very visionary way, by saying if
Germany is united, and all neighbors--we have nine territorial neighbors--if all
neighbors agreed to this process of unification plus the world powers, America
and Russia, or at that time the Soviet Union, what we should do is push for
further European integration to cope with this new situation.
This is exactly what happened in Maastricht.
At Maastricht, Europe decided to introduce a common currency.
Now from the outside that common currency was looked upon primarily as an
economic vehicle, a vehicle of further economic integration.
But it is much more than that. The
idea of the Euro was to make the European integration process irreversible by
integrating the economies, the monetary system and everything, in such a way
that it would be as impossible to dissolve like it is impossible to unscramble a
scrambled egg. It should be
permanent in the sense that no one could opt out.
This is, indeed, the idea on which the European Union today is based.
And it seems to work, even if there is a lot of controversy and conflict
within this multinational community.
So the Euro was an instrument of making sure that Germany would be, and remained
to be integrated in Europe.
The American answer to European unification is very interesting, and it was not
without irritation that it was received. At
the time of German unification, President Bush offered Germans a partnership in
leadership in a speech that he made in commenting on German unification and
describing his own visions of the future of Germany and the relations between
the United States and Germany. Now
for may Europeans, including many Germans, the idea of a partnership in
leadership between the United States and Germany was something not quite
compatible with the idea of full German integration into Europe.
It would have made much more sense if the United States would have said,
now that the Cold War has ended and the division of Europe has been overcome--
because not only Germany’s division was overcome, but the inclusion of the
Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, the Polish Republic, the Hungarian, into
Europe--they all being European nations was now possible, would have made much
more sense to say that there should be a partnership in leadership between the
United States and Europe and the world. But
the President of the United States talked about a partnership with Germany.
The unification process and addresses like these raised the question of what is
the national identity of Germany.
It’s going to continue to be a very difficult question, not only because of
the past that I’ve already referred to, and that will always be part of German
history, but also because Germany never really was a nation-state.
In very basic difference to France and Great Britain, the Germans until
the middle of the 19th century defined their nation not through the
state, but through common culture, common history, and common language and they
had been doing this for hundreds of years.
If you look at an old German dictionary, let’s say from the middle of
the 19th century, what it says under the caption of “nation”-- I
have one in my office and I’ve read that caption to a great number of foreign
ambassadors who come to visit me in my capacity of Chairman of Foreign Relations
Committee of the Upper House, the Bundesrat--it says there that France and Great
Britain, as the two outstanding examples, define nation through the state, the
nation-state, while Germany defines its nation, not through the state but
through culture. Then there's this
beautiful sentence: “the German nation is so strong it can carry several
states.” Well, it did
carry several states. Saxony was an
independent state until 1870. So
was Bavaria and Prussia. There was
no nation in the sense that we know it today.
Germany does not have long term problems with what national identity
should be. But because they are not
a nation state they have less problems envisioning a political integration of
Europe.
There is another aspect to this relationship between Germany and Europe.
Germany has a federal structure. Germany
is the only nation in Europe, with the exception of Switzerland, which has a
real federal structure, meaning that the sources or the source of sovereignty or
the roots of sovereignty, are in the states, not in the federation.
This is very much like the situation in the United States, where the
states formed the federation. In
the German constitution all states are listed as the ones who have formed the
Federal Republic of Germany. So we
have a federal system and that means that our states are the source of
sovereignty, even though most of the sovereignty is now concentrated in the
federal structure. But we have the
same kind of calls on competence and jurisdiction between the states and the
federation that you have in the United States, and that we’re going to have
and continue to have between the nation state and the European commission and
the other European institutions.
Now, for Germany to integrate into Europe was easier because of a more vaguely
defined nation and it was easier because of the federal structure.
At the same time, the federal structure was an indispensable prerequisite
for Germany’s integration into Europe. I
always say that the federal structure made Germany compatible with the European
Union. Being the largest state with
the strongest economy, if it had been or if it were as centrally governed as
France or Great Britain, this would be a tremendous problem for the European
Union because the largest country with a central government would certainly have
tendencies of hegemony and tendencies of hegemony would be very difficult to
absorb in a Europe of fifteen or more nations, all of whom are much smaller in
population than Germany. The four
largest ones, of course, are France, Great Britain, Italy, and Germany.
France, Great Britain, and Italy, all have about 55 million, and Germany
has 82 million inhabitants and a very substantially higher GDP per capita and in
toto.
So now what are we talking about when we talk about Europe?
Germany’s role in Europe. What
Europe are we talking about? Are we
talking about the European Union? Or
are we talking about Europe as a historic phenomena or, let me put it this way,
about Latin Europe? All that
is made up by the European history. We
are increasingly talking about Latin Europe.
So if we address ourselves to Europe, we don’t mean the European Union,
we mean the European Union plus Poland, plus Hungary, plus Romania--which is one
of the old Roman colonies of the Roman Empire--and a great number of the Baltics.
All of these are a part of the Latin European development, with very few
exceptions [such as] where the Byzantine roots become apparent.
But, of course, we would like to have this Europe included in the
European Union, that’s one of the main reasons for enlargement.
Another important reason for enlargement, of course, is that these countries
which have not yet joined the European Union want to become members of the
European Union to participate in this political structure, which is going to
guarantee peace in Europe, if anything ever guarantees peace in Europe.
It is a different quality in the history of Europe from anything that we
have witnessed so far. So, we’re
talking about the Europe that is going to be and the European Union that is the
driving institutional set-up and the creation of an order of peace and
government by law.
Germany in this Europe is, of course, as a consequence of its size and its
economic and political weight, a very important part.
But it has always been our policy, as I have already relayed to you, to
protect Europe from falling apart again or degenerating into a free trade area.
We do not want Europe as a free trade area, we want Europe as a political
entity. It is interesting enough to
comment on this in the relationship to the United States.
The United States during the Cold War period was always interested in a
relative independence of Europe. I’ve
participated in many conferences during the last forty years in which
discussions were held on whether there should be a European pillar within NATO.
And now we are approaching the possibility of a European pillar within
NATO, and that creates irritations. The
relationship between Europe and the United States after unification of
Europe--I’m not talking about unification of Germany--and the end of the Cold
War has dramatically changed, too. During
the Cold War and the division of Europe, America was the indispensable protector
of Europe from the dangers that emanated from the Soviet Union.
And that was the real set-up. There
was Europe economically growing strong participating in world trade, and there
was the United States as the world power giving guidance and, of course,
protection to NATO territory and to Europe.
The Europeans have gotten used to that kind of establishment and division of
labor, but we will have to change that. After
the end of the Cold War and the enlargement of Europe and the inclusion of
Poland and others in the NATO set-up, we will have to redefine our relationship
and the function of Europe within this relationship.
One of the important partners in this process of definition, of course,
is Germany.
But Germany must always be seen as part of a special relationship with France.
The European development after the Second World War is unthinkable
without the French-German connection. One
of the reasons for that is that France and Germany have been antagonists during
European history for the last almost one thousand years.
And this antagonism was considered to be almost irreversible until the
end of the Second World War. The
fact that Adenauer and de Gaulle were capable of bringing the two nations, or
the two countries--the nation-state of France and the divided Germany--together,
was the cornerstone of the European development.
And the relationship between Germany and France will continue to be a
cornerstone--not the only one-- but a cornerstone of European
development.
So the role of Germany, to close with this summary, in Europe is threefold.
One Germany has a very substantial responsibility for the future of
Europe both economically and politically, and so far it has tried to adhere to
that responsibility. Two, Germany
is with the enlargement of the European Union, Germany is in the geographic
center of the European Union, which burdens her with substantial
responsibilities in relationship to the new members and, of course, the Poles,
the Czechs, and others are looking to Germany to help them be integrated and
come through and manage to absorb the tremendous structural changes that are
connected with becoming members of the European Union for these potentially new
members. And third, Germany has to shoulder the
responsibilities--economic, political, and military--in the future development
of Europe as a peace force in the Mediterranean, in the Near East, and in other
areas of common interest to the United States and Europe in the framework of
NATO. All this will take place in
the framework of European integration.
Germany will, as far as we all can see, never be an independent totally
sovereign state, and nobody in Germany wants to return to that status.
We have transferred very substantial sovereignty rights to Europe, as all
others have, and we are now in the process of learning to manage these shared
sovereignties on the European level, as a new way of organizing Europe and thus
as a new way of keeping peace in Europe. Germany
will be an indispensable part of it, but it will never again be in a position
for strategic, for political, and for reasons of European integration, to
exercise hegemony in Europe. From
what I can see in Germany itself, there is nobody in the political spectrum who
would like to deviate from that course of development.
Thank you very much.