Newsletter 2014/01/27 – The World’s Expectations
MUNICH (Own report) – In the run-up to the Munich Security Conference,
prominent German foreign policy specialists are calling for “German
Leadership” in the EU’s foreign and military policy activities. It is
“the responsibility of the powerful, … to insure Europe’s ability to
act,” wrote the former German Minster of Defense, Volker Rühe recently
in a newspaper column: “Germany must lead.” As the Security
Conference’s Director, Wolfgang Ischinger, explained, Germany “must
massively bring to bear its foreign policy in Europe.” Since the
beginning of the crisis, “Germany’s clout” has grown in the EU, and
“so have the world’s expectations on German leadership.” The
prerequisites for a German-European global policy seem favorable,
since the German government laid the groundwork for integrating France
into its foreign policy, last week. As both countries’ foreign
ministers announced, in the future, they will coordinate closely with
one another and even take joint trips abroad. In this cooperation,
Berlin is operating from a position of strength vis à vis Paris –
seriously weakened by the crisis – and can presume that it will
largely pursue its interests in the framework of this alleged
cooperation.
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