Die Zeit, Germany

Will It All Be Good Again?

By Joschka Fischer, Vice Chancellor of Germany, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany until 2005

January 14, 2008

What can be expected of the future president of the United States - and what cannot be? And what should Europe do now?

Germany - Die Zeit - Original Article (German)

Who will be the 44th President of the United States?. The preselection process of the American presidential election has not contributed much to the clarificiation of  this not entirely unimportant question.

To predict today the name of the next American president would require true fortune telling capabilities given the unclear situation regarding the candidates .. But the relationship of the United States to Europe and to the principles of international policy can already be foreseen.

If many people (and governments) in Europe have hope despite deep frustration over the policies of the current US government, it will be on election day in the United States that a political miracle is needed to realize these hopes for a fundamental change in American foreign policy. But you can already see that such a miracle - whomever is chosen - will not come.

Certainly, the Bush administration has made many foreign mistakes with far-reaching consequences – waging a war on Iraq and consequently destabilizing the Middle East. And - holy dialectic! – this President, starting with a policy of American global supremacy, has through his foreign policy achieved the exact opposite of his stated objectives, as America's position is considerably weaker today than at the beginning of his term.

Also, the gap between America and Europe has continued to deepen during this time. But George W. Bush neither invented the unilateralism of the United States nor the transatlantic drift between the United States and Europe. Certainly, he has considerably increased debilitating trends in the West (mainly the Americas and Europe), but their real causes lie not in his policy.. They have much more objective historical reasons that arise from the end of the Cold War, America’s being the sole resulting world power and the self-determined weakness of Europe.

As long as this fact about the United States holds, that it remains the sole world power, regardless of whoever the next American president will be, the elementary constellation of American foreign policy is not really something that can be changed.

Beyond this basic orientation of American foreign policy, however, is the core question of whether in the coming American presidential elections the candidate whom is elected will continue the foreign policy of George W. Bush to or even escalate it (Rudi Guliani example), or whether there will be a reorientation .

PART 2

If the first should be the case, then transatlantic continental drift will dramatically strengthen. For another four to eight years of American policy, the model followed the recent past, the transatlantic alliance would be done existential harm.

A genuine change of American policy would see more multilateralism, more working with international institutions and alliances and returning the relationship between the military and diplomacy more toward the traditional approach of American foreign policy. That would be good news.

The bad news would be however, that the world power America says good-bye under such pleasant conditions to its "policy of the free hand" and they just forget their claim to superiority over all other powers and partners. And this more multilateral American policy-oriented pressure, especially on the Europeans, will significantly strengthen our responsibility for international crisis management and conflict resolution: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, the Middle East, Caucasus, Russia, but also the future of Turkey, are only some of the problems identified. Europe should insert the topics of Africa, climatic protection, UN reform and world trade system into the common agenda.

Europe underestimated for a long time its weight and its significance in the development of forces outside of Europe and the international system in the 21st Century. Thus, for example, Europe continues to send fatal signals of apparent weakness both to Russia and USA, which result in the implementation of policies that lead visibly in the wrong direction.

Both the shape of the European unification process, the integration of the interests of sovereign states through community institutions, its new model of power projection, namely a permanent continental peace through the development and integration of entire economies, states and societies (the EU enlargement process) and the geopolitical situation in Europe, along with its political, economic and social weight could actually make a decisive contribution to the shaping of a cooperative world order in the 21st Century. Because of this objective creative potential of the new Europe, all other current international approaches to political order look to it in respect of modernity, progress and peace.

It could happen just as stated! It will not, on the other hand, because European disagreement makes the EU weak and its action limited. Objectively strong but subjectively just a step from the sanitorium, the constitution of the EU can be summed up as a controversial political exaggeration. So, Europe and the politics of George W. Bush created a vacuum that has not been filled, and thus the crisis of the West has significantly worsened in the past seven years.

American weakness increases now in a much changed global political environment, determined especially at the edges of American world power, where Europe is weak and new global giants, such as China and India, are rising.

PART 3

In the face of this global development, does the concept of the West still make sense? I believe so - more than ever. Because a separation would make both sides of the Atlantic much weaker than it would be were the community of the West to be maintained into the future. However, both sides must seriously invest in this future. Protecting traditional transatlantism will not be enough to secure it.

The unilateral overextending of American power provides for a new beginning in US-European relations and is an opportunity. America will be more dependent than before on strong partners, and will be seeking such partnerships. The Europeans should not wait until a new US president or a new president demands these partnerships, but should now lead with ideas and offers.

Why not begin with overcoming the traditional opposition between NATO and the EU - especially since under Sarkozy, French policy toward the Alliance has changed for the better? The maintaining of a mutual regular operational readiness of the leaders in the political bodies of both organizations does not require a major effort.

Why not life EU-US consultations (with the participation of the NATO Secretary General on security issues) to a higher political level, involving the American foreign minister and other cabinet members, such as financial or environmental ministers, several times a year at meetings of the respective EU Councils? Why not a regular annual meeting between the European Council and the US president?

Likewise, regular meetings between the technical committees of the American House of Representatives and Senate and the European Parliament would be of great significance, because the parliaments must ratify (most) international treaties. The fate of the Kyoto Protocol should be a lesson to all parties.

New and more shared responsibilities auger the establishment of a new process of cooperation and coordination across the Atlantic. And such a process can be activated at any time in the context of the existing treaties and institutions. It just requires the creativity and political will of all parties.

One certainty can be found in Europe, but is already coming out of the US election campaign: in the wake of the Europeans the American foreign policy will very quickly orientate toward greater multilateralism.

And that's a good thing. More joint decision-making with more joint responsibility - so should the new transatlantic formula read.

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