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Geopolítica-Geoestratégia-Política de Defesa => Mundo => Tópico iniciado por: dremanu em Junho 04, 2004, 03:30:33 pm
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Leiam este artigo sobre as relações Franco/Alemãs, e vejam como os interesses nacionaís condicionam as atuações entre países.
Deduzam daqui lições para o relacionamento de Portugal/Espanha.
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Je t'aime, ich auch nicht
Jun 3rd 2004 | BERLIN AND CAEN
From The Economist print edition
Behind the smiles for the cameras, the Franco-German relationship is more fragile than meets the eye
WHEN Germany's Helmut Kohl and France's François Mitterrand held hands at the battlefields of Verdun 20 years ago, it was a high point of Franco-German reconciliation. When their successors, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and President Jacques Chirac, gather in Normandy on June 6th to commemorate the 60th anniversary of D-Day, their meeting will be equally moving and symbolic. It will be the first time a German leader has participated in D-Day celebrations, and will be followed by a Franco-German “reconciliation ceremony” at the Caen Memorial Museum. Yet, this moment could in fact mark the beginning of a more difficult period between France and Germany.
The remarkable friendship spanning over 50 years between the two countries has had its ups and downs. Indeed, the countries' current leaders got off to a bad start. When the centre-left Mr Schröder became chancellor in 1998, he spent more time courting Britain's Tony Blair. President Chirac, expecting the German conservatives to oust Mr Schröder at the polls, concentrated his efforts on them. The result was stalemate, both between the two countries and within the European Union.
Since then, however, Messrs Chirac and Schröder have overcome their lack of natural affection for each other to make the relationship work. Early opposition to the Iraq war united the pair. They agreed to a surprise deal on farm subsidies and on the EU constitution. By January 2003, on the 40th anniversary of the Elysée treaty that cemented the relationship, the two leaders inched closer still by launching a new effort to co-ordinate domestic and European policy. Mr Schröder even let Mr Chirac stand in for him at one European summit. The couple backed each other as they squelched the EU's stability pact by repeatedly ignoring its budget-deficit rules. There was even talk of a veritable “Bund franco-allemand” (Franco-German union), which would include a joint foreign policy and a German deputy to the French representative at the UN Security Council.
Don't stand so close to me
Today, such ideas sound far-fetched. Instead, there is relief in Germany—certainly among those who feared that the country had wedded itself too closely to France over Iraq—that last year's close co-operation has not gelled into the beginnings of a “counterweight” to America. Germany has swung back towards its traditional position of equidistance between France and America. It is now calling for its own seat at the UN Security Council, instead of trying to piggyback on the French one. More importantly, Mr Schröder and his foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, have managed to restore pretty normal relations with George Bush—without having to change their position on the war in Iraq.
There is also much less talk in Germany these days—at least outside the chancellery—about a “core Europe”. Mr Fischer, long a proponent of the idea of an “avant-garde” or “pioneer group” of countries to promote EU integration, now argues that this would leave Europe too weak to deal with its big strategic challenges, which he identifies as globalisation and terrorism. In the enlarged EU of 25, many in Germany consider close Franco-German relations to be necessary, but not sufficient to drive the project forward. Mr Fischer, in particular, seems keen to involve the British.
This shift contrasts starkly with France. Behind the handshakes between Presidents Bush and Chirac, who meet for dinner à deux on June 5th in Paris, remains a profound Franco-American distrust. Any French sense of vindication over the war in Iraq has been tempered by growing fears about the security risk and the intensified anti-western sentiment that it has produced. Though the French say they will not veto the new UN resolution over Iraq, they are pushing the Americans hard to hand over full sovereign power. Michel Barnier, the new foreign minister, said bluntly last week that France “will not send soldiers, now or later.”
Nor have the French abandoned their ambitions for a “multipolar” world, a notion that infuriates the Americans since it supposes that a fortified Europe would counter-balance American supremacy. Hence President Chirac's enthusiasm for EU pioneering groups, in particular on defence. In this respect, the French reluctantly recognise the need to include Britain. Yet this poses difficulties, since the French also distrust Britain's pro-American reflex. The French are probably more determined than the Germans now to keep the Franco-German axis strong—chiefly because they have no alternative.
Behind this quest for new alliances lies the basic fact that the enlarged EU has sharply altered the political arithmetic. If this latest enlargement has already rocked the relationship, further waves could do so even more. Disagreement is already looming over Turkey's application. The German government is in favour. So is President Chirac—but against the will of most French people and his own party. France's position could harden against Turkish entry. In which case, securing a Franco-German agreement will be tricky.
A weaker liaison
Three other sources of fragility in the Franco-German relationship stand out. The first is a resurgent conflict between national and joint interests. When Mr Schröder and Mr Chirac complemented the Elysée treaty with a “joint declaration” in January 2003, they wanted to boost joint decision-making. But instead of opting for a set-up that would allow for early policy co-ordination, such as a single Franco-German body, each government created its own secretary-general in charge, for instance, of working out a common EU policy or preparing regular joint cabinet meetings.
So far, the output has been meagre. Their latest grand idea—to create Franco-German industrial champions—has already been mocked as flag-waving interventionism. France first upset Germany by helping Sanofi-Synthélabo, a French pharmaceuticals group, to take over Aventis, its Franco-German rival. Now, there is even more anger in Germany over French attempts to stop Siemens, the German industrial giant, buying parts of Alstom, the near-bankrupt French engineering group. So sensitive is the matter that Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the French prime minister, and Nicolas Sarkozy, his finance minister, postponed a meeting on industrial policy this week with their German counterparts.
A second source of weakness is generational change. Young Germans flock to Paris and love to watch French films, but the French seldom return the compliment. As one French ministerial adviser puts it: “The French holiday in Spain or Italy and send their children to London or the United States. Nobody goes to Germany.” The share of French schoolchildren studying German as a first language has dropped from 14% to just 9% since 1970, and as a second language from 36% to 14%.
A final element of fragility is the prospect of different political leadership. The most likely conservative candidate to rival Mr Schröder at the 2006 federal elections is Angela Merkel, the opposition leader. An apprentice of Mr Kohl, for whom Franco-German reconciliation was a historic mission, Mrs Merkel is a strong Atlanticist. On Iraq, she backed America, and visited President Bush to drive home the point. As a politician from eastern Germany, and fluent in Russian, she is also likely to be more sympathetic to the EU's new members. Given her belief in liberal economics, her European policy on industrial issues is likely to look as British as Mr Schröder's now looks French.
French elections are still three years off, and, as long as President Chirac remains in office, efforts to prop up the Franco-German axis will be firm. Yet the strongest candidate on the right to replace him is Mr Sarkozy, a pragmatic 49-year-old who, says one aide, considers the primacy of the Franco-German relationship to be outdated. He is instead keen on a grouping of the big five, adding Britain, Italy and Spain. “The Europe of 25,” he said recently, “will force us to rethink what the central core should be”.
For sure, France and Germany will continue to hold much in common. They are both big EU countries, for whom the importance of Europe as a political project is shared in a way that it is not in, say, Britain. Each still needs the other to strengthen and preserve its foreign influence. And if there is no deal on an EU constitution, France and Germany will doubtless fall back on each other to revive closer bilateral integration. But the historical post-war zeal combined with sheer hard work that have made the Franco-German couple endure so far can no longer be taken for granted.