Première évaluation de la politique étrangère d'Angela Merkel

Les auteurs de cet article de Foreign Policy in Dialogue, publié par Deutsche-Aussenpolitik.de, place la politique étrangère sous le gouvernement de la nouvelle chancelière allemande Angela Merkel dans un contexte plus large en examinant l' »héritage » du précédent gouvernement allemand et les futurs défis et opportunités, notamment en ce qui concerne les politiques européennes et les relations transatlantiques. 

Abridged version of the editorial by Marco Overhaus, introducing the chapters of this edition of ‘Foreign Policy in Dialogue’: 

Commentators in Germany and abroad agree that Chancellor Angela Merkel had a remarkable kick-start in foreign policy during her first three months in office. The authors of this issue of Foreign Policy in Dialog will not spoil this generally positive first assessment of the Grand Coalition’s foreign policy, but look at both the new opportunities in German foreign policy-making and the old constraints.

Hanns Maull offers a cross-issue perspective on the first hundred or so days of the Grand Coalition’s foreign policy. Maull shares the dominant view that Merkel and her foreign policy team had a rather good start but warns of premature optimism. He sees the still limited domestic-economic resources of foreign policy-making as well as the eroding pillars of Germany’s traditional Civilian Power orientation as the most important challenges for the Grand Coalition.  

Germany and France have both lost much of their former reputation as European model cases in terms of socio-economic dynamism. Despite of this, Gisela Müller-Brandeck-Bocquet sees the Franco-German couple still as vital for the integration process. While Müller-Brandeck-Bocquet has a positive view on the rapprochement between both countries in 2002 and early 2003 in general, she criticizes Franco-German cooperation during the Iraq war because joint positions “did not spring from a sophisticated compromise between clearly divergent stances” in the wider EU context. On this account, she expects a more constructive policy of the Grand Coalition.

Ton Nijhuis starts with the observation that in the past, changes in government have hardly ever had an impact on the general thrust of German policy within the European Union. So far, he sees no indication that the Merkel government will be any exception to this general rule. While the first policy decisions of the Grand Coalition point towards continuity on most specific issues of European integration  – for instance concerning the EU-Constitution, the Stability and Growth Pact for the Euro and even Turkish membership – Nijhuis sees important changes in the ways how European policy under Chancellor Merkel is conducted. He expects a return to the more traditional virtues of German foreign policy, most notably more sensitivity towards the interests of the smaller and the new members of the European club.  

For quite some time, the United Kingdom often seems to have been left out of the equation of German EU policy. After the international upheavals of September 11, 2001, the transatlantic and intra-European rift before and during the Iraq war and the current deadlock of the EU’s further institutional development it has become clear to German policy-makers that the EU needs the “strategic triangle” Paris-London-Berlin as much as the Franco-German integration motor. 

Against this background, Alister Miskimmon sees some potential for improved relations between London and Berlin. Merkel’s emphasis on “subsidiarity” and EU-reform fit well with British conceptions of Europe, says Miskimmon.  According to the author, there are high expectations in London that Germany might again become a key partner in the European Union and in international affairs more generally. This is particularly true for security and defense policy and the transatlantic relationship. 

Such high expectations of improved relations with Germany are also widely shared in the United States as Daniel Hamilton stresses: “Merkel’s ascendancy offers Germany an opportunity to reestablish its position as the continental anchor of the Atlantic world”, he states. In geographic terms, the so-called Broader Middle East will loom larger than any other topic currently on the agenda in Washington and Berlin. Functionally, one of the greatest challenges to German-American and European-American relations will be to sort out a new consensus between the legitimacy and the effectiveness in the international order, especially when it comes to the use of military force. 

Finally, Franz-Josef Meiers deals with the one policy area where changes since German re-unification and again since the end of the 1990s where probably most visible: security and defense. Here, German policy under Schroeder and Fischer has left a remarkable legacy as regards the geographic extension of German security, the participation of German armed forces in various out-of-area-missions, and (although belatedly) reform efforts to transform the Bundeswehr from a training to a deployment army. Meiers stresses, however, that the new government’s room of maneuver will be limited by a tight federal budget and the still important impact of Germany’s “culture of restraint”.

In sum, the domestic and international expectations of the Grand Coalition’s foreign policy are high across the issue areas discussed in the individual contributions. In the media and in the public discourse more generally, a sense of a “new beginning” can clearly be felt.

The transition from Schroeder to Merkel indicates that style matters quite a lot in foreign policy-making. It is especially Schroeder’s personalized and at times assertive fashion that has been criticized while Merkel has been hailed for her businesslike and balanced approach. 

In foreign and European policy, some of the high expectations – for instance as regards Germany’s leadership role in the European Union – may be disappointed in the end. With a sizeable budget deficit, Germany’s ability to play once more the paymaster role to bring European integration forward will be very limited or will even prove to be unsustainable in the long run.