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Volume 1, Number 9
October 2000
by William Anthony Hay
William Anthony Hay, Executive Director of FPRI’s Center for the Study of America and the West, holds a Ph.D. in Modern European and International History from the University of Virginia.
Successive Balkan crises, NATO expansion, and Russian economic reform have dominated U.S. policy toward Europe during the Clinton years. These preoccupations may have distracted American leaders from the past decade’s most significant development: the quiet (and occasionally not so quiet) quake at the center of the European Union. German unification and the Soviet Bloc’s collapse changed the balance of power and ended what Raymond Aron called the Europe of “dual hegemonies.” Nearly a decade later, France and Germany have begun debating the future of their relationship.
Concerns about their position in Europe have driven the French in particular to reassess their strategy. Painfully aware that a united Germany might challenge France’s dominant political role within the European Union, Francois Mitterrand moved to deprive Germany of the deutschmark, its major symbol of national independence and strength, and in due course the euro appeared. His successor, Jacques Chirac, attempted much more with a strategic initiative to renegotiate the Franco-American relationship. But his overtures found no takers in Washington and did not outlast the defeat of Chirac’s preferred government in 1996. Forced into an uneasy cohabitation with Socialist Premier Lionel Jospin, Chirac reverted to Gaullist lines that often publicly irritated Washington, particularly on Iraq.
These developments left the French with few options when Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder broke with his predecessor Helmut Kohl’s policy by allowing a public debate on the future of the EU. The new “Berlin Republic” created by reunification thus has brought the future of the Franco- German relationship to the fore. Differences between Paris and Berlin promise a degree of uncertainty that doubtless has affected the euro’s downward trend and carries important implications for both Moscow and Washington.
Several events since January 2000 highlight a broad pattern of divergence between France and Germany, beginning with economic strategies. Where Schroeder’s Social Democrats have accepted a degree of economic and regulatory reform, French leaders across the political spectrum distrust such neo-liberal policies. Jospin’s Socialist party stands out on the European center-left by rejecting them entirely, and the EU’s “dot.com” summit in Lisbon last March brought differences on economic policy into sharp focus. Jospin pointedly opposed deregulating energy and transport markets despite the meeting’s purpose of promoting growth through technology. Admitting that “the liberalization of telecommunications is in line with creating the conditions for a new economy,” he warned against drastic moves and insisted that transport and energy issues be discussed only as part of “the evolution of public services in Europe.” While other European leaders saw modest deregulation as a precondition for growth, Jospin feared the domestic repercussions of threats to entrenched interests. France’s economy, especially its agricultural sector, has benefitted immensely from transfer payments under programs like the Common Agricultural Policy. As a net contributor to EU spending, Germany draws fewer subsidies than other members. France’s ability to gain waivers from onerous EU regulations has limited outside competition. Rhetoric aside, France has made the preservation of social peace through protection and subsidies a higher priority than achieving a single European market.
The euro’s drop in value in April drew attention once more to economic policy. Although Chirac joined Schroeder in defending the euro, French officials privately criticized the Germans for pressing the European Central Bank to weaken monetary policy. With 3.7 percent growth, French leaders have little incentive to adopt the artificial stimulus of inflation. Schroeder, for his part, acknowledged that a weak euro helped German exports.
A month later, on May 12, Germany’s Foreign Secretary Joschka Fischer sparked a deeper controversy by urging Europe’s leaders to plan aggressively for EU integration. With the Soviet Bloc’s collapse, he said, expansion cannot be avoided, and integration must accompany it to avoid reviving old lines of conflict. Fischer therefore proposed strengthening EU institutions and resolving the “democratic deficit,” left by their secrecy and conspicuous lack of public accountability, through the direct election of a president and parliament.
The structural reforms to create this leaner European Federation would also clarify the responsibilities of various levels of government within the EU. Fischer would reassign power among European institutions, nation-states, and various sub-national bodies. While agreeing that nations could not be abolished, he would shift much of their authority to directly responsible European and regional governments. Arguing that delay would only weaken the present structure, Fischer urged a vanguard group of states to create a “center of gravity” that other members could join later.
While Fischer insisted that he spoke only for himself, Schroeder later endorsed his basic view. Moreover, his homage to French pioneers of European integration like Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet highlighted the gulf between his federalist plan and the Gaullist vision of “l’Europe des patries.” Fischer’s remarks predictably stung the French. Gone are the days when warm relations between Kohl and Mitterrand smoothed over differences on such divisive matters as the Balkans and German unification. A deeply offended French Interior Minister Jean Pierre Chevenement charged publicly that Fischer’s proposal revealed a Germany still not recovered from the “derailment” of Nazism and still seeking to dominate a modernized version of the Holy Roman Empire. Although Chevenement later apologized, these were fighting words the likes of which have not been heard since the Thatcher government’s barely veiled criticism of the EU as a German scheme to erase the results of World War II.
It fell to French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine to formulate an official response to Fischer in an open letter dated June 8. Vedrine welcomed Fischer’s initiative, but warned that the speech raised more questions than it answered. France’s EU presidency was due to begin in June 2000 and Fischer’s proposal weakened French efforts to promote cooperation among governments on immediate, practical concerns. Vedrine spoke warmly of bringing the French and German positions together, but warned that the French and other Europeans saw nation-states as the framework for their identity and democratic life. We should remember, he continued, “that unlike in the United States, there are nations in Europe.” Thus it would be best to avoid “theoretical controversy” and work instead on immediate problems.
So far as truth lies in the details, Vedrine’s cordial tone belied serious differences in the two countries’ views of Europe’s future. Both sides back integration and a “pioneer” group of states willing to lead the way, but the structure for the process remains in dispute. The fundamental problem involves how Europe is to be governed. At a tenth anniversary celebration of German unification on October 3, President Johannes Rau pointedly declared that “European and German unity are two sides of the same coin.” The German view of a “federal” Europe conflicts with France’s opposition, deeply rooted in its statist tradition, to any cession of power to regional and European authorities that would weaken the national government. Chevenement’s resignation in August over concessions to Corsican separatists gave a dramatic example of this sentiment.
Echoing Vedrine, Chirac described France’s goal as a United Europe of States rather than a United States of Europe. Neither side of the debate, he told the Bundestag on June 27, envisioned the creation of a European superstate “which would supplant our national states and mark the end of their existence as players in international life.”
Chirac’s entry into the debate during his Berlin visit followed a three-day summit between Schroeder and Russian President Vladimir Putin that raised another contentious issue. Paris has been among the West’s leading critics of Moscow’s policy toward Chechnya, and Vedrine has called Russia a “Potemkin democracy.” As a result, Putin’s state visits to Britain, the U.S., and Germany pointedly excluded France. Moreover, Putin publicly subjected NATO to a sharp Soviet-style critique while in Germany as he pursued Russia’s traditional policy of using ties with Germany to anchor itself in Europe and divide the U.S. from its allies. Despite their frustration with Russian reformers, German leaders still view ties with Russia as an insurance policy against instability in Eastern Europe. Schroeder advisor Michael Steiner said Germany acted for Europe in building a “strategic partnership” with the new Russian government. Although Schroeder balked at Russian demands for debt forgiveness, Putin won considerable investment in Russia’s energy sector. The Russian leader also enjoyed a relentlessly positive welcome despite his recent crackdown on media opposition and outspoken criticism of NATO. Given France’s long-standing fear of facing Russia and Germany alone in Europe, the prospect of a return to Ostpolitik cannot be heartening in Paris. Chirac thus tried to remind the Germans of their ties with the French while he chided their penchant for “theoretical controversy.”
Reports of a breakdown in Franco-German relations are premature, of course, but the machinery for cooperation runs less smoothly than before, which raises historic issues not far from the surface. French security policy since 1871 has struggled to contain Germany, and France adopted the “European idea” after 1945 as a solution. France gained an enduring preeminence over a diplomatically enfeebled West Germany, and the ensuing relationship made possible the Gaullist project of securing French independence through leadership in Europe. De Gaulle and his successors were able to exert influence beyond the limits of French power and thereby occupy an independent ground between the Soviets and Anglo-Americans. France acted as the political and diplomatic engineer for Germany’s post-war economic growth. That relationship, often described by the metaphor of a French rider on a German horse, allowed both French unilateralism and the smooth working of the European Economic Community.
Even in the 1950s, however, French leaders hesitated to push the European idea too far lest they face Germany and Russia alone. They responded to West Germany’s gradual recovery of sovereignty by pushing for European integration, and Konrad Adenauer and his successors accepted it to reconcile Germany’s neighbors to its growing strength. The 1963 Elysee treaty signed by De Gaulle and Adenauer cemented the Franco-German special relationship, and that cooperation provided Western Europe’s only consistent source of leadership.
The conditions that fostered the Gaullist combination of European cooperation and French unilateralism ended with the Soviet Union in 1991, raising the prospect of a German challenge to French leadership. Hints of the change appeared in January 1988, when Mitterrand rejected Kohl’s proposal of a joint overture to the Soviets that cast France as the junior partner. Nor could personal friendship hide a divergence between France and Germany on Yugoslavia and other issues.
Reviving an older strategy, Mitterrand and Kohl thereupon moved in April 1990 to regain momentum toward European integration by adopting a single currency. Ignoring public opinion and bankers' concerns, German leaders appeased France by giving up the deutschmark for the euro, which debuted in January 2000. Significantly, the shift to the euro marked the first instance in which public opinion resisted the political elites' agenda for European integration.
By 1995, Chirac had concluded that France could only remain independent by abandoning Gaullism to preserve a favorable European balance with American support. His advisor Pierre Lellouche had outlined the policy two years earlier in Foreign Affairs, where he wrote that France must “consolidate [Europe’s] only poles of stability: the EU and the alliance with the United States.” As neither Britain nor Russia could aid effectively in containing Germany, France must develop a new partnership with Washington. Chirac differed from recent French leaders in his genuine sympathy for the United States and his willingness to break with Gaullist precedents that guided even Mitterrand.
It remains unclear whether the Clinton administration understood Chirac’s intent, but the moment for action quickly passed. Americans resented the way Chirac’s pressure forced the Clinton administration’s hand on Bosnia. Not long thereafter, French domestic politics limited Chirac’s ability to undertake an aggressive new foreign policy in the short term. Unlike De Gaulle, Chirac failed to coordinate his foreign and domestic policies to reinforce one another. Without the deal he had sought from Washington and bereft of domestic success, Chirac’s chance of securing a favorable European realignment faded.
With the significant exception of the euro’s fluctuations, the European scene is unlikely to produce headlines in the near future. But underlying trends show a quiet quake that deserves attention. Whether or not Germans free themselves from their past, they will probably feel the need to liberate themselves from France. European integration, which once promised a solution to France’s security dilemma, now poses an uncomfortable challenge. The Gaullist enterprise of harnessing Europe behind France has played out, and the strategy to replace it remains unclear. For the first time, moreover, further European integration faces public skepticism in most countries. Ties that once stabilized the post-war French economy and eased its modernization now force tough choices on taxes and social programs. Germany faces similar problems as reunification has imposed economic and social strains. Schroeder’s Berlin Republic no longer follows France’s lead readily and Germany now takes its own view of Europe’s future. Competition between France and Germany, however restrained, may supplant cooperation in the EU.
A more assertive Germany and a less confident France suggest a different future from the “united Europe” so long assumed to be the continent’s destiny. Are current disputes merely background noises or a prelude to serious differences? Vladimir Putin clearly is testing the waters. The next American president will have to consider the situation and ascertain how changes in Franco-German relations affect vital U.S. interests, including NATO. Assumptions from an earlier generation may no longer provide a useful guide for policy.
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