Miscalculation
PARIS/BERLIN/TRIPOLI (Own report) - With distinct warnings, the government in Berlin is pressuring the French government to relinquish some of its new president's main foreign and economic policy projects. The reason behind this pressure is the agreement whereby France furnishes Libya nuclear equipment and armament. Though Germans have been involved for over a year in preparing the deal, it was Paris that drew the political profit, to demonstrate its leadership claim to the North African Mediterranean nations. Influential German foreign policy makers are calling this "irresponsible national single-handedness:" in the EU "each country can't just go around doing as it pleases." With these complaints, Berlin is launching an offensive aimed also at the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy's central economic policy projects, that conflict with German interests. Soon after Sarkozy's election, political advisors began to warn that Sarkozy's program provides "considerable points of friction with Germany" and "nourishes the French miscalculation of the feasibility of an 'Europe à la française'." The warnings are precursors of the new one-upmanship struggles between the number one European key power, Germany, and its junior partner in Paris, seeking to climb out of its second place status.
Conflict of Hegemony
Already at the time of the French presidential elections, Sarkozy's Mediterranean plans were the object of foreign policy speculations over Franco-German conflicts of hegemony. Sarkozy, like several of his predecessors, considers the southern coast of the EU, the neighboring North African states as well as Israel and Turkey to be within the French zone of influence, which should be consolidated into an exclusive "Mediterranean Union." This concept is in competition with the "Barcelona Process," in which the entire EU cooperates with the North African and Middle Eastern states. The "Barcelona Process" provides Berlin with the opportunity of extending its own influence southward, particularly to include the resources rich countries of Algeria and Libya.[1] This is why Sarkozy's "Mediterranean Union" is "not in Germany's interests" according to the "program director, France" of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP).[2]
Potential for Frustration
Soon thereafter a policy adviser of the "EU Integration Research Group" of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) discerned "grounds for prudence" in dealing with the French President. According to Berlin, not only the "Mediterranean Union," but Sarkozy's "proposals for more protectionism and for intervention in the policies of the European Central Bank (ECB) comprise cause for conflict.[3] In Berlin it has not been forgotten that three years ago, as minister of economy and finances, the current president supported France's taking sole possession of the Franco-German Aventis Corp. and prevented Siemens from buying into Alstom. But according to the SWP researcher, Sarkozy's current proposals for the European economic policy also contain "potential for frustration:" They can be enacted "only by unanimous decision of the 27 EU states" and therefore blocked by Germany.[4]
Slump
Berlin attempted such a blockade in the Mediterranean, but, in spite of its intense efforts, its French competitor prevailed in Libya. Libya is Germany's third most important source of oil. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited that country twice in the past nine months and high-profile business delegations are actively seeking new deals.[5] The German Office for Foreign Trade (bfai) stated that "German exports have been in a slump since 2005, which was again confirmed in 2006."[6] For its reforms in the financial sector, the Libyan Central Bank has chosen as its strategic partner the French BNP Paribas Bank and intends to cede to it up to 51 percent of the shares of the Sahara Bank, the previously state-controlled leading finance institution of the country. Considerable nuclear technology and arms business with Libya is further enhancing the French lead.
Atomic Energy
The atomic energy plant that France will deliver to Libya, will be built by the French Areva NP. The German Siemens Corp is a shareholder, but holds only a third of the shares. Observers do not exclude that the objections raised by Germany, concerning the business deal with Libya, are also directed at Sarkozy's plans to have the Siemens' Areva NP shares bought out to make Areva a completely French corporation.[7] If this would be the case, the German industry would lose influence in the reactor branch of the world's largest nuclear corporation, Areva, the parent corporation of Areva NP.
War Hardware
Similar fears are decisive to Berlin's criticisms of the French-Libyan weapons deal. Prominent German foreign policy makers criticized the deal as "reprehensible," because one should not "reward dictators" (meaning the Libyan head of state, Muammar al Gaddafi) with armaments,[8] a long-standing practice of the Berlin government. Over the past seven years, the German government's arms export reports have listed numerous arms exports requiring official authorization to that North African country.[9] German firms are complicit even in the projected weapons deliveries. The arms are being delivered by the EADS Corp., which is under German-French co-propriety. The "Milan" rockets, that Tripoli is to receive are a German-French joint development project from the 1970s. Milan components are still being produced in Germany. The fact that one of the two African subsidiaries of EADS is in Tripoli,[10] leads to the supposition that the German-French cooperation with Libya bears a strategic character.
Mare Nostrum
Monday, August 6, the German government has had to admit that it had been kept completely abreast of the French-Libyan negotiations and had had no objections to the arms deals [11] - its objections were rather against the political manipulation for the sake of the "Mediterranean Union". To abort French plans, the German government is counting on a nervous observer: Italy, whose ("Mare Nostrum") Mediterranean policy is modeled after prestigious examples and is compatible with German interests.
[1] see also Tragende Säule, Verstoß gegen das Völkerrecht and Folterpartner
[2] Sarkozy schlägt Mittelmeerunion vor; Hessischer Rundfunk 23.05.2007
[3], [4] Grund zur Vorsicht. Sarkozys europapolitisches Programm; Dokumente 3/2007
[5] see also Streit um Öl, Eurafrika and Fusion
[6] Investoren setzten auf bessere Rahmenbedingungen in Libyen; www.bfai.de 12.07.2007
[7] M. Sarkozy souhaiterait un groupe nucléaire franco-français, sans l'allemand Siemens; Le Monde 23.07.2007
[8] Deutsche Politiker empört, Sarkozy streitet Beteiligung ab; Spiegel Online 04.08.2007
[9] The arms export report for the year 2003 alone, stipulates that exports worth more than 1,3 Million Euros were approved by the then incumbent SPD/Green coalition government.
[10] The second African EADS subsidiary is in Johannesburg, South Africa.
[11] Kein Veto gegen Waffendeal mit Libyen; Spiegel Online 06.08.2007
