Where Germany has never been before

National Interest, The, Summer, 1999 by Josef Joffe

In fact, this is precisely what the new Schroder government tried to do right after assuming power. Taking a page out of Margaret ("I want my money back") Thatcher's book, Chancellor Schroder used interesting language in pushing for a cut in Germany's huge contribution to the EU (DM22 billion, roughly $13 billion net per year). More than half of the money "being frittered away" by the EU was coming out of German coffers. "In the past, compromises [in the EU] were often only reached because the Germans paid for them. This policy has come to an end", Schroder stated in an interview this year. And why? Because the times had changed. "Now one could be less inhibited about pursuing one's interests than in the past."

Less inhibited, perhaps; more successful, no. When the returns were counted in time for the EU's Berlin summit three months later, very little the Schroderites wanted had really come about - neither a cut in the EU's agricultural budget nor in Germany's net contributions. For that policy to "come to an end", Germany would have had to take on France, the main profiteer of the agricultural support system, plus the Mediterranean countries and Ireland, the beneficiaries of the EU's "cohesion" and "structural" funds.

Why not go to the brink if Germany had shed those Cold War fetters that demanded deference to France and unrelenting generosity to the EU as a whole? Because No. 1, with the largest resource base, always has to pay more. Nor is this so painful, given that the biggest power usually profits most from the common institutions - as Germany, the world's second-largest exporter, does most obviously from the vast common market that is the EU. "The more we pursue our interests multilaterally, through Europe", Foreign Minister Fischer postulates correctly, "the more we'll get for ourselves." You do well by doing good for others is the message. Not bad for a great regional power that has learned in the most painful way that, in the new game of peaceful penetration, cell phones and wing-tips are so much more useful than Panzers and jack boots. "We have to do for Europe in order to do for ourselves", reiterated Fischer in a conversation I had with him in February, adding just with a hint of a smile: "We lead from the second row, but we are doing quite well there."

So Germany does not have to write a new script and don a new costume. Germany is like a Gulliver who likes his ropes. In his mind are etched two commanding lessons from history. Whenever he struck out on his own, he reaped not hegemony but ever larger disaster, as in 1914 and 1939. But when he accepted the bonds of multilateralism and community in all things economic and military, he flourished beyond belief.

Such twin lessons are not easily unlearned, and the speed with which they were internalized by a new government supposedly free of yesteryear's restraints may well serve as a testimony to their strength and endurance. But why not at least maneuver a bit more freely now that Germany's excruciating dependence on the West has vanished along with bipolarity? The short answer is this: there is no need for post-Cold War Germany - the "Berlin Republic", if you wish - to stray from the mainstream of Western policy.