Election Reactions from Germany : "Our Values Systems are Separating"

George Bush has been re-elected. Leading German foreign policy experts tell SPIEGEL INTERNATIONAL what the outcome means for transatlantic relations.

Even before Kerry’s Wednesday concession, politicians and thinkers in Germany were at work strategizing the future of foreign relations with the world’s only superpower.

A number of serious issues divide Germany and the United States — from the go-it-alone attitude of incumbent President George W. Bush to the Iraq war to Washington’s growing tendency to isolate itself from international bodies like the United Nations and multilateral treaties like the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions or the treaty to create an International Criminal Court. The crisis in Iraq and the looming crisis over Iran’s efforts to produce nuclear weapons are also major foreign policy issues in Germany that could grow in importance under the next administration.

Despite differences of opinion in a number of these areas, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said Wednesday that Germany was prepared to cooperate with any American government, regardless who wins the election. "The US is Berlin’s most important partner and ally outside of Europe," he said.

SPIEGEL INTERNATIONAL asked German politicians and opinion leaders for their take on transatlantic relations on Wednesday.

Karsten Voigt is the coordinator of German-American Relations in Germany’s Foreign Ministry.

Whoever gets elected by the American voters will be the representative of our most important partner outside the European Union. This means the German government will strive for a very close and friendly relationship with the US administration. We hope that any president who is elected will use the chance of the election to create a new initiative with the Europeans. While the German government is eager to cooperate — not only with a possible President Kerry but also a re-elected President Bush, Germans and most Europeans are still skeptical about many political developments and views inside the US.

If an American president would use this opportunity, both in substance and rhetoric, to open himself to European views it would help. We have to cooperate in the field of international terrorism and in the campaign against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Beyond that, Europe and the US have to attract the Islamic world in such a way that terrorists are isolated inside their societies and that dominant anti-Western views in the Muslim world are marginalized. This can’t be done by using military force — it has to be accomplished by making your policies more attractive. You can kill terrorists using weapons, but you can only isolate them with attractive policies and societies.

Beyond that, we would like to see initiatives in the areas of climate protection, fighting world hunger and AIDS. These are initiatives that would find a strong resonance not only among Americans, but also Europeans. We also need a strategic dialogue on the broader Middle East, including the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians as well as the issue of Iran. And while we might disagree on Kyoto, we should use every opportunity to harmonize our views and take more concrete steps to protect the climate than we have hitherto. These issues of regional and global security are important for what we hope will be an intensified German-American dialogue.

There is nothing that could not be improved in the relationship. One should always use the day of an election for a fresh start and for new constructive initiatives.

Gerd Weisskirchen is the foreign policy spokesman for Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democratic Party in the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament.

Germany made a clear-cut decision not to send troops in Iraq. Bush knows what the German standpoint is and that there will be no change in our policy towards Iraq. The next issue will be Iran. The EU three (Germany, Britain and France) want to find an alternative to a scenario like what happened in Iraq. We don’t think there is a serious intention in the Bush administration going to war against Iran — it is militarily overstretching its possibilities and capabilities — but the neo-cons (in America) are certainly thinking about it. We’ve tried to convince Washington to find out if we could try to get a comprehensive approach between Washington and Russia in order to double up our strengths and find a solution that will keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons. That is the overriding aim we have right now, but there are still differences over how to solve the problem. It would be best if a re-elected President Bush would learn from the outcomes of the wrong decision to go to war in Iraq and avoid problems in the future like he is facing there now.

We also hope to find a comprehensive strategy for dealing with the problems of Palestine and Israel. We would like Washington to come back to the road map for peace, and we see Sharon’s plan as a first step toward the goals of the road map. Our June experiences with Bush were not very encouraging, but we hope if he is re-elected he sticks to the common plan.

The US should avoid tremendous failures like those in Iraq and should also avoid further turbulence with Europe. We’re living in a dangerous world that needs a strong transatlantic relationship. We want a US president to come back to multilateral solutions, to strengthen the structures of the United Nations and to use the possibilities of other international organizations, like the WTO, in order to build up better relations between Europe and the United States.

For its part, the European Union will show at the next EU summit that it has a step-by-step approach to help stabilize and establish democracy in Iraq in the next phase. In this regard, Germany is ready to deliver — to help build up civil society, to create effective administrative structures and to help clean up ecological problems. I could foresee (German) people going there if they are willing, for example the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, to help stabilize democratic structures.

Bernhard May is a fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin.

We know Bush and we know what to expect from him. That is the starting point. On the other hand, people had high hopes for a new start with Kerry. So there is disappointment. We know what kinds of problems we had with Bush and what we had to put up with the last time.

We can expect more of the same, but, hopefully, we will have a more enlightened Bush who realizes that even the most important man in the world will have to learn to compromise. That doesn’t mean a softer Bush, but rather a Bush who will have to realize he can’t go it alone. That reality came back and hurt him in the past 18 months in Iraq. The US was powerful enough to take over Iraq but it isn’t powerful enough to establish peace there. Bush needs Europe and the rest of the world to help him.

I wouldn’t go so far to say that the German government is happy that Bush got reelected. The agenda of Senator Kerry was appealing to the Germans. But the German government was realistic — they knew it would be a tight race. And they knew if Kerry got re-elected they would have more pressure on them vis-a-vis Iraq — a lot more pressure. More and more people realized over the past few weeks that Kerry would not be a nice, friendly and European-centered president. Like Bush, Kerry also committed himself to fighting terrorism and going into Iraq. And he wanted to convince the Europeans to help him. If he had been elected and he had made demands of Europe and especially Germany, that would have led to a real transatlantic crisis.

In the transatlantic relationship, we are dealing with a fight between emotions and reality. The fact is we always had fights in the relationship. Since the end of the Cold War we have been struggling to figure out what the role is. At the moment, Europe and America have a long list of items on our agenda for which we don’t agree. With the Bush people it’s a somewhat longer list, but the list exists no matter who is in office.

This election also shows is that in terms of religion, there are grave differences between Europe and America and our values systems are separating. Still, we both still value democracy, human rights and freedom. Those are important and not to be negated. At the same time, conservative values have become more powerful with Bush in the White House and now they will be becoming even more so in the next four years. Europe will have to get used to that and figure out how best to assert itself in such an environment. We need to find a compromise and a way of saying, "This is how I live my life, but I will also let you live yours." After all, in world matters it is much easier to fight over bananas and hormone-injected beef than over God, religion or values. This will be the biggest challenge in coming years.

Jens van Scherpenberg, director of transatlantic policy discourse at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs

In the short-term, (a Bush election) increases the leeway for a more independent German foreign policy. At the same time, it increases the pressure on European states to get their act together in terms of foreign policy. The confrontation constellation is going to stay in place and perhaps it will get stronger. The next big item on the transatlantic agenda will be how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program. Despite current declarations that a joint approach will be taken at the end of day, I don’t see us and Europe pulling on the same string when it comes to use of force. We are going to face divergences there.

Germany may also pursue a more independent approach in other areas, like it’s policy towards China. We could pull China into the European crowd economically rather than pursue an implicit policy of containment that we sometimes see in the United States. Iraq will also remain an issue, but the Bush administration has made clear it won’t ask for German support beyond what has already been pledged.

If you ask me, relations can’t get much worse than they are now. Of course, the relationship has stabilized to a professional level. Yet I don’t think things are improving in terms of common interests. The US’s status as a world power and leader of the Western alliance could be weakened by a further four years of Bush because it will be further isolated in the world. A US that is unattractive and less of a role model is not in the European interest, since, at the end of the day, we should have the same core set of Western democratic values. In Europe, it is difficult for us to pursue those values with other countries, like Russia and China, if we can’t do so cooperatively with the United States. Seeing that Bush is likely winning with 3.5 million votes more than Kerry and that he is winning with a decisively Christian rightist agenda baffles people in Europe, where attitudes are largely secular.

Christopher Hacke is professor of political science at the University of Bonn and has written extensively on transatlantic relations.

There is, of course, the possibility that politics will continue between Germany and the US as they have until now. The other possibility is that Bush will understand his election as a domestic mandate for his unilateral and very militaristic foreign policies. That means there’s a threat that the situation will intensify and that we will again see hegemonic, imperial policies that are deeply infused with neoconservative politics — and that will create a further rift in transatlantic relations. If he forces the world to adapt, then the world may force him to adapt. On the other hand, he may also adapt to the rest of the world as Reagan did during his second term — looking to friends and alliances and becoming more multilateral. But that doesn’t appear very likely. We may see signs of how that will evolve in his personnel decisions — which secretaries will he swap out? Will it be Powell or Rumsfeld? I believe he sees this as a divine mandate, and what the Germans think doesn’t matter at all to him. We don’t play any roll — we’re in the margins. The question is whether or not we come closer to Bush by increasing our aid and doing more militarily in Kosovo and Afghanistan. But I don’t think it would be prudent for us to do anything (militarily) in Iraq and neither does Chancellor Schroeder.

Karl-Heinz Kamp is an expert on transatlantic relations at the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, which is closely aligned with Germany’s conservative opposition Christian Democratic Union.

It is crucial that on both sides the decision-makers realize what went wrong in the past four years. The US has to explain its policies in detail — just to point to an "Axis of Evil" is not enough. On the German side we have to realize we can’t do without the US. One major problem of Germany is that on the elite level (of the ruling Social Democrats and Greens) there is understanding that we need to work with America. On the public side, however, there is the illusion that we can construct Europe as a counterweight to the US. This is simply an illusion. Eighty percent of Europeans are against any engagement in Iraq. But whatever our opinion on whether it is right or wrong, today there must be the acceptance that we cannot let the Americans and the British fail in Iraq. The entire region is pivotal.

Europe must also realize that NATO is the prime instrument for transatlantic security. Europe has to do more to improve its military capabilities — not only to get security policy together but also to remain a partner on the world stage. European politicians have to communicate a realistic threat assessment. There is still the illusion in Germany that we have no foreign policy interest in Iraq or that freedom of the Taiwan Strait is not in our interest. The truth is, our interests don’t end at our geographic borders. There is a theory that as long as we remain quiet, we will not be a terrorist target. This is just dead dumb. We are a target because we are Western.

Meanwhile, the US has to realize that it remains dependent on its friends and allies. Having allies on board brings legitimacy. It’s a lot different to say you have France, Germany and Spain on your side than to say you have Azerbaijan. The US has to avoid the impression that it plans to divide the EU. In using the terms "Old Europe" and "New Europe", this administration has tried to pick some allies from Europe and split them off from the rest. This has a counter-productive effect. It brings the entire EU against the US. As with Europe, America needs to regard NATO as prime transatlantic security institution. Rumsfeld was dead wrong when he said the mission rather than the alliance was important. US has to stay with NATO.

The election of Bush creates one major problem — to a large part, the recent anti-Americanism in Europe has been anti-Bushism. The problem is if Bush gets re-elected those sentiments could turn into anti-Americanism. Europeans will see that Bush is not an accident in history but was deliberately chosen by America a second time. That will make them look at Americans and say there is something very wrong with these guys.

Ludger Volmer is the foreign policy spokesman of the German Green Party

Realistically, we have to believe Bush would continue in a policy that Germany does not support, namely the policy in Iraq. We hope that despite these differences, there will be a way to cooperate. That means finding a solution for the problems in Iraq and also in finding answers for the Middle East. The last is the most important — to find a way to fight terrorism. We hope the Bush emphasis on weapons of mass destruction will subside (and the more important policy issues will take precedence). We hope that the transatlantic relationship will improve under a second Bush term. It is very important for us. But as long as there are such fundamental differences between us, we will have to assume that there will be problems, like the differences over Iraq, the Kyoto Protocol and the International Criminal Court.

Friedbert Pflueger is the foreign policy spokesman for the opposition Christian Democratic Union.

One thing is clear, there has to be an improvement in the personal relationship between Bush and Schroeder. We have to make sure Bush knows America is our most important partner outside of Europe. It would not be positive to have Schroeder meeting Putin all the time and having only a frosty relationship with Bush. I hope and suppose that both leaders will take a step towards each other. We have to make (the transatlantic relationship) better than it has been in the past.

Bush has obviously learned a lot in the past four years. Mostly, he has learned that America can’t master the world’s problems alone. Bush knows that without a partner and clear alliance he won’t get very far.

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