Harveylives
11-14-2003, 05:48 PM
Analysis: Germany, France for closer ties
By MARTIN SIEFF, UPI Senior News Analyst
WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- German officials are signaling they would welcome any move by France to share its permanent seat and veto power on the U.N. Security Council with them.
The initiative is part of a new push by France and Germany to reassert their dominant role in a European Union about to grow by at least 10 more nations and 100 million more people. And it is widely seen in Europe as a counterattack by the "old" Europe they have led for so long against the "new" Europe in the former communist East favored by the Bush administration.
Senior French and German officials already quietly discussing a possible eventual total union between their two countries, and pushing ahead with even closer cooperation and integration of their policies in the immediate future, the Le Monde newspaper reported Friday.
The report comes only days before President George W. Bush was due to visit his loyal Iraq war ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, but pointedly was not going to either France or Germany.
And it came the same week that European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy has led the charge of threatening enormous $2.2 billion sanctions against the United States, following a World Trade Organization ruling that tariffs imposed last year by the Bush administration to protect the U.S. steel industry from foreign imports were illegal.
In a Berlin dispatch so far ignored by the British and U.S. media, Le Monde reported that France and Germany were considering even more integration and closer union than they already enjoy. The paper reported that German political figures were even signaling to France the possibility that Paris might share its permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and accompanying permanent veto power with Germany.
One German Bundestag member even told Le Monde, "If at some point, France declared that she wanted to share with Germany her seat on the United Nations Security Council, this would be a very convincing signal to make Franco-German relations even closer."
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin has even floated balloons recently suggesting that France and Germany might eventually join in a full political union.
German officials, according to the Le Monde report, confirmed that discussions on a full Franco-German union had already taken place. And while no senior German political leader is yet ready to go on the record in supporting such a goal, several highly placed ones are already signaling they sympathize with de Villepin's vision and would like the integration process to go a lot farther.
One German source identified by Le Monde as "a very senior government official" described de Villepin's vision as one of "even closer cooperation between France and Germany in a Europe that will become even more integrated. This conception of a closer union is particularly sympathetic to me."
And German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer confirmed to a group of journalists in Berlin this week that he had discussed a full union between the two historic nations with his Paris counterpart de Villepin. "We discuss all subjects," he said.
Publicly Germany and France remain committed to expanding the current 15-nation EU of 350 million people to one of 25 nations with a total of 450 million people within the next few years through the so-called Copenhagen process. They also agree on trying push through a new constitution of this "super-EU" as soon as soon as possible.
But Western European political sources say that the high-level, but low profile discussions on intensified Franco-Germany cooperation reflect a determination in Paris and Berlin that the two nations, with a combined population of loss than 150 million will not find their power diluted and lose their historic leadership of the European Union within its new vastly expanded structure and population of three times that number.
German and French leaders are also reacting against the global policies of the Bush administration, especially on Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which they believe are a serious threat to world peace, the European sources said.
Bush's continuing efforts to play up relations with Britain, Italy and the former communist states of Central Europe led by Poland are also seen in Berlin and Paris as a deliberate attempt to undermine and isolate the two great leading nations of Continental Western Europe, they said.
Along with Foreign Ministers de Villepin and Fischer, the two other figures in the French and German governments driving the hardest for closer ties between leadership of the EU are EU Trade Commissioner Lamy from France and Commissioner for EU expansion Gunther Verhuegen, the political sources said.
This week, Lamy led the charge threatening massive EU trade sanctions on the United States after the WTO decision on its steel levees.
He told Dow Jones Business News, CNBC and the Wall Street Journal Monday that the sanctions would go into effect by mid-December unless the Bush administration withdrew the three-year steel tariffs of up to 30 percent.
Copyright 2003 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
By MARTIN SIEFF, UPI Senior News Analyst
WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- German officials are signaling they would welcome any move by France to share its permanent seat and veto power on the U.N. Security Council with them.
The initiative is part of a new push by France and Germany to reassert their dominant role in a European Union about to grow by at least 10 more nations and 100 million more people. And it is widely seen in Europe as a counterattack by the "old" Europe they have led for so long against the "new" Europe in the former communist East favored by the Bush administration.
Senior French and German officials already quietly discussing a possible eventual total union between their two countries, and pushing ahead with even closer cooperation and integration of their policies in the immediate future, the Le Monde newspaper reported Friday.
The report comes only days before President George W. Bush was due to visit his loyal Iraq war ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, but pointedly was not going to either France or Germany.
And it came the same week that European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy has led the charge of threatening enormous $2.2 billion sanctions against the United States, following a World Trade Organization ruling that tariffs imposed last year by the Bush administration to protect the U.S. steel industry from foreign imports were illegal.
In a Berlin dispatch so far ignored by the British and U.S. media, Le Monde reported that France and Germany were considering even more integration and closer union than they already enjoy. The paper reported that German political figures were even signaling to France the possibility that Paris might share its permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and accompanying permanent veto power with Germany.
One German Bundestag member even told Le Monde, "If at some point, France declared that she wanted to share with Germany her seat on the United Nations Security Council, this would be a very convincing signal to make Franco-German relations even closer."
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin has even floated balloons recently suggesting that France and Germany might eventually join in a full political union.
German officials, according to the Le Monde report, confirmed that discussions on a full Franco-German union had already taken place. And while no senior German political leader is yet ready to go on the record in supporting such a goal, several highly placed ones are already signaling they sympathize with de Villepin's vision and would like the integration process to go a lot farther.
One German source identified by Le Monde as "a very senior government official" described de Villepin's vision as one of "even closer cooperation between France and Germany in a Europe that will become even more integrated. This conception of a closer union is particularly sympathetic to me."
And German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer confirmed to a group of journalists in Berlin this week that he had discussed a full union between the two historic nations with his Paris counterpart de Villepin. "We discuss all subjects," he said.
Publicly Germany and France remain committed to expanding the current 15-nation EU of 350 million people to one of 25 nations with a total of 450 million people within the next few years through the so-called Copenhagen process. They also agree on trying push through a new constitution of this "super-EU" as soon as soon as possible.
But Western European political sources say that the high-level, but low profile discussions on intensified Franco-Germany cooperation reflect a determination in Paris and Berlin that the two nations, with a combined population of loss than 150 million will not find their power diluted and lose their historic leadership of the European Union within its new vastly expanded structure and population of three times that number.
German and French leaders are also reacting against the global policies of the Bush administration, especially on Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which they believe are a serious threat to world peace, the European sources said.
Bush's continuing efforts to play up relations with Britain, Italy and the former communist states of Central Europe led by Poland are also seen in Berlin and Paris as a deliberate attempt to undermine and isolate the two great leading nations of Continental Western Europe, they said.
Along with Foreign Ministers de Villepin and Fischer, the two other figures in the French and German governments driving the hardest for closer ties between leadership of the EU are EU Trade Commissioner Lamy from France and Commissioner for EU expansion Gunther Verhuegen, the political sources said.
This week, Lamy led the charge threatening massive EU trade sanctions on the United States after the WTO decision on its steel levees.
He told Dow Jones Business News, CNBC and the Wall Street Journal Monday that the sanctions would go into effect by mid-December unless the Bush administration withdrew the three-year steel tariffs of up to 30 percent.
Copyright 2003 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.