Schroeder's "axis" will be dismantled

For German conservatives, Eastern Europe is more important than Russia

Yesterday, the leader of the German Christian Democrats, Angela Merkel, paid a one-day visit to Paris. She is a candidate for the post of Federal Chancellor of Germany from the opposition CDU/CSU bloc in the upcoming early elections to the Bundestag in September and has a very high chance of winning over the current Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Yesterday Mrs. Merkel was received in France at the highest state level. At the Elysee Palace, her interlocutor on the future of Europe was French President Jacques Chirac.

The attention of French politicians to the German guest is understandable - if the CDU/CSU comes to power, they are going to seriously reconsider the priorities in Germany's international relations. On the eve of Mrs. Merkel's visit to Paris, the newspaper Le Figaro published a policy article by the foreign policy speaker of the CDU/CSU faction in the Bundestag, Friedbert Pflueger. It follows from it that in the event of victory in September, the new government in Berlin intends to annul the Paris-Berlin-Moscow “axis” project, which is close to the heart of the current Chancellor Schröder.

According to Mr. Pflueger, regular “anti-American” trilateral meetings between the leaders of France, Germany and Russia during the Iraq War led to the fact that “young democracies” in Central and Eastern Europe were forced to side with the United States, and this led to a split in Europe. The meeting of Chirac, Schröder and Putin during the celebrations of the 750th anniversary of Kaliningrad without the leaders of Poland and Lithuania deepened internal mistrust in the EU. “We will build German-French cooperation in such a way that it inspires the trust of partners, meets their interests and excludes any dictatorship and domination,” Mr. Pfluger promised.

The plans of German conservatives provoke increased political pressure from Eastern European “young democracies”. Alexander Rahr, an expert at the German Society for Foreign Policy in Berlin, in a conversation with a Vremya Novostei correspondent, noted that the new EU members significantly increase their influence on decision-making within the community. “Of course, in this case we are talking about a coordinated policy of the new EU states,” Mr. Rahr said. “They instill anti-Russian views and force them to make decisions directed against Russia.” At the same time, the policy of “containing Russia” is an important part of the election rhetoric of the Christian Democrats. In Germany, this approach is supported by part of the political elite seeking to expand partnership with the United States. “We can expect that if the Christian Democratic government comes to power in the first months, relations between Germany and Russia will be frozen,” believes Alexander Rahr.

Yuri Shpakov, Berlin