The Hindu : Bush yet to acknowledge Schroeder victory

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 25, 2002

International

International

Bush yet to acknowledge Schroeder victory

By Batuk Gathani

BRUSSELS SEPT. 24. The German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, has been swamped with congratulations from world leaders generally and European leaders in particular, with the sole exception of the U.S. President, George W. Bush, who has so far not sent the customary greetings.

Relations between Germany and the U.S. have come under intense pressure as senior officials of the Bush administration overtly displayed their apparent disgust with the narrow Schroeder victory.

On Monday, at a NATO meeting in Warsaw, the U.S. Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, snubbed the German Defence Minister and, echoing the recent comments made by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said the conduct of the German election was "poisoning ties'' between Germany and the U.S.

Mr. Schroeder has consistently tried to ease tension between Berlin and Washington over the proposed U.S. military action against Iraq.

Mr. Schroeder said on Monday night: "Between friends, there can be factual differences, but they should not be personalised, particularly between close allies.''

Such rhetoric of reconciliation has yet to find a response from the Bush administration. The consensus view in major European Union capitals is that it may materialise within days, if not weeks.

Even more articulate American observers in Europe agree that European confidence in America has been badly shaken. An American observer wrote: "The election campaign of the Chancellor and the conservative Mr. Stoiber now give evidence that German public confidence in the United States — or at the minimum, German confidence in this American Government — is badly shaken.

The Germans do not want to go to war against Iraq alongside the United States, they have little sympathy for the war itself. Thus Schroeder has said, to apparently public approval, that even the chemical and biological defence units Germany has had in the Gulf for many months will be withheld from a war between Washington and Baghdad.''

A more cynical perception is that both Mr. Schroeder and Bush have the "slenderest'' electoral majority factor in common, but the biggest obstacle in current German American relationship is that the Bush administration is in no mood to forgive what officials of the Bush administration interpret as "overt German antagonism'' over the proposed U.S. offensive against Iraq.

In major E.U. capitals, there is guarded optimism about Germany's role in the region, in the background of a wafer-thin majority for Mr. Schroeder in Parliament. The E.U. has taken momentous political, economic and monetary initiatives in the past few months.

These are highlighted by the launch of the euro and the proposed expansion of the Union from the current 15 to 25 member states in this decade.

Simultaneously, the E.U. is in the process of structuring its foreign and defence policies. But in some ways these initiatives have been stalled by the election campaign first in France and now in Germany.

The E.U. is now free to move towards its objectives but there is speculation, if with the narrow margin of victory, Mr. Schroeder's Government will be able to provide a dynamic leadership.

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