The federal committee “Peace Council” criticises the foreign policy part
of the coalition agreement of SPD and Union as continuation of the
SPD/Green war policy.
On the week-end, the Federal committee “Peace Council” in Kassel
deliberated among other things about the coalition agreement of SPD and
CDU-CSU. In a declaration published on Monday, it says among other
things:
On 15 of 140 pages in all, the experts by the three parties have
confirmed in essence, what was also foreign policy consensus in the
SPD-Green coalition. The federal government continues to thread the path
of Germany to an armed up superpower with world-wide ambitions. And this
even though Chapter IX of the coalition treaty begins with the
well-sounding promise that German foreign policy served “peace in the
world”. European and Atlantic security belonged together, which is why
Germany is committed both to the European Security Strategy (ESS) as
well as to NATO as the “central instrument of our security and defence
policy”.
As far as the continuation of the European unification process is
concerned, the coalitioneers do not have any more ideas than that the
ratification procedure of the EU Constitutional Treaty should be
continued and receive new impulses under the German Council presidency
in the first half-year of 2007. Of what kind these impulses should be
and how to deal with the fact that the constitution is dead letter
following the negative outcome of the referendums in France and in the
Netherlands is not being given away. Instead we are getting to hear that
“the position of the German language in the future should be taken into
account in Europe according to its importance” and that the future
government wants to “provide for a harmonic and efficient representation
of German interests in the European institutions” (p. 127). In this way,
the previous commitment to “multilateralism” and to the “strengthening
of European politics (p. 125) is devalued and overlaid by the right-wing
ideology of the “Germany first”.
If it went after the wish of the grand coalition, German foreign policy
wages, on the one hand, on a “self-asserted Europe”, on the other hand,
still on an even closer military cooperation with the USA. The greatest
misjudgement of the coalition treaty might lie in the sentence: “The
cooperation with the USA is especially important for a prospering
relationship between the Islamic world and the West, in securing peace
and stability in the Near and Middle East...” (p. 130). It almost seems as
if the undignified toadying of Angela Merkel to the war course of the
USA before the Iraq war is now to be rehabilitated post facto - a slap
in the face for the parting chancellor Schröder, which he has deserved
the least on this particular point!
The uncritical celebration of the “European security strategy” (p. 131)
means nothing else but the continuation of a policy of militarisation of
the EU that materialises in the build-up of additional “multinational
combat troops”, military “planning and leadership capacity”, and the
improvement of the military “capacities and options for actions”.
In the paragraph on the federal army, it says that the future spectrum of
tasks of the Federal Army as well as its structural consequences will be
determined quite essentially by the security-policy developments. In
that sense, the Federal Army serves international conflict prevention
and crisis management, the support of alliance partners, defence of
country, rescue and evacuation missions, partnership and cooperation as
well as the aid measures inside the country.” Defence of country, the
sole aim for which, according to the Basic Law, the Federal Armed Forces
were even founded, sinks from place 1 to place 3 of the task list.
As far as the relations between Germany and Europe (beyond the borders of
the EU) and the whole world are concerned, they should be structured
both “on the basis of common values” and “vital interests” (p. 134). In
that connection, the geo-strategic horizon of the new government
comprises the countries of Eastern Europe, the southern Caucasus, and
Central Asia as well as the Near and the Middle East (p. 134 f.). The
Asiatic great powers China, Japan, and India as well as Latin America
and the Caribbean are overwhelmingly looked at from the economic,
Africa, on the other hand, exclusively from the humanitarian point of
view.
If up to now, the coalition partner SPD was serious with the attitude
that the Federal Armed Forces should not be used inside the country
except for catastrophe aid, it now apparently had to be taught another
lesson. As far as the struggle against terrorism is concerned, the
coalition agreement contains the alarming statement: “In an emergency,
also the deployment of military means must be taken into consideration.”
(p. 137)
Already in the section on the armed forces it says that “outer and inner
security can no longer be distinguished so clearly.” (p. 132) It
therefore needs to be feared that the Grand Coalition, which disposes of
a two-thirds majority in the Federal Parliament capable of changing the
constitution, will change the Basic Law in such a way that inner
security also becomes a matter of the military.”