A foreign policy newcomer, the FDP's Guido Westerwelle must balance national and wider interests, writes DEREK SCALLY
GUIDO WESTERWELLE was a bespectacled teenager when he joined Germany’s Free Democrats (FDP) in 1980. Nearly three decades on, Sunday’s record election result has put the FDP leader within striking distance of his long-held political goal: to follow in the footsteps of his political mentor, former FDP foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher.
Though party leader since 2001, the perma-tanned Westerwelle is a foreign policy newcomer who limits most of his foreign travel to holidays on Mallorca.
Conscious of this gap in his CV, Westerwelle gave an address in May to the prestigious German Council of Foreign Relations in Berlin. Westerwelle described foreign policy as “the most valuable item in Germany’s inventory”. He promised to pursue a classic FDP liberal pro-EU line – but with one important distinction. As someone born in 1961, he seems to feel freed of historical burdens shouldered by his FDP foreign office predecessors.
“It’s a fundamental liberal belief that size doesn’t just mean more power in Europe but more responsibility. For decades it was a cornerstone of German and liberal politics to keep the interests of the smaller member states in view,” he said. “Nevertheless I don’t belong to those people who shy away from thinking and formulating [policy] in terms of the national interest.”
Anyone who warned against such thinking in Germany had, he said, missed the point of political developments in recent years and would fail to meet the expectations of German voters on EU policy.
“Other partners take it as a given to define their interests,” he said. “As democratic governments they are obliged to do so. And it is quite self-evident that [German] citizens expect the same from us. German foreign policy must be value-oriented and interest-led.”
Those remarks have been welcomed by some and questioned by others.
“I see no contradiction, Mr Westerwelle is most definitely in the Genscher tradition that sees the best foreign policy as that which considers the interests of others first,” said Dr Jürgen Wickert, the Brussels-based head of international dialogue at the FDP-affiliated Friedrich Naumann Foundation.
If anything, he suggests, Westerwelle could correct German foreign policy after four years under the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
“A mistake made in the last years is to assume, because Germany has agreed something with France, then it’ll be okay for everyone else,” said Dr Wickert. “Mr Westerwelle will bow before the French flag – twice if necessary – but will respect the views of smaller countries too.”
If he takes the foreign ministry, Westerwelle will face a steep learning curve, according to Jan Techau, head of Berlin’s Alfred von Oppenheim Centre for European Studies.
Techau questions the FDP leader’s ambition to respect small countries’ wishes while, at the same time, pursuing the German national interest.
“You can’t have both,” he says, suggesting Westerwelle represents a younger generation of German officials.
“Helmut Kohl knew to keep the smaller countries sweet in case he needed their votes some time,” said Mr Techau. “But we’re seeing a change in mainstream thinking to Europe here, where people now look a bit closer at what’s going on to see what it brings for Germany.”
Discussing enlargement and deeper union, Westerwelle embraces the idea of a “European avant-garde” and a multi-speed Europe.
“It’s clear to me that, in a union of 27 member states, models must be permitted by which groups of EU states can move ahead with their own projects,” he said, but added: “It is always better when necessary reforms of the EU are reached together by all EU member states.”
Underlining the point, he quotes mentor Hans-Dietrich Genscher: “No member state can be forced to go further than it wishes. But no member states can be allowed have the possibility to prevent others who want to go forward.”
In his speech, Westerwelle set out as a foreign policy priority a "conclusion" to Germany's reconciliation work with its eastern neighbours that began in 1969 with the Ostpolitikof Willy Brandt and his FDP foreign minister, Walter Scheel.
Curiously, for a man hoping to become foreign minister, none of this came up in campaign speeches dominated by domestic policy.
The only foreign policy initiative he mentioned in German market places was his demand for the US to remove its nuclear warheads from German territory, the “last relics of the Cold War”.
Westerwelle has not shied away from criticising what policy failings he saw in the grand coalition government.
He described as a “grave foreign policy omission” the failure of Angela Merkel’s grand coalition to be actively involved in the reordering of US foreign policy in the Obama White House.
“One reason for that is that the German enthusiasm for Barack Obama was nowhere shared less than in the federal government,” he said.
In office, Westerwelle is unlikely to repeat the kind of sharp remarks that, in recent months, burdened German relations with its neighbours.
In March, SPD finance minister Peer Steinbrück provoked outrage in Berne for suggesting that the Swiss reformed their tax and banking laws only under international pressure and compared them to Indians terrified of the US cavalry.
“It’s a scandal that the government’s policy towards smaller European countries has come to attention largely through snide remarks from the finance ministry,” said Westerwelle.
On other foreign policy points, the FDP shares or at least nears those of its new coalition partner.
On Turkey’s EU ambitions, Merkel’s CDU favours a “privileged partnership” rather than full membership; the FDP, while not opposed, cites “major deficits” in Ankara’s accession efforts.
Westerwelle also shares Merkel’s scepticism of Russia’s human rights record.
In opposition, he has even gone so far as to float the idea of cutting foreign aid to countries that discriminate against women, and minorities such as homosexuals.
Four years after stepping out for the first time in public with his partner, businessman Michael Mronz, the stage is now set for Germany’s first openly gay foreign minister.