Chancellor Merkel, the US and Germany

Friday's Christian Science Monitor has a short article on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's foreign policy: Merkel shines on world stage: From Moscow to Gaza, the German chancellor's cool, pragmatic style wins praise by Andreas Tzortzis. This seems to be a good, brief summary of her posture toward the US:

A political student of Schröder's predecessor Helmut Kohl, who favored strong transatlantic ties, Merkel has said she wants to return Germany its role as a mediator both within Europe and across the Atlantic. While Merkel's recent visit with Mr. Bush in Washington was "a very public demonstration of a change of style and rhetoric from the Schröder era," says Ms. Donfried of the German Marshall Fund, she also cautions that the chancellor must tread carefully.

"As much as Angela Merkel wants to revitalize German-American relations," Donfried explains, "she knows that this American president and his policies are not popular with her public."

Merkel's approach has so far proved successful not only abroad, but among political opponents at home as well.

"She represents a new form of body language, of style, and you could see that in her Washington trip, in her trip to Moscow," says Gert Weisskirchen, foreign policy spokesman of the Social Democrat parliamentary group. "It's encouraging that she sought dialogue with NGOs in Russia, as well as her willingness to clearly state the European position on Guantánamo Bay."

The general public outrage in Europe over the secret prisons, CIA kidnapping and torture have already seriously complicated her desire to improve relations with the US, though. Since officials of EU countries who cooperated with such policies could be prosecuted, and governments that cooperated could face sanctions if they violated EU standards, those are not at all small problems.

Jack Ewing also reported for Business Week on 01/26/06 that Merkel Makes Waves at Davos. Ewing pretty much gushes over her, saying that she has already "emerged as the most dynamic leader in Europe."

Of course, his impression seems to be based on conventional cues that American business journalists are often quick to read into European politics.  Ewing reports:

Merkel called for a massive reduction in bureaucracy in both Europe and Germany, and an increase in the retirement age, among other measures. "We have to be more flexible. We're holding back enormous potential," she said.

Cutting back bureaucracy, cut back the retirement program, reduce unemployment insurance coverage: in conventional American terms, these sound like conservative, "pro-business" positions that can mislead journalists when they assume that it sounds Republican, and jump to the assumption that a conservative European administration is automatically going to be friendlier to a Republican administration.

Repeated experience doesn't seem to shake this habit for many of them.  Tony Blair the British socialist (Labour is a social-democratic party and a member of the Socialist International) has been Bush's most enthusiastic booster on the Iraq War, to the point that his critics have called him Bush's poodle.  Conservative French President Jacques Chirac, on the other hand, is hated by good loyal Republicans almost as much (if not more!) than they hate Osama bin Laden.

Ewing writes, "Since she was chosen in November to lead a coalition government of her Christian Democrats and the center-left Social Democrats, Merkel has repaired relations with the U.S., strained by the Iraq war."

As I've said here before, I'm sure Merkel would like to repair relations with the US.  But will the Bush administration let her? It's hard to see how that's gone very far at this point.  If anything, the disputes over torture and CIA kidnapping have raised even more problems for European governments, including Germany, to cooperate with the US on counterterrorism work.

And while the Bush and his senior officials may be less personally resentful of Merkel than of Schröder, the foreign minister is a Social Democrat in her Grand Coalition government. And other than atmospherics, it's not clear to me that Merkel is breaking with the previous government's policies in any significant way, so far, including relations with America.  Joschka Fischer, the Green foreign minister in Schröder's government, was actually consideredto be one of the most "pro-American" of the European foreign ministers.

This report from the Guardian seems a bit more reasonably balanced: Merkel mends fences in Washington by Jamie Wilson and Luke Harding 01/14/06.  They report that the atmospherics were good.  However:

But Ms Merkel made it clear she will not be anybody's patsy, raising with Mr Bush the issue of Guantánamo Bay, which she has publicly said should be closed down. "There have been differences of opinion, I mentioned Guantánamo in this respect," she said. But he rejected the suggestion the prison camp on Cuba should be shut, describing it as "a necessary part of protecting the American people".

My guess is that Bush did not have pleasant things to say in private about her bringing up Gitmo, either in private or especially in public.  If his feelings are too delicate to see Cindy Sheehan's t-shirt, I doubt he was much pleased by Chancellor Merkel advice.