Kohl warnings on SPD foreign policy lack conviction

When the German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, climbs on to a platform for one of his market square election rallies, his audience can be sure that at least half of his speech will focus on foreign policy.

The Chancellor likes to claim credit for his country's fledgling economic recovery and promises that unemployment will soon fall below four million.

But he becomes passionate only when he speaks about Germany's place in the world, contrasting the ruined, pariah nation of 1945 with its status today as a dependable, respected member of the European Union and of the western alliance.

The Chancellor claims credit for much of this progress towards normalising Germany's relationship with the rest of the world and reassuring neighbouring states that they have nothing to fear from a strong, unified Germany. And Dr Kohl leaves his audience in little doubt that he believes a new, Social Democrat-led government would squander his legacy.

After all, many Social Democrats opposed the stationing of US nuclear missiles on German soil and only reluctantly agreed to allow the Bundeswehr to take part in out-of-area UN peace-keeping operations.

The Chancellor's problem is that the opposition party now has a foreign policy almost identical to his own, fully committed to NATO, the EU and the UN. The SPD candidate for chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, has been cordially received in Paris, London and Washington. The British Labour Party has even sent experts to Bonn to advise the SPD on campaign tactics.

Mr Schroder has abandoned his earlier, sulky scepticism about the euro and now says he is determined to make the project work. EU officials are relaxed about the prospect of a German change of government and there are signs that Bonn's relationship with Brussels could actually improve if Dr Kohl loses the election on September 27th.

For example, an SPD-led government would be less dependent on farmers' votes than Dr Kohl's coalition is, making it easier for Bonn to drop its opposition to Agenda 2000. Mr Schroder would join the French Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, and Britain's Mr Tony Blair as part of a new breed of centre-left leaders in Europe. All three are committed to making the EU more accessible and relevant to citizens' needs and, in particular, to taking common action against unemployment.

Even the Greens, characterised by Dr Kohl as a wild-eyed bunch of pacifist extremists, have moved in the Chancellor's direction where foreign policy is concerned.

Unlike their Irish counterparts, the German Greens are committed to further EU integration. One of their leaders, Mr Joschka Fischer, has even been mentioned as a possible foreign minister in an SPD-Green coalition government.

The Greens want to halve the size of Germany's armed forces as a prelude to dissolving national armies into "a pan-European architecture of peace and security". The Chancellor warns that the Green plan would eventually involve the dissolution of NATO and its replacement with an alliance involving Russia.

Mr Fischer insists that any changes would be gradual but that, in security matters as elsewhere, the Greens are simply occupying their accustomed position ahead of the intellectual pack.