GERMANY/EU: Berlin has dismissed speculation that the German foreign minister wants to succeed Mr Romano Prodi as president of the European Commission in 2004. The claims come as Berlin and Paris prepare a joint declaration on future co-operation in the UN Security Council and which calls for a common EU security and defence policy.
A German newspaper reported yesterday that Mr Joschka Fischer had expressed interest in the Brussels job to a Green Party colleague before Christmas.
"I take it that Joschka Fischer will no longer be available as the Green Party lead candidate in 2006 \," said Mr Reinhard Bütikofer, the new co-leader of the Green Party, according to Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
He was speaking at a meeting in Berlin last November, weeks before he became party leader. The newspaper said that Mr Bütikofer added, "with surprising frankness", that Mr Fischer was interested in becoming the president of Commission and had the support of the Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schröder.
The German foreign office said yesterday's report was "rubbish" and declined to comment further.
"The announcement that Mr Fischer aspires towards Europe didn't surprise us," Prof Jürgen Falter, a political scientist at Mainz University, told the newspaper. He called Mr Fischer a "committed European" and said the European Commission presidency would be the fulfilment of a "lifelong aim".
Mr Fischer is Germany's most popular politician, something on which his Green Party capitalised for last year's general election. Its campaign was built around the former left-wing anarchist and taxi-driver and gave it its best-yet election result.
However, the pacifist faction of the Greens has long been unhappy with Mr Fischer's performance as Foreign Minister, in particular his close ties to Washington.
"The longer Mr Fischer is foreign minister the less he is seen as a Green politician," Mr Manfred Güllner of the Forsa Polling Institute told Welt am Sonntag.
Meanwhile Mr Fischer and Mr Schröder travel to Paris this week to discuss closer French-German co-operation, including adopting common positions in the UN Security Council. The agreement for "joint positions and strategies" is contained in a declaration to mark the 40th anniversary later this month of the signing of the Elysée Treaty, the corner stone of modern Franco-German relations.
The declaration, a draft of which was seen by Der Spiegel magazine, calls for the EU to be built up into a security and defence union with its own "mechanisms of solidarity and collective security" including its own army of commandos.
Mr Schröder and President Chirac will present the paper, "a common vision of the Europe of tomorrow", at a ceremony at Versailles on January 22nd.
The declaration advocates an EU-wide criminal prosecutor, an EU border police force and a cross-border registry of criminal records. The two leaders propose further a "European Centre for International Economics" to suggest policy on harmonised economic, financial and trade policies.
The draft declaration shows they are anxious to improve relations which reached a low during the negotiations for the Nice Treaty just over two years ago.
Mr Chirac and Mr Schröder already meet once a month for informal talks and the new declaration suggests a new post of "general secretary for German-French co-operation".