FORMER GERMAN chancellor Helmut Kohl has launched a stinging attack on his political successors, warning that Berlin’s “erratic” foreign policy risked breaking up the EU.
Without mentioning her by name, Dr Kohl (81) criticised the euro zone strategy of his political protegee Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying it was unclear “where Germany stands and where it wants to go”.
The former leader’s remarks yesterday came as German president Christian Wulff described as “legally questionable” the ECB’s buy-up of sovereign bonds.
“We have to be careful that we don’t gamble everything away. We have to return, urgently, to our old reliability,” said Dr Kohl, warning that Germany was in danger of abandoning the core pillars of postwar foreign policy.
“If we abandon this anchor ... the basis of trust would be lost, uncertainty would spread and in the end Germany would be isolated – something nobody can really want.”
The former leader said it was pointless “lamenting” euro zone mistakes of the recent past, citing Greece’s accession and stability pact breaches. Instead he called for principled politicians to move beyond national interests to show responsibility for the euro zone as a whole.
“What Europe really needs in this crisis is to knuckle down and create a package of far-sighted, clever and non-ideological measures. It will be more expensive than without the mistakes but we have no choice if we want to prevent Europe breaking apart.”
Germany’s new “erratic” foreign policy was not because of an increasingly complex world, Dr Kohl said, but because of a “shocking” lack of historical awareness among its current ruling class. “Under Franco-German leadership”, he said, EU integration had shifted into reverse.
Beyond Europe, the former CDU chancellor said Germany was losing sight of its strategic relationship with the US, evidenced by abstaining from a UN Security Council resolution against Libya. The consequences were already clear, he said, citing the recent visit of President Barack Obama to France and Poland.
“After all what us Germans and Americans have been through, I never dreamed I’d see the day when a US president would come to Europe and fly right over Germany.”
In a speech yesterday in Magdeburg, Dr Merkel said she felt “honoured to serve European unity, particularly in these challenging times”.
“As German chancellor my most important concern is that, at the end of the current crisis, Europe is left standing stronger.”