Finding that valuable time to re-engage with Germany

A German army band gave a jaunty rendition of the Irish national anthem on Tuesday evening in Munich for Tánaiste Simon Coveney. Unfortunately Mr Coveney wasn't there to hear the soldiers play The Soldier's Song.

He had cut it fine by leaving Dublin after Cabinet and then a storm left him circling the Bavarian capital when he should have been delivering a speech to an impressive gathering of politicians, diplomats, bankers and academics at Bavaria’s prestigious Foreign Affairs Committee.

Many had come especially to hear Ireland’s take on Brexit but left, confused and annoyed, after a muddled explanation from the German host – not an Irish diplomat in sight – for the Tánaiste’s no-show.

The Irish in the audience were mortified with one furious woman muttering: bad German weather can’t be helped but bad Irish planning can.

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Mr Coveney eventually arrived after the event had ended, had a few short meetings and flew on to Berlin for a successful day meeting Bundestag president Wolfgang Schäuble and a range of MPs.

He explained Ireland’s Brexit thinking and flagged new strategic review of relations with the EU’s largest and most important member.

Re-engaging with Germany, ahead of next year’s 90th anniversary of diplomatic relations, is an ambitious new departure. But it may yet fall foul of old Irish ways.

Jarring disconnect

Even taking into account the time pressures Irish politicians face, there has always been a jarring disconnect between their lip service to the importance of relations with Germany and their investment of time. They approach the country like non-resident tax exiles: preferably Berlin, and in and out before midnight. They meet their German counterparts regularly in Brussels, we hear as explanation, but speed dating is no substitute for real interaction.

Irish Ministers want a new and closer relationship with Germany, but will have to shift gears and internalise a key recommendation of the strategic review: this decentralised, federal country as far more than Berlin.

Mr Coveney told students of Berlin’s Humboldt University on Wednesday the future of the EU hinges on politicians listening to what ordinary people want from Europe and delivering “street-tested” solutions, not spending time talking to other politicians, think tanks and other members of the European elite.

And this after a busy day doing just that.

The well-thumbed playbook of such visits often ends with an Embassy reception where Irish locals get a glass of something, hear a short speech or exchange a few words before the minister speeds off to the airport. There is rarely time for any real interaction or exchange of views.

Just extras The locals depart the

Embassy – some delighted to have met a minister or, failing that, old friends – but many wondering if they were just extras in another rent-a-crowd gathering.

This kind of trip may have worked once, but it is no way to build a new relationship with Germany or its Irish community as proposed in the strategic review.

Future visits need to tear up the blueprint and plan for either a less ambitious itinerary or more time. Visit real people, places, things. Stay more than one night. Add a weekend. Visit a minister’s constituency. Stop talking and listen. The strategic review will sink or swim if it is seen as a chance to reform how Ireland does policymaking.

The Irish-German review started well, with a series of meetings from Hamburg to Munich collecting Irish community ideas and observations, many of which found their way into the final report. But the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) black box that opened during the consultation process has now closed again. What happens now?

Instead of shrouding the process – and progress – in Magic Circle mystery, there is nothing to be lost and everything to be gained by offering, as standard, public timelines and progress reports on what is happening and when. Transparency is not heresy. It gives people a chance to offer their expertise and open up their contacts book at the right moment. Any Irish community abroad, collectively, knows more people and things about their adoptive home than even the most talented diplomats and long Embassy institutional memory.

Messed around

Germany’s growing Irish community is anxious to make a go of what can still be a timely and smart strategic review, but not as extras. After inclusion in the consultation process, they want to be part of the implementation, too. And, though few admit it openly, if they are excluded or messed around by the DFA, they won’t engage again.

The pressing issue for Ireland in Germany is credibility. If Ireland is serious about Germany it will take the country – all of it, not just Berlin – seriously, and on its terms. And, because this is a big country, that takes time.

Re-engaging with Germany is a perfect opportunity to reset the clock, because this is a country where time is the currency of respect.

Here you arrive on time, you don’t waste people’s time, you listen as much as you talk and don’t interrupt. When you don’t give Germans your time, they wonder why you come looking for theirs.

Six decades ago in his Irish Journal, Heinrich Böll found the hectic pace of post-war West Germany compared unfavourably to the slower, kinder place of 1950s Ireland.

Somewhere between Dublin and Achill, Böll picked up – or made up – the expression: “When God created time, he created enough of it.” Facing the imminent Brexit breakup with Britain, Ireland’s hopes of building a new relationship with Germany hinge on finding the time and will to prove this maxim still holds.