New Europe

(This article was originally written in 2003)

Nice, France: U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld hit a raw nerve when he recently dismissed France and Germany as "old Europe". In Berlin, last Saturday, demonstrators carried the epithet "old Europe" on their signs as a badge of honour. The problem for Washington is that Rumsfeld got it exactly wrong.

What is confounding both the Bush administration and the Blair government in Britain is precisely the emergence of a New Europe with Germany and France at its heart. From a diplomatic standpoint, what is truly novel is the position being taken by Germany. For decades, it has been commonplace for France to pursue its own foreign policy and to take stands counter to those of the United States and Britain. But during those spats, the Federal Republic of Germany has either taken the U.S. side or has lined up somewhere between the Americans and the French.

What changed this was Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s razor thin electoral victory last September on a platform that promised to keep Germany out of a U.S. led war against Iraq. Schroeder’s victory demonstrated that opposing Washington can be popular with the electorate. More importantly, it locked Germany into a position that was even more at odds with the United States than the position taken by France.

This diplomatic revolution at the heart of Europe has immeasurably strengthened the hand being played by French President Jacques Chirac. That accounts for why we have been seeing so much of Chirac’s Gaullist side lately. The French President knows that he has the leaders of the French right, centre and left firmly in his camp in his effort to block a U.S. invasion of Iraq. Moreover, he knows that the overwhelming majority of the French people oppose unilateral U.S. action, as do majorities in Britain, Italy, Spain and other countries that have been backing Bush in the diplomatic standoff. Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, under pressure from the anti-war position of the Italian people has backed off his pro-American rhetoric and is now saying he will support military action against Iraq only if it has the blessing of the UN.

Despite Rumsfeld’s bluster about old Europe, Germany and France constitute the engine of the European Union and of its currency, the Euro. With Germany lined up so that it has to oppose Washington on Iraq, France now speaks for much more than itself as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. With Germany behind it, France becomes a genuine great power, much more able to wield the threat to use it veto than in the past.

The spectacle of European toughness has driven some American analysts into paroxysms of incomprehension. "France, as they say in kindergarten," spluttered New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman in a recent article, "does not play well with others." He was missing the point that playing on the same team as Germany in a squabble with Washington has made France much more formidable.

The politician whose neck really is on the chopping block is Tony Blair, George W. Bush’s one indispensable foreign ally. Most of the active members of Britain’s governing Labour Party strongly dissent from Blair’s position at Bush’s side on Iraq. Blair lightly dismissed the significance of the demonstration by one million people in London in opposition to his Iraq policy. What he must fear though is the possibility of a parliamentary revolt from within his own party. If Blair were to side with Bush in an attack on Iraq, not authorized by the UN, he could face a non-confidence motion in the British House of Commons. Considering that his position is so much at odds with his country’s public opinion, Blair could even be forced out of office. Don’t forget that in 1990 in a spat over Europe, British Tories pushed out Margaret Thatcher although she headed a majority government at the time.

However the current diplomatic standoff turns out, the lesson of the past five decades is that when France and Germany stand together, they ultimately get their way inside Europe. The British, on the other hand, usually bet on the horse that loses.

It is likely that George W. Bush has committed himself so completely to an assault on Iraq that he will not reverse course, allies or no allies. Europe’s diplomatic revolution, however, could mean that Bush’s much touted "coalition of the willing" could amount to the United States and few others.