Angela Merkel meets the world

Christoph Bertram Project Syndicate

Angela Merkel is Germany's new -- and first woman -- Chancellor. Although this implies major changes in Germany's fiscal and labor-market policies, continuity will remain the hallmark of foreign policy. Nevertheless, Germany's international engagement under Merkel will sound and feel different from that under Gerhard Schroeder's leadership.

Schroeder came to power seven years ago representing a new generation whose formative experience was not the Cold War, European integration, and transatlantic friendship, but German unification and the restoration of national sovereignty. For him and the team that took over after Helmut Kohl's 16-year reign, Germany had become a normal country, no different from other European heavyweights like France or Britain.

Indeed, one of Schroeder's first major foreign-policy experiences was the EU summit of 1999, where the leaders of France and Britain played rough with the newcomer from Berlin. The lesson that Schroeder drew was to insist that Germany could no longer be taken for granted and would demand a role commensurate to its size and weight. Self-assertion became the watchword of German foreign policy.

Thus, when Schroeder claimed special circumstances for Germany's failure to meet the budgetary ceilings of the European Union's Stability and Growth Pact, he seemed to be arguing that the restrictions should apply only to smaller countries, not to the big players. When he rightly opposed America's war against Iraq, the pride of standing up to the world's only superpower was palpable. When he established a close personal and political relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he signaled to the world -- and to the EU's sensitive new Eastern European members -- that Germany's foreign policy would no longer be constrained by the past.

In fairness, it should be acknowledged that it was under Schroeder that Germany shed hesitations to deploy soldiers abroad. His support for international crisis missions in Kosovo, Bosnia, or Afghanistan required considerable political courage and made Germany one of the major contributors to international stability efforts. To have removed the issue from domestic ideological controversy ranks as a major achievement of Schroeder's tenure. But it was also meant to convey that Germany had grown up into a proper international power.

With Merkel, the substance of Germany's foreign policy will change little, but the assertive style will be muted. American leaders will welcome her election as proof that the estrangement in bilateral relations is over. But that alienation already largely ended earlier this year, when the Bush administration realized that allies are good to have and that Germany is an important one. Merkel will reintroduce the warmth that has been missing under Schroeder, but she will not become America's yes- woman.

Nor will she abandon special relations with Russia, to which every German chancellor since Adenauer has attached major importance. But she has already made clear that Germany's neighbors to the East will have no reason to feel bypassed. She may even want to confirm that message by making her first official trip abroad not to Paris but to Warsaw or Vilnius.

On the European project, she is as committed to integration as her predecessors have been. She will continue to emphasize close relations with France because there is no alternative; Britain, absent from the euro zone and the Schengen border regime, remains the odd man-in of the EU.

But there will be no new initiatives on integration until leaders in the countries that rejected the Constitutional Treaty are ready for a new try. Then Merkel will be in a key position to add weight to a new effort for moving the EU forward. She will continue to favor the eventual admission of the Balkan states, but she has left no doubt of her opposition to full membership for Turkey, which is the major substantive change from the Schroeder era (although her government will not block the start of negotiations in early October).

In fact, there is very little Merkel has to do after her election to make her mark on foreign policy; the visible change of style will suffice, at least at first. In any case, she will have her hands full pushing through the economic reforms for which she was elected and which are her top priorities. There are indications that Germany is finally emerging from years of economic stagnation, not least thanks to the reforms started under Schroeder. At home, Merkel can hope to reap the rewards.

Abroad, she has no need to demonstrate that Germany is a big country in Europe; her partners are fully aware of this. But it is also more than just a normal country: Germany remains central to holding together the two international institutions that will continue to assure its well-being, the European Union and the Atlantic alliance. There are some indications that Merkel is more aware of this then Schroeder was. One can only hope that this recognition will serve as her guidepost when tough decisions must be made and changes in style alone will not be enough.

The writer is Director of the German Institute for International and Security Studies (SWP) in Berlin.