Germany to give aid to Asia greater emphasis

JAKARTA (JP): Germany's chancellor-elect, Gerhard Schroeder, plans to place a greater emphasis on foreign aid programs to Asian countries, including Indonesia, and pursue efforts to make the European Union follow suit, a noted German political scientist said on Tuesday.

Reimund Seidelmann of Giessen University told a seminar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) that Schroeder's new government believed such a policy was a prerequisite to further democratization, as well as economic and political development in recipient Asian countries.

The foreign aid programs Seidelmann was referring to cover issues such as worker social welfare, human rights and environmental protection.

"I know this will create a very difficult situation for this region, especially Indonesia which is facing an economic crisis. But I think they will have to find the way out," he told a seminar on Indonesia, Germany and Asia-Europe Meeting.

He said the more Indonesia and other Asian countries pursued social improvement, the more Germany would be willing to extend foreign aid.

Germany will extend more assistance to Indonesia, now under the new government of President B.J. Habibie, in line with Schroeder's Asian policy, he said.

"If Indonesia and other Asian countries make things better, I don't think the new policy will become a potential source of conflict between them."

Hasjim Djalal, a former Indonesian ambassador to Germany, said Schroeder and his Social Democrat Party wished to develop better relations with Asian countries.

A potential source of conflict between Indonesia and Germany, however, could come from Germany's left-wing Greens party, which does not want to support the current government in Jakarta because of its anticommunist stance.

Schroeder, 54, last week handed veteran Chancellor Helmut Kohl's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) its worst defeat since 1949.

But Schroeder kept open the option of a grand coalition with the CDU should his alliance with the Greens fail. Kohl, however, had rejected the offer.

Indonesia is one of the largest Asian recipients of German aid. Last year, Bonn pledged US$66 million in fresh assistance to Indonesia for the 1997/1998 fiscal year, down from $208.3 million the previous year.

In February, German Finance Minister Theo Waigel signed a memorandum of understanding to provide Indonesia with Dm375 million (US$206 million) in financial assistance to help it fight the economic crisis.

Figures from the Bank for International Settlements showed that German banks topped the list of European creditors to Asia with loans totaling US$47.2 billion in the middle of 1997. Of the total, Indonesia received $5.6 billion. (bnt)