US could win big in German vote, say analysts
by Jocelyne Zablit
published September 16, 2005

Although US officials refuse to publicly comment on the outcome of the Sunday vote, privately they say a Merkel victory would be a welcome change

WASHINGTON is hoping that a victory by conservative Angela Merkel in the upcoming German elections would mark a fresh start for strained US-German relations.

Relations between the United States and Germany dipped to new lows under Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his center-left coalition, with differences over Iraq and the partnership linking Germany, France and Russia undermining ties.

“What is happening in Germany is a catalyst for change,” said Rockwell Schnabel, former US ambassador to the European Union and author of a new book on the EU and its contentious relations with the United States.

Merkel appears to be “a closer friend of the United States and therefore would lead a policy that would be more pro-American and pro-Atlanticist,” he added.

Schroeder, who is making a strong comeback in the polls after being written off in the early summer, is hoping that his popular stand on Iraq will win him favour with voters on Sunday as it did in the 2002 elections.

Opinion polls show that Merkel, candidate for the Christian Democrats, has a good chance at becoming the country’s first female chancellor. A large percentage of the electorate however remains undecided.

Merkel, 51, has said that one of her priorities if elected would be mending the poisoned relationship with the United States, while still not sending troops to Iraq. Washington is also interested in her aggressive pro-free market agenda.

Although Bush officials refuse to publicly comment on the outcome of the Sunday vote, privately they say a Merkel victory would be a welcome change.

“If the administration representatives are honest they’ll tell you ‘Well this is a fresh start and Merkel’s victory would be a good thing’,” said Jackson Janes, director of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies.

“We got a lot of left-overs with the Schroeder team and we’ll probably never be able to change that so if we get a new team in Berlin it’s an opportunity.”

Janes and others warned, however, that if Merkel wins Sunday, the Bush administration shouldn’t rush to pop the champagne corks.

“I don’t think that we here in Washington should escalate our expectations that her parameters would be significantly bigger than Schroeder’s,” Janes said.

Dieter Dettke, executive director of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Washington, said that while Merkel would certainly work hard to establish smoother lines of communication with Washington, in substance there could be little change under her administration as far as foreign policy is concerned.

One likely contentious issue, Janes and Dettke noted, was Merkel’s opposition to Turkey becoming a full member of the European Union which put her at odds with Washington.

Nonetheless, analysts say, relations under Merkel are unlikely to be any worse than they have been with Schroeder.

“I think that (if Merkel wins) there’s going to be much more of an effort to say ‘let’s see where we agree...’,” Janes said.

“In the case of Schroeder, there was a great deal of concern that they were thinking more about differences rather than commonalities.” afp

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