'We Cannot Afford Failure': Merkel Lends Obama Support on Climate Change

• Print
• E-Mail
• Feedback

In that respect, Merkel made a strong appeal to her audience. "I am deeply convinced that there is no better partner for Europe than America and no better partner for America than Europe," she told the joint session of Congress. But the applause which the sentence was clearly intended to generate was somewhat dutiful. The relationship with Europe is rarely on the agenda in Washington at the moment. The future co-operation with Asia, especially China, is much more urgent. Obama is heading there next week for a long state visit. Just how important the Americans regard Europe at the moment could be seen in the fact that the only prominent member of the US cabinet to attend Merkel's speech was the national security adviser, James Jones.

America's supposedly close relationship to Europe is based mainly on memories. Merkel was able to contribute a few authentic recollections from her own biography. She paid tribute to German reunification, something to which President George Bush Sr. had significantly contributed, she said. "Twenty years have passed since we were given this incredible gift of freedom," the chancellor said. "But there is still nothing that inspires me more, nothing that spurns me on more, nothing that fills me more with positive feelings than the power of freedom."

She talked about the American pilots who took part in the Berlin Airlift, the US soldiers who were stationed in Berlin and the visits by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan to the divided city. "I know, we Germans know, how much we owe to you, our American friends. We as a nation, and I personally, will never forget that."

Of course, as a speaker, Merkel is no Obama -- even when she has such powerful material to draw on. (Her speechwriters are clearly also not as good as the US president's; Kennedy's "1961 visit" to Berlin, during which he made his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, actually took place in 1963.) Merkel's enthusiasm for American jeans during her youth in communist East Germany is the kind of thing that any American politician would make into a moving story. However the German chancellor managed to make it sound mundane, merely talking about "a certain brand of jeans that were not available in the GDR and which my aunt in West Germany regularly sent to me."

But even this passage earned the chancellor friendly laughter. At the very end of her approximately 35-minute-long speech, Merkel switched into English to talk about Schöneberg City Hall in Berlin, where a replica of the American Liberty Bell has hung since 1950. Merkel delivered the sentences with an impeccable pronunciation and the Congress members applauded wildly.

A Strong Ally?

It was, without a doubt, a good day for the chancellor. But what does her speech mean for the future of German-American relations?

Ahead of his meeting with Merkel at the White House, Obama had praised Germany as an "extraordinarily strong ally." But strong in what sense? In the West's approach to dealing with Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program? On that issue, Merkel had clear words for her audience in the Congress. "A nuclear bomb in the hands of an Iranian president who denies the Holocaust, threatens Israel and denies Israel the right to exist, is not acceptable," she said, to much applause.

Is Germany a strong ally when it comes to American policy on Afghanistan? Or is it mainly an ally to Obama on the issue of climate change? Do Europeans need to formulate their own goals more clearly and act more confidently towards America, as researchers at the European Council on Foreign Relations recently recommended? Or will President Obama make clearer demands to Merkel, now that she has been re-elected as chancellor?

The president does not simply make demands, Merkel says in regard to Obama. Rather, he tries to persuade his partners to go to their own limits in terms of what they are prepared to do. Sources close to Merkel say that the German chancellor wanted to emphasize in her speech that relations between the Americans and the Germans need to be constantly renewed.

But Obama and the Europeans have one thing in common at least: Both sides have to slowly prove that they can do more than just make nice speeches.

Editor's Note: C-SPAN provides a videoof Merkel's speech with live translation on its Web site.

• Back
• 1
• | 2

• Part 1: Merkel Lends Obama Support on Climate Change
• Part 2: Europe's Waning Importance