"Green has to stand for something again," said Renate Künast as she announced her candidacy on Monday for the national party chairmanship which consists of two seats. And now, there are three candidates: Künast, who heads the Greens' Berlin parliamentary faction, Fritz Kuhn, who also announced on Monday and holds the equivalent post in Baden-Württemburg, and current party spokesperson Antje Radcke. Her current colleague, Gunda Röstel, bowed out weeks ago.
Künast and Kuhn are known to be favored by Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, so powerful in the Green Party he's often referred to as the "virtual chairman". At the recent party convention, Greens voted not to reform the rule that bars any Green holding a seat in parliament from the internal party leadership, so both Künast and Kuhn would have to give up their current posts should they win at the next convention in Münster on June 23 and 24.
But both are worried enough about the future of the party that they're willing to make that sacrifice. The term "Generation Project" has been thrown around a lot in reference to the Greens, implying that when those who founded the party 20 years ago fade from the scene, the party will, too. The main concern is that the Greens have lost their profile since they became junior partners with the Chancellor Schröder's Social Democrats and ceased defining their goals in oppositional terms. The word from politicos is that while Künast is a "pragmatic leftist" and Kuhn is a "realo", they would be able to work well together - and of course, with Fischer.
Meanwhile, Wolfgang Schäuble, who resigned as party chairman for the Christian Democrats (CDU) in February after he'd botched his version of a meeting with weapons dealer Karlheinz Schreiber during the heat of the scandal that has thrown the CDU into its deepest crisis ever, has announced his candidacy for a seat on the CDU executive committee. He hopes to be confirmed when the CDU convenes in Essen from April 9 to 11 when Angela Merkel will all but certainly be elected as the CDU's new party chairperson (see the March 20 "Digest ").
The party-financing scandal "is for the CDU what World War II was for the West German economy," writes Harald Martenstein in the Berlin daily "Der Tagesspiegel". First, everything's in ruins, then rebuilt, "and suddenly, there you are, more modern and dynamic than the competition."
The scandal began when former chancellor Helmut Kohl admitted that he'd accepted 2.1 million marks (over $1 million) between 1993 and 1998 and not declared the anonymous donations as required by law. Last week, Kohl was forced to admit he also accepted donations before 1993 when the accounting firm Ernst & Young discovered 9.4 million marks ($4.7 million) gathered and unaccounted for between 1989 and 1992.
Schäuble, who is still engaged in a public feud with Kohl, is evidently hoping to save his political career by hitching his star to the "more modern and dynamic" CDU represented by Merkel and the new parliamentary faction leader Friedrich Merz. Merkel is indeed so popular right now that many in the CDU are calling for her to become the party's candidate for chancellor. Not so fast, she insists, one step at a time.
Germany and Europe on the Web today:
"It's been quite a week for Anglo-German misunderstanding," the "Observer" surmised on Sunday. A wide-ranging package of stories and commentary examines the old an d new frictions. As Denis Staunton and Burhan Wazir write, "for the first time since the end of the Second World War, there were signs that Germans are no longer prepared to accept their bashing sitting down." On the same page, Dorota Nosowicz ticks off the "Low points in Anglo-German relations over the past 10 years."
The latest round, of course, has been sparked by BMW's abandonment of Rover, and fuel was thrown on the fire when Britain's ambassador to Germany, Sir Paul Lever, attempted to explain anti-German prejudice in the British press - to a German paper, "Die Welt". "Grow up, Britain," urges the "Observer" lead editorial, but Carol Sarler is having none of it: "We have no rea son, yet, to forgive or forget or embrace or, completely, to trust."
"BMW cannot escape the fact that it made huge errors in its stewardship of Rover since it snatched it from the British group's previous partner Honda in 1994." Joanna Walters argues the case against BMW. But Emily Bell detects a note of hy pocrisy, reminding readers that when British telecom Vodafone made a hostile bid for Germany's Mannesmann, the British cried, "Let the market decide... I'm afraid that one of the lessons of participating in the global marketplace is that we have to do unto others as we would be done unto ourselves." Denis Staunton offers an objective portrait of the Quandt family, which owns nearly half of BMW.
"Telegraph" publisher Conrad Black, who has served a claim for libel damages on Ambassador Lever, argues his case: ""We wish Europe well, but we don't want to run the risk of being harmonised back into a pre-Thatcherite economy. But that could not possibly be construed as being anti-European or anti-German." Also: David Wastell on another conflict, this one between Germany and the US Congress. The US claims Germany, Austria and Sweden are violating the Hague Convention by refusing to return abducted children to the countries they came from in custody battles.
When Chancellor Schröder dined with the British Prime Minister at his country residence in Buckinghamshire late last week (requesting that "the best of British beef" be served), Tony Blair said Anglo-German relations have "never been warmer than they are today," reports the BBC. Also: An Internet campaign against BMW; DaimlerChrysler buys a 34% stake in Mitsubishi; and Ray Furlong on the uproar over Czech version of Hitler's Mein Kampf .
Is Rolls-Royce next? James Doran reports in the "Times" of London that "Volkswagen, its German owner, admitted starving the premier British car marque of crucial investment." Also: Caroline Merrell on Deutsche Bank's deliberations over Dresdner Kleinwort Benson; Carl Mortished on merging German utility giants Veba and Viag's reported talks with French utility Suez-Lyonnaise des Eaux; and new research shows that Nazi generals were "showered with cash to keep them loyal," reports Roger Boyes: "This in turn ensured a very lukewarm reception for those army officers attempting to organise the July 20, 1944 plot to kill the Nazi leader."
In the "Washington Post", Deborah Lipstadt, awaiting judgment on the libel case brought against her and her publisher, Penguin Books, by British historian David Irving for her claim in Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory that he has done just that, reviews three important books which "seriously challenge" claims by Germans that during the Nazi era they had to "obey the law or suffer terrible consequences."
The "Independent" runs a story from the AP by Paul Geitner on a multi-part exhibition on Nazi persecution of gays which opened on Sunday in Berlin museums and at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Also: David Tremayne on Michael Schumacher's win at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
The "Guardian" on Berlin's Ständige Vertretung, "one-third bar, two-thirds restaurant and 100% a shrine to the defunct, artificial but hugely successful state which was run from a little town on the Rhine called Bonn for almost half a century."
Denis Staunton (again!) in the "Irish Times" on how asyl um seekers fare in Berlin.
Back in the "Observer", Jason Burke reports that under Chancellor Willy Brandt, the government allowed Black September, the Palestinian terror group that killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, to hijack a plane and exit the country. And Kate Connolly on Jörg Haider's silence since the Berlin "Tageszeitung" claimed he was gay.
Deborah Solomon interviews German conceptual artist H ans Haacke for the "New York Times Magazine". In a Reuters report, Grant McCool explains the controversy Haacke has stirred up with his installation at the Whitney B iennial.
"Reduced German military effectiveness will have significant implications for the future of NATO, its ability to defend new and potential members in the east, as well as the proposed European Defense and Security Identity." An analysis by Stratfor, Inc., of proposals from nearly every political party in Germany to cut the size of the Bundeswehr.
German inflation is pressuring the European Central Bank to raise interest rates, reports John Schmid in the "International Herald Tribune", but in the "Financial Times", Andrew Gowers reports that Bu ndesbank president Ernst Welteke has spoken out against that prospect.
A "FT" round-up of last week's EU summit in Lisbon: Peter Norman reports that EU leaders are pleased with the results, outlines the goals they agreed on, including the creation of "at least 20m new jobs in a decade and lifting the EU's annual average growth rate to 3 per cent." They have tremendous faith that the Internet will take care of much of their agenda. Michael Smith on an EU venture capital fund. Further, freer trade should help bring peace to the Balkans. An "FT" editorial sums up the paper's stance: "Suppose for a moment that Europe were one huge company," it begins, and you can pretty much guess where it goes from there.
An optimistic "Generation 2000", the German computer industry in desperate need of programmers, Eichmann's rampage in Austria, excerpts from an interview with author Walter Kempowski and more summaries in English of selected articles in this week's issue of DER SPIEGEL.
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