TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/121189/12118900.024

Text File | 1990-09-22 | 6KB | 104 lines

EAST-WEST, Page 45

Kohl Takes On Topic A

By unveiling a scheme for the "confederation" of the two

Germanys, he pushes a delicate issue to the fore


    To his critics, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl has been
the perpetually shrinking statesman. Despite his formidable
physical size, the Bonn leader has been derided for a political
ineptitude that has time and again diminished his stature in West
Germany and among Europe's leaders. Lacking the mettle of Margaret
Thatcher, the imperial hauteur of Francois Mitterrand, and the
wiles of his rival and coalition partner, Foreign Minister
Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Kohl has made his mark as the Continent's
veteran political survivor.

    Last week, however, the Chancellor blindsided detractors and
heads of state from Moscow to Washington with a far-reaching plan
for binding together the two Germanys. By declaring his wish for
a "confederation" of his country and East Germany just days before
the Malta summit, Kohl pushed to the fore the issue that nearly
everyone else would like to tippy-toe around, preferably for as
long as possible.

    Kohl's proposal, delivered in an uncharacteristically bold
speech to the Bundestag, is predicated on the assumption that there
will be free, multiparty elections in East Germany. Though the
details remain nebulous, the outline provides for a massive
infusion of economic aid from West Germany to follow soon after the
polling. The two countries would then establish joint committees
for determining what political and economic links would be
established between them and how extensive the reunification ought
to be. "Nobody knows how a reunified Germany will look," said Kohl.
"But I am sure that unity will come if it is wanted by the German
nation."

    Given the demands of all those with an interest in
reunification, charting a course on the issue requires any West
German leader to navigate not with a telescope but with a
kaleidoscope. One of Kohl's primary targets was West German voters,
and he no doubt hoped to revive his dismal political fortunes. He
faces a general election in December 1990, and at the moment his
Christian Democratic Party's chances are rated as questionable.
Since the tumultuous events leading up to the dismantling of the
Berlin Wall began last August, Kohl has been attacked relentlessly
for a flat-footed response to a historic moment. When he appeared
on the steps of the Schoneberg town hall in Berlin on the night
after the Wall was breached, millions of TV viewers saw a flustered
and irate Kohl as he was heckled by an unfriendly crowd.

    This time Kohl got the better of it. His speech was interrupted
with applause by supporters and opponents, and his party's main
rival, the Social Democratic Party, at first had no choice but to
endorse the speech. Later in the week, though, when the Bundestag
formally approved the plan, the SPD began feeling its politics
again and abstained from the voting. Kohl also seized the high
ground from the far-right Republican Party, which has issued absurd
calls for complete German reunification to 1937's borders, which
now include parts of Poland. Kohl reassured Germans across much of
the political spectrum as well as Germany watchers around the world
by emphasizing the term confederation. With its explicit echoes of
the Zollverein, the customs union of German states that existed
during the 19th century before Bismarck's unification of the
nation, the word summoned an image of a large but unthreatening
German entity.

    The implied restraint -- no single, mammoth German state was
ever conjured in the speech -- seemed to appeal to many of Bonn's
allies, as did the fact that the text betrayed no inclination for
West Germany to stray from the folds of NATO or the European
Community. The U.S. reacted positively, though it did not endorse
Kohl's plan. State Department spokesman Margaret Tutwiler said that
"it should be no cause for concern that the Chancellor has laid out
his vision for the future of Germany." The presentation did
surprise Western capitals in one regard: Kohl had consulted none
of them -- not even Paris, London and Washington, which, together
with Moscow, are empowered by the postwar settlement to determine
the conditions of reunification. His decision not to consult was
a shrewd signal to everyone -- including, again, West German voters
-- that reunification is pre-eminently a matter for Germans to
decide.

    The reaction in East Germany, another audience whose interests
Kohl undoubtedly weighed, was more mixed. The parliament in East
Berlin fulfilled one of Kohl's prerequisites -- for its own
purposes, to be sure, not in order to please Kohl -- by eliminating
the Communist Party's monopoly of power. But East German leader
Egon Krenz told TIME that "so long as both states remain in their
political and military alliances, a confederation of the two states
is simply not possible." Several of the country's new opposition
parties also weighed in against the Kohl scheme because of their
desire to maintain some kind of separate, reformed socialist state.
Even so, Kohl may have many more sympathizers whose views have not
been articulated in press conferences. In pro-democracy
demonstrations in Leipzig during the past few weeks, banners
proclaiming GERMANY, ONE COUNTRY bobbed through the crowd.

    There was one unambiguously negative response. As he prepared
to leave for Malta, Mikhail Gorbachev named no names but warned
against "clumsy behavior or provocative statements." Faced with the
paradox of how to hold on to the Soviet Union's most strategically
and economically valuable ally now that all the satellites have
been freed from their confining orbits, Gorbachev warned that "any
attempt to extract selfish benefits from these events (is)
fraught with chaos." Kohl's next and far more difficult task is to
convince Gorbachev -- and many who silently think like him -- that
chaos is just what his plan will avert.