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More than three months after Nicolas Sarkozy took office as President of France signs of disharmony in the French-German relationship are growing. This was now voiced in public by Rolf Mützenich, a foreign affairs expert of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), in an interview with the German Broadcasting Company “Deutschlandfunk” on September 14th. Mützenich critizised Sarcozy’s “Ad-hoc decisions ... taken without any prior consultations with other national governments within the European Union” and called the political style of the French President “somewhat hyped” and “jittery”. Sarcozy “keeps creating irritations in international politics” – the SPD politician mentioned energy politics, Iran and the European-Russian relations as examples.
With respect to all these issues Sarcozy became active as some sort of extended mouthpiece of US politics over the past weeks and months: bet on nuclear energy exclusively; corner Iran with aggressive sanctions reaching beyond the agreements of the UN security council in order to create a cause for war; orchestrate a new cold war against Russia.
German politics would be well advised to counter Sarcozy’s aberrations with all determination, like the SPD politician did, and to insist on European consultations in foreign and security affairs – for the sake of Europe.
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