Merkel in US
January 4, 2007
Merkel will fly to Washington Thursday in her first trip abroad since assuming on January 1 the six-month presidency of the European Union and the helm of the Group of Eight most industrialized nations for 2007.
In an interview with Wednesday's Financial Times newspaper, Merkel said that improving US-European relations would be a top priority under her leadership.
"Our economic systems are based on the same values," she said. "We must watch out that we do not drift apart but instead come closer together, where there are clear advantages for both sides."
She said it was her ambition to create a single transatlantic market for investors, with common rules and standards on issues such as intellectual property and financial regulation.
Merkel wants US support for Mideast
As Europe's biggest economy and most populous country, Germany faces high expectations for the dual presidencies which by coincidence fall together.
Spokesmen for the two leaders said Merkel and Bush would take up international crises including the stalled Middle East peace process, efforts to quell violence in Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran's disputed nuclear ambitions, instability in Lebanon and efforts to decide the final status of Kosovo.
"The German role on all of these issues will be especially important in 2007," White House deputy press secretary Scott Stanzel said.
Germany plans to call a meeting "as soon as possible" to revitalize the so-called Middle East quartet grouping the EU, the United States, Russia and the United Nations amid grumbling in Europe that Washington has allowed the peace process to languish as Iraq has consumed its attention.
"We would like to see the quartet take on a stronger role," Merkel's spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said Wednesday.
Tough talks on energy
Merkel will also press Bush on cutting greenhouse gases amid mounting European frustration at a US refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which runs out in 2012, or on proposing a viable alternative.
"Of course we must and will talk with the Americans about the fact that they too should commit to reducing carbon dioxide (emissions)," Merkel told the January issue of the political monthly Cicero. "It is a tough problem to tackle."
The EU wants to forge a common position for negotiations on the successor to the Kyoto pact by March. Germany would like the bloc to commit to reducing harmful emissions by 30 percent by 2020.
Merkel and Bush are also likely to discuss G8 plans to rein in highly speculative hedge funds, which have wrought instability on international financial markets.
In a meeting last month, Merkel and US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson agreed that action was needed to avert risks and protect investors and that more transparency must be fostered with the G8 which groups Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States and Russia.
Germany, US back on friendly terms
The one-day visit to Washington will be Merkel's third since she took office almost 14 months ago.
She has moved to recalibrate German foreign policy at the helm of a "grand coalition" government grouping her conservative Christian Union bloc and their chief political rivals, the Social Democrats.
Merkel has also actively sought to heal the rift with Washington she inherited from her predecessor Gerhard Schröder, whose ties with Bush turned frosty over his vocal opposition to the US-led Iraq war.
Carsten Voigt, the German government's coordinator for transatlantic relations, said German-American relations are back on a friendly footing now that the Bush administration is apparently seeking a rapprochement with its allies and international partners.
"There is a clear tendency now in the United States at least rhetorically to move more in the direction of listening to allies and friends than in the direction to dominate them, and that they move more in the direction of international organizations like the United Nations," Voigt told DW-RADIO.
"Everybody in Europe is now looking whether these rhetorical changes in Washington mean changes in substance," he said.