Reactions: How Important is Colin Powell's Visit?

Much less the "bridge-building" trip many had hoped for, most experts are seeing U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to Berlin as a small, but important step in what remains a long road ahead for the American-German political relationship.

Powell, who arrived Thursday evening, will meet with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder for talks on Friday morning. Experts interviewed by DW-WORLD said Powell will most likely praise Germany for its role in the war on terrorism and pivotal role in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Also likely to be on the agenda is the position Germany will take in the United Nations Security Council on the future of postwar Iraq. The U.S. announced earlier this week it wants the security council to decide on a resolution authored by Spain, Great Britain and the U.S. next week. France and Russia have said it is too soon and are wary of wording in the resolution that would dismantle the U.N. oil-for-food program and put Iraqi oil into coalition hands.

Germany's position on the resolution as well as their role in the reconstruction of Iraq are likely to be of great interest to the Bush administration. Below, a round-up of expert commentary on the problems in U.S. and German relations, the German-French alliance, the Powell visit and what the near future holds.

Bernhard May is a transatlantic specialist at the German Council on Foreign Relations

Of course it's good news for Berlin in the sense that [Powell] could have stayed at home or gone to a different city. But the substantive point, what Schroder has repeated over the past weeks, is that transatlantic relations are vital for Germany, much more important than for France. The misperception that Germany could pick and choose, either transatlantic relations or French relations, is nonsense. Germany has to have good relations with France and good relations with the United States.

Chancellor Schröder will try to say, 'Yes we are moving in the right direction, but we need clear sign from the United States that they are also moving.' If it's just a way of telling us Europeans what we have to do then it will be very difficult.

Radek Sikorski is a former Polish Defense and Foreign Minister. He is now executive director of the American Enterprise Institute's New Atlantic Initiative in Washington, D.C.

The reading in Washington is that Germany has found itself in the position its in through a series of opportunistic political decisions and coincidences, but that fundamentally Germany wishes to remain a U.S. ally. France, on the other hand, has an alternative strategic vision. France thinks Germany should be the horse, the rest of Europe should be the cart, and France would be driver. And France would drive the horse and cart into a head-on collision with an American tank.

Dagmar Weiler is director of the Bridge of Understanding, a German-American nonprofit organization based in Munich that organizes trips to Germany for American Jews.

I don't think we should put too much emphasis on it. It's a start, that's all. The problems between the chancellor and the president will never be solved. Secondly it's Powell who's coming, not the president.

When you do go to the U.S. and specifically to the heartland and you explain what Germans think about the war and about the government, once they see that there's more to it than simple anti-Americanism as reported in the media, they are willing to come to Germany and experience it firsthand. I think we need to intensify that contact on the level of political foundations and institutions. Presidents and chancellors go, but we will always be here.

Jackson Janes is executive director of the American Insitute for Contemporary German Studies in Washington, D.C.

I think (in Washington) there was this concern about Germany and its relationship with France as part of the challenge to the US. In the past, they have always tried to be a go-between and this time they took sides ... They got themselves into a box with France, they did not have a profile and did not have a coherent position vis-a-vis the United States and they're going to have to figure that out in the future.

Powell is the one looked to by Germans and Europeans as someone who had an ear for their concerns, and to some extent that seems to be the case.

Walther Leisler Kiep, member of the U.S.-friendly Christian Democratic Union in Germany and chairman emeritus of the transatlantic organization Atlantik Brücke.

The personal relationship between the Chancellor and the president is a serious matter. I think [this visit] is a matter which will certainly help in the direction of normalization. Several dates where they are all going to be meeting in the coming mothhs and that's why this visit at this time is very important.

I assure you that there is a wide view in germany among the people ... that everybody's happy that the victory in Iraq came so soon, everyone is happy that we got rid of Saddam Hussein. That is clear. On the other hand, this does not imply a change of vie or change in their opposition to the war.