Special cooperation

A queasy feeling lingers. Government consultations as have now taken place between Germany and China were once something very special. A look back at their history begs the question of whether they really are the right forum for cooperation between a democracy and a dictatorship, however important it might be.

With the Elysee Treaty of 1963, the French president at the time Charles de Gaulle and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer set up a new foundation for relations. They agreed that the French and German cabinets would meet twice a year. This new form of cooperation broke with the ideas of national sovereignty that were so ingrained at the time.

It followed the Second World War and the German occupation of France, which in turn had followed the First World War and the subsequent humiliation of Germany by the Treaty of Versailles. This in turn had followed France's humiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian war and the coronation of Kaiser Wilhelm I in Versailles in 1871.

The government consultations were a way for the two countries to reach out to each other and put an end to centuries of rivalry. In 1977, Germany established government consultations with Italy, a tireless motor of European unification. A similar agreement was met with Spain, which had survived Franco's dictatorship, six years later, and was followed by talks with Poland in 1997 in an attempt to repeat the Franco-German success story.

This instrument of cooperation then went into full blossom. In 1998, the German government agreed to support President Boris Yeltsin in his efforts to integrate Russia into the Western community.

The first government consultations between Germany and Israel, towards which Berlin feels a particular responsibility, took place in 2008.

And this year China and India - the world's two most populated states - are both holding their first round of government consultations with Germany. The two are emerging economies with important markets, but whereas India has been a stable democracy for decades despite massive problems, China is a cruel dictatorship which pays no heed to human rights.

So what justifies the employment of this unusual form of cooperation with India or China, apart from interests? China is currently making use of its vast currency reserves to help bring stability to certain eurozone nations in crisis, just as traders in the US, which is also plagued with debts, speculate against the euro. It might seem useful to Germany to grace relations with this particular form of cooperation but it undermines the original government consultations set up by Adenauer and de Gaulle and steeped in values. One wonders if any of their spirit still remains.

Author: Peter Stützle / act
Editor: Ziphora Robina