How can this inconsistency in German foreign policy be understood? As mentioned earlier, it is first and foremost a success of the process envisioned by Jean Monnet and put into practice by statesmen from Robert Schumann to Helmut Kohl. Looking at the history of that process and the institutional constraints it has created suggests that Germany's behavior is a logical expression of its interests.

The Long Road to Integration

Throughout the 19th century, the possibility of the rise of a German nation-state caused unease in the rest of the continent. A German nation-state would completely upset the balance of power system set up to provide stability on the continent at the Vienna Congress of 1815. Germany's central location would make it continuously fearful of encirclement and thus overly sensitive. When the small kingdoms, principalities, and free towns that made up the German Confederacy were united after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the newly constituted country fundamentally changed the European landscape. Especially after Bismarck retired and the young Kaiser Wilhelm II almost singlehandedly determined German foreign policy, the country started to demand "its proper place in the world" and aspired to be recognized as a Weltmacht, or world power. All attempts at balancing and containing this giant could not avoid the devastating world wars of the first half of the 201 century.

The 1950s saw a reorientation in the relations of the Western European states. Helped by the constraints of the Cold War, Germany and France began a process of reconciliation, formally documented in their Treaty of 1963. Moreover, the two countries became the driving forces behind the process of European Integration. The idea-envisioned by Monnet-was to slowly subject more and more aspects of primarily economic policy to the authority of supranational decisionmaking bodies. This would tie the interests of the various countries to a common purpose, make them interdependent, and avoid the kind of conflict seen in the preceding century. Eventually, Monnet hoped for the development of a federally organized United States of Europe.

The process started with the European Union of Coal and Steel of 1952 and, after some setbacks in the mid- 195 Os, reached its first climax in the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which established the European Community and a customs union among its members. During the next two decades, the membership was expanded and amendments were made to the existing Treaties. The 1987 Single European Act complemented the customs union with a completely integrated market for goods, services, labor, and capital and put all previous agreements into a common document.

The two men most influential in this endeavor, Francois Mitterand and Helmut Kohl, were soon after faced with an unforeseen development, namely, the end of the Cold War and the bipolar world. German reunification and the breakdown of the Soviet Union once more threatened the rise of a giant at Europe's center and seemed to put the German question back on the agenda. Yet the two statesmen, both extremely conscious of history and their own personal roles therein, were convinced that there was only one appropriate solution to the problem. Determined not to allow a united Germany to become a force for instability once again, they pushed for further steps of integration. The 1992 Maastricht Treaty included the goal for further "political" integration and complemented the Common Market with a common currency, the euro. European Monetary Union (EMU) was supposed to make the process of integration irreversible, as it represented the first instance where European states ceded one of the classic duties of the sovereign-the maintenance of a currency-to a supranational body.

Irreversible Linkage

Looking at the commitment to further integration displayed by the otherwise all but modest foreign policy of the Red-Green Coalition suggests that the fathers of integration achieved their goal. German interests have apparently become so tied to the European framework that assertions of power outside of it are so unlikely to be successful that they are hardly even pursued.

German business has become extremely dependent on the Common Market, and many German firms, even relatively small ones, now have operations in several EU countries. Monetary policy is completely in the hands of the independent European Central Bank. Most regulatory issues are dealt with at a European level. Thus, if a German government does not want to completely relinquish its influence over markets and economic activity, its only choice is to exercise influence through European institutions. It has thus a vested interest in the effective functioning of these bodies, which in turn necessitates certain limitations on member states' sovereignty. The same limitations are necessary in order for the European Union as a whole to solve a number of "global" problems, be they migration, environmental degradation, or organized crime.

Why such interests would lead to the kind of European policy the Schroeder government has pursued is not obvious. It might be explained by Germany's legal order. In its Maastricht decision, Germany's Federal Constitutional Court ruled that there were limits to the decisions European institutions can make without the authorization of national Parliaments. The court based its ruling on an interpretation of the constitutional clause that provides for a freely elected parliament as a basic right. The Maastricht decision means that it will only be a matter of time before a ruling of Germany's highest court clashes with a decision made by an EU body. The implications of this cannot be foreseen. Avoiding a clash between the German Federal Constitutional Court and the European Court of Justice was probably the main motive behind the constitutional change regarding women in the military that was mentioned above. The problem could be resolved by a Constitution for Europe that has equal standing with the Grundgesetz (Germany's Basic Law or Constitution). In that regard, Fischer's ideas represent a goal that is likely to remain pursued by any German government in the near future.

Beyond these matters, there is another reason for a strong Germany to be interested in "deeper" integration. When it first became a powerful nation state, it was a "world power" by virtue of being a European power. If it is to be influential in the world today, its own size is no longer sufficient. France has realized this for a long time and hence always seen the process of integration as a way of asserting "European" power on the world stage. Germany is likely to slowly adopt a similar stance. Its role in the establishment of the European Rapid Reaction Force, and its recent outspoken criticism of the United States' plans for national missile defense and of the Bush administration's withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol point in this direction. Even though the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) has not amounted to much so far, it is likely to progress in the future as both Germany and France will, despite occasional differences of opinion, see the CFSP as a vehicle to assert their interests on the world stage.