In this issue:

Mayor of Berlin Calls for Berlin-to-Moscow Maglev

German Foreign Minister Redefining Transatlantic Relations

French President Convenes 'Anti-War 3' Foreign Ministers Ahead of G-8 Meeting

France Maps Plan for Expanded G-8 Participation

European Defense Ministers Call for Exempting Military Budgets from Maastricht

Poll Shows Germans' Preference for France Over U.S., U.K.

From Volume 2, Issue Number 21 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published May 27, 2003

Western European News Digest

Mayor of Berlin Calls for Berlin-to-Moscow Maglev

During a special May 15 meeting of eastern German state governors on infrastructure development, Klaus Wowereit, Mayor of the German capital of Berlin, proposed a grand maglev route from Berlin to Moscow, via Warsaw, the Polish capital.

Wowereit said that when discussing projects pointing towards Eastern Europe, one should include "visions" along the lines of a big Transrapid connection between these three capitals of Germany, Poland, and Russia.

Wowereit's office told this news service May 19 that it does not know exactly why he made that proposal right now, that he may have been reviving similar proposals made some years ago, for example, by Berlin's then-Senator for Economics, Heinrich Haase, who even wanted to go beyond Moscow, to Shanghai!

It is just as likely, however, that Wowereit recently found a leaflet from the BueSo Party, the LaRouche co-thinkers in Germany, on his desk, calling for a maglev route of this kind, in the context of the Eurasian Land-Bridge. Berlin institutions have been saturated with such leaflets, in several deployments of the LaRouche Youth Movement.

German Foreign Minister Redefining Transatlantic Relations

"Everything we do, must be done with recourse to all available peaceful means," German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said in an interview published May 19 in the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel. Fischer gave the interview following his meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on May 16.

Fischer stressed that changes in the transatlantic relationship should be made in cooperation with the United Nations.

He acknowledged that "We did have differences over the question of war. These still remain. But this is the past, and we are looking forward, and we have to take note of the new realities." He added that the updated U.S. draft resolution to the UN Security Council is "not sufficient, but it is a basis on which an agreement within the Security Council should be possible." (The resolution put forward at the Security Council by the U.S. and U.K. has subsequently been passed, 14-0, with Syria absent.)

The precondition for agreement includes points addressed by French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, he said. These are: "The role of the United Nations in relation to the victorious powers [in Iraq]; the question how to transform the oil-for-food program, and how to guarantee transparency for the future, until a fully sovereign, legitimate Iraqi government does exist; and lastly, the problem of the weapons of mass destruction."

Granted, the Anglo-Americans are in control of Iraq right now, but the UN should be the one to make final certification of Iraq's status, Fischer insisted, adding that "the resolution which we are discussing just now, will not be the last one on this theme."

French President Convenes 'Anti-War 3' Foreign Ministers Ahead of G-8 Meeting

French President Jacques Chirac invited the Foreign Ministers of the "Anti-War 3" (Russia, Germany, and of course his own French Foreign Minister ) to a special preparatory meeting in Paris on May 21, ahead of the general G-8 Foreign Ministers' meeting, held in Paris May 22-23. (The G-8 includes the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Japan, Italy, France, Germany, and Russia.)

France Maps Plan for Expanded G-8 Participation

President Chirac last week presented his plan for an expanded G-8 summit. The summit, to be held June 1-3 in Evian, France, will include at least two dozens heads of state and government, under the approach of Chirac, who is the summit's host.

Chirac said it is high time to return to the original idea behind these summits, namely, to work out a "model of responsible market economy," as opposed to the free market excess of "letting things go," which the world has witnessed in the financial crises of the last few years.

Solidarity with, and substantial support for, states of the developing sector should be an essential aspect of future world economic summits, Chirac said.

Regulation of global financial affairs to preempt the outbreak of regional financial emergency crises is urgently needed, Chirac said, as are efficient steps to combat AIDS and other major diseases.

Chirac has invited to the G-8 meeting the Presidents of China, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Senegal, South Africa and Nigeria, the Prime Ministers of India and Malaysia, the King of Morocco and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, as well as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, and leading representatives of the IMF, World Bank, and the WTO.

European Defense Ministers Call for Exempting Military Budgets from Maastricht

The Defense Ministers of France, Germany, and Italy (Michele Alliot-Marie, Peter Struck, Antonio Martino) agreed at their meeting in Brussels May 19, that the project of improving military capabilities in Europe was too important to allow its being strangled by the Maastricht budgeting bans any longer. Any significant increase of military budgets would otherwise instantly "violate" the budget-balancing regulations. (For more, see ECONOMIC NEWS DIGEST.)

Poll Shows Germans' Preference for France Over U.S., U.K.

An Allensbach Institute poll, released the second week of May, found that 49% of Germans view relations with France as the top priority for their country's foreign policy, whereas only 17% considered relations with the U.S. such a priority. Those polled also showed a clear preference for French President Jacques Chirac, whose policies are supported by 45% of Germans, compared to only 17% who would prefer George W. Bush or British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

This is not surprising, of course, since Germany heartily supported France in the months before the Iraq war, in the period in which France was leading the anti-war opposition to that war.

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