HERR STRAUSS WALTZES OUT

Anatol Lieven on the tensions

among Christian politicians following the Pershing missile decision

Bonn PRAISE, please, to West Germany where it is due. Chancellor Kohl's sensible deci- sion to scrap the Pershing 1-A missiles when they become obsolete in the early 1990s has not received enough of it from abroad.

It is true of course that the sight of the West Germans clutching their topless mis- siles (the warheads being American- controlled) was always rather ridiculous. Moreover, the whole furore was not just the result of German fears of front-line exposure to Soviet conventional superior- ity. It was also an attempt to slip the Federal Republic into honorary mem- bership of the nuclear club. The way in which the country has been forced without much consultation to relinquish an impor- tant part of its defences is however a real blow to West German pride. It emphasises that West Germany, economically so powerful, is still politically much weaker and more subject to pressure than Britain or France.

That Kohl delayed so long before reaching a decision which international and domestic opinion made unavoidable is a sign of how much trouble it is likely to cause him. Franz Joseph Strauss and his Bavarian followers have already bitterly attacked him for making his statement without consulting while he did apparently consult Christian Democrat and Liberal leaders. This may bring to a head numer- ous conflicts already dividing Kohl's Christian Democrat party and coalition government. Strauss's Christian Social Un- ion in protest has decided to boycott forthcoming coalition discussions — a move which has generally been seen as petty and insubstantial.

Underlying these conflicts is a basic issue of political identity. Are the Christian Democrats essentially a party of the Right, aiming at a quite radical restoration of `traditional' and 'national' values and alle- giances (what the Germans call a Wende, or turning point in history)? Or are they a party of the Centre, aiming to win the 'new middle classes' from socialism with a phi- losophy which will be more appealing precisely because it seems more 'modern'? All European right-of-centre parties face something of this question at present, but for the Germans it is particularly acute because it is reflected in the distinction between the national Christian Democrats and their sister party, the much more right-wing Bavarian Social Union under Strauss.

Up to now, this mixture of joint and separate political identities has frequently allowed the two parties to have the best of both worlds. It gives the CSU the moder- ate conservative vote in Bavaria, and the CDU most of the right-wing vote across the rest of the country. Given however the great and growing policy differences be- tween the two parties, Franz Joseph and the CSU have sometimes been tempted to denounce their pact with the CDU, break out of Bavaria, and set up a new national party on the Right.

Curiously — to English eyes — these policy differences are not about economics or the future of the welfare state. The stagnation of the West German economy has fuelled a major debate in Bonn, but it is one which cuts across customary political alignments. The Liberals, following their classical tradition, stand for tax-cuts and less state interference, while the CSU in Bavaria has pursued a policy of enlight- ened interventionism. Rather, the differ- ences between moderates and right- wingers have bee- defined by history, political culture, and conflicting ideas of patriotism.

These differences have been exacer- bated by the parties' reactions to the results of January's national elections. To

`This is Erik the Green, and I'm Erik the Colourblind.'

the moderate CDU general secretary, Heiner Geissler, these seemed to offer both a warning and a promise. On the one hand, the CDU vote dropped very sharply, with most of the losses going to their Liberal coalition partners. Geissler and the moderates blamed this on centrist voters being frightened off by the right-wing rhetoric of Strauss and his sympathisers, and supporting the Liberals as a corrective.

On the other hand, the opposition Social Democrats failed miserably to break out of the electoral prison to which the rise of the Greens and the decline of their traditional working-class base had consigned them. In Geissler's analysis, if the CDU could adopt a moderately progressive image to appeal to new and rising social groups, it could drive the Social Democrats into a corner for the foreseeable future. The only way they could hope to escape would be by alliance with the Greens — which would only make them more unpopular with centrist voters.

Strauss, needless to say, disagrees strongly with this analysis. In this view, it has been precisely the CDU's lack of a strongly conservative profile which has cost it support. At present, this disillusion on the Right leads principally to non-voting, but Strauss argues that in future it might go to extreme right-wing parties like the `Republicans'.

These radically opposed strategies have led to a regular brushfire of clashes within the Bonn coalition which have lasted now for more than a year. They began with the issue of political asylum for Third World refugees and moved through the treatment of Aids suspects to the laws governing public demonstrations. Since Gorbachev's offer on the Double Zero Option, howev- er, they have been chiefly concentrated on the nuclear issue, where Strauss is allied with Christian Democrat right-wingers.

The Right's opposition to the Double Zero option has been a mixture of genuine security concerns — such as the need to retain the possibility of a 'flexible nuclear response' — and of hurt national pride at Germany once again being ignored by the superpowers. This is a heady mixture, and its results reduced Geissler to absolute fury. For the coalition government, like the previous one of Helmut Schmidt, had always given as its public argument for the presence of the widely unpopular medium- range missiles not political but purely military reasons. They were justified pure- ly as a direct response to the SS20s. By seeming to go back on this, the Christian Democrats did themselves severe electoral damage in state elections in the spring, with the gainers once more being the Liberals. More elections are due in Schleswig-Holstein and Bremen on 13 September. It may be assumed that the timing of Kohl's declaration of the Per- shing 1-As had a good deal to do with this. It is in any event a triumph for Geissler.

In recent weeks however strife between the parties has concentrated on a quite different issue. Last month the moderate Christian Democrat labour minister, Nor- bert Bluem, visited Chile with a message of support from his party to the oppositionist Chilean Christian Democrats. While there, he suddenly declared that West Germany should grant political asylum to 15 Chilean communist guerillas presently under sent- ence of death. This may have been politics on his part, or humanity to the victims of torture, or both.

Strauss, an old friend of Pinochet's, was predictably furious, and the incident brought to boiling point all the dissentions of previous months over the identity and direction of the Christian Democrats and the future of their relationship with the Christian Socials. Kohl was sufficiently alarmed to make one of his very rare direct interventions in strife of this kind, sharply calling both sides to order. This failed to have much effect, and in his reply, Strauss, who is bitterly jealous of Kohl for having achieved the prize of the Chancellorship despite being so much less intelligent and charismatic than himself, openly implied that Kohl was both weak and incompetent. This crisis continues to bubble alongside that over the missiles.

Strauss is over 70 and none too well. His likely successors are mostly fawning mediocrities — indeed, worry about the party's possible loss of image when he is gone may be one reason for its present efforts to give itself 'profile'. Under the existing set-up, Franz Joseph is effectively Chief Minister for Life of his not-so-little kingdom. Why should he risk this on a wild national venture? this however will not prevent him from continuing to press his policies and ideals upon the Christian Democrats, whatever their feasibility. The result will be a perpetual governmental dog-fight, at a time when tough action over the West German economy is needed.