By Orkhan Sattarov, exclusively to VK
The new President of France had barely had time to make himself comfortable in his new office when a whole series of international problems fell upon him. The rest of the Western leaders will have to accept this new member, whose political views differ considerably from his predecessor’s, to their elite ‘club’. Hollande’s victory delivered a considerable blow to the plans of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who came to an agreement of European anti-crisis policy with Nicolas Sarkozy, an agreement severely criticized by Hollande in his election program. During the first visit of the new French President to Berlin the two leaders couldn’t avoid the unpleasant topic: Angela Merkel doesn’t want to introduce any corrections to the Merkel-Sarkozy European taxation pact while Hollande insists on it being revised. French new Finance Minister, Pierre Moscovici announced that the new socialistic government will not ratify the pact. According to BBC, the Minister said that in order to ratify it France needs to see concrete measures for boosting European economies growth in it.
At the same time, Merkel is facing not only foreign political difficulties, but domestic policy complications as well. Her conservative Christian Democratic Union lost local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia to the socialists. The CDU got only 26% - the lowest result ever in this state, while the SPG got 39%. As a result of this defeat the CDU can say ‘goodbye’ to any hope it had left to regain the parliamentary majority. One of Merkel’s comrades, Federal Minister for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety Norbert Röttgen had to pay for this failure: Merkel fired him (which proved to be quite an unpopular step as Röttgen’s discharge of his Minister duties didn’t give rise to any complaints). This excessive ‘cruelty’ of the ‘iron lady’ has already stirred up significant discontent within the ruling coalition. The current political dynamics in Germany indicates that in a year and a half the socialists will have a good chance of replacing the conservators in the government, and the high personal rating of Angela Merkel won’t save them. However, if the socialists come to power in Berlin, that would restore the lost harmony between the two most influential European powers.
For now, however, Francois Hollande has to face a problem common for all opposition politicians who manage to come to power: it is easy to criticize the acting government and play on the sympathies of the ‘protest electorate’. And now the new ex-oppositionist will have to deliver all his pre-election promises. And that would be very hard to do now, when he has to take the actual of the global politics into account. Today it is not his European, but his Afghanistan strategy that is in the center of public attention. He promised to withdraw the French contingent from Afghanistan before the end of 2012, and that means before the term stipulated by the allies. Of course anti-militarist trends in the French society were very strong, so Hollande’s pre-election rhetoric on this topic was very popular, but is he really capable of such a step? Even in the very heat of presidential campaigning the US President Barack Obama doesn’t command the withdrawal of the US troops from Afghanistan even though 70% of Americans want the operation to be over.
Nevertheless, on the eve of the NATO summit Hollande has once more confirmed his intention to withdraw the French contingent from Afghanistan. In addition, France hasn’t yet given its consent to participate in financing the future Afghani army, which is also a matter of great concern for the US. It is possible that the US will have to carry the ‘Afghanistan epopee’ to its end on its own. The US President probably planned to use the upcoming Chicago NATO summit as a PR-opportunity, but this plan might be ruined by the unflinching Hollande.
On the other hand, as many experts point out, Paris won’t be able to ignore the positions of Berlin and Washington altogether. Hollande has no actual experience in global politics, so he’ll have to learn on his own mistakes.
