German Court OKs Global Role for Troops

Opening the door for Germany to play a global role for the first time since World War II, this country’s highest court ruled Tuesday that federal troops may participate in international military missions.

The decision by the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe was a victory for Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who has argued in the face of national reluctance that the reunified Germany must take on international responsibilities commensurate with its new size and its economic power.

In effect, the decision allows Kohl to relax restraints imposed on the armed forces after Nazi-era militarism to ensure that Germany would never again threaten its neighbors.

But the court required the government to secure parliamentary approval before deploying troops on U.N. or other multinational missions, and Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel hastened to assure the world that Germany would be a team player, not an aggressor.

“Germany will never pursue an interventionist policy,” Kinkel told reporters at the court. “Our foreign and security policy will not be militarized, you can be sure of that.”

Kohl and President Clinton welcomed the decision in Berlin, where they met at the historic German Reichstag (Parliament) building and later walked solemnly together through the Brandenburg Gate that once divided East and West Berlin.

“I am very happy with this,” Kohl said. “I have always held the view that deployments like this are allowed by the constitution.”

The United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have been pressing Germany to abandon its military caution and make a sizable troop contribution to new, rapid-reaction units designed to intervene in regions in crisis.

In Bonn on Monday, Clinton made it clear that he views Germany as America’s primary ally in Europe now and said, “I do hope that we will have the benefit of the full range of Germany’s capacities to lead.”

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Clinton said Germany has demonstrated its leadership with aid to former Soviet Bloc countries and efforts to integrate them into the European Union. When Germany took over the union’s presidency July 1, Kohl vowed to fight for the integration into that group of countries such as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Western Europe supports broadening the union but also fears it will concentrate too much power in centrally located Germany.

The ability to send troops on international missions is likely to boost Kohl’s bid for a seat for Germany on the U.N. Security Council. But the issue remains highly sensitive among Germans still grappling with the country’s Nazi past. There is a deep pacifist undercurrent in the country; political observers say it will continue to limit government involvement in foreign military operations.

“This will not be freewheeling intervention, by no means,” said Michael Stuermer, director of the independent Research Institute for International Affairs near Munich. “The decision of the court will force us to think much more clearly, without using false pretexts, about what to do in what kinds of contingencies. But Germany will more often than not say ‘No, this is not for us.’ ”

Stuermer said Germany is further restricted because it is not a nuclear power and not a former colonial power--like Britain and France--with links in other parts of the world. History also would keep Germany from sending troops to the former Yugoslav federation, for example, where Hitler’s army intervened in support of a repressive Croatian regime that killed thousands of Serbs.

Germany’s constitution was written with the founding of the Federal Republic in 1949 and includes a provision that, “except for self-defense,” the armed forces can be deployed only where it is explicitly allowed. Every government before Kohl’s has interpreted the clause to mean the German military could be used only to defend the country or to help NATO against an attack from the former Soviet Union and its allies.

But after the fall of communism, Bonn began to view this interpretation as obsolete. And when the constitution kept Germany from fighting in the 1991 Persian Gulf War against Iraq, Kohl argued that such missions were permissible with allies and under a multinational mandate.

The court’s long-awaited decision--one of the most important since German reunification in 1990--was a rejection of actions brought by the opposition Social Democratic Party over deployment of German ships in the Adriatic Sea to support an embargo against Serbia, and of the assignment of German soldiers on radar surveillance flights over Bosnia-Herzegovina and on the ground in Somalia.

“Peace forces and their task of securing peace are part of the United Nations’ system of collective security as it has developed through the practical application of the U.N. charter, which the Federal Republic of Germany joined in 1973,” the eight-judge panel ruled. “For that reason, German soldiers also may be deployed in the framework of United Nations peace troops even when these have a mandate to use force.”

But the court said Kohl had infringed on the rights of Parliament when he failed to consult lawmakers before deploying troops over Bosnia and in Somalia. It said approval by a simple majority in Parliament was required for further deployments.

Kohl’s Christian Democratic Union hailed the decision as a victory over the opposition Social Democratic Party, saying the court had ratified the country’s “moral obligation” to participate in multilateral military missions.

Social Democratic leader Rudolf Scharping, meanwhile, issued a face-saving statement saying the verdict had “clearly removed the legal twilight zone” around deployment of German troops and ensured parliamentary oversight. “The court plainly and clearly dismissed the view of the CDU, according to which the government could single-handedly order international missions,” said Scharping, Kohl’s opponent in the Oct. 16 federal election.

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Kohl’s coalition partner in the government, the liberal Free Democratic Party, had joined the SPD in its April, 1993, challenge of the use of German staff on NATO surveillance flights over Bosnia. But they too lauded the court’s insistence on parliamentary approval.

In Berlin, Clinton was ebullient over the court decision and said Germany has set standards in humanity, democracy and respect for diversity.