Germany Seeks to Sway U.S. to Uphold Emissions Goals

With all due respect, Mr. President, planet Earth is not a U.S. plaything to be saved or sullied depending on popular mood swings driven by fears of recession and rolling blackouts.

That, in spirit, is the message German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will deliver to President Bush on Thursday when the two leaders meet in Washington to ponder an expanding chasm between Western powers no longer unified by the common menace of the Cold War.

In a wide-ranging and exclusive interview with The Times, Schroeder repeatedly emphasized the concerns of his country and the rest of Europe that the U.S. is cavalierly ignoring air pollution standards defined in the 1997 Kyoto, Japan, environmental protocols and scuttling a global climate treaty.

The leader of Europe’s most populous nation also outlined Monday night his concerns about aerospace and agricultural trade issues, U.S. plans for a national missile defense system, the necessity of supporting reform in Russia and the threat of a U.S. pullout from Balkan peacekeeping missions that he said Europeans are still unable to manage alone.

Although his opinions and worries were cradled in the polite, measured language of allied diplomacy, Schroeder echoed the concerns of other European nations and said the continent will not remain silent if the new administration disregards the wider world’s interests.

“There is fear in Europe that the administration will pay no attention to the aims defined in Kyoto,” the chancellor said.

The Bush administration announced this month that, because of California’s energy crisis, the U.S. will ignore carbon dioxide emission standards set at the world climate conference in the Japanese city. The U.S. decision drew criticism from Europeans. The most recent round of the climate conference, held in the Netherlands in November, also failed to produce a global accord because of U.S. refusal to accept proposed limits.

“It is important that the U.S. accept its responsibility for the world climate. They are the biggest economy in the world and the heaviest energy consumers,” Schroeder said, adding that he will stress to Bush the moral imperative of protecting the environment for future generations.

“This is one of those issues where one can say from a basis of real friendship: ‘Dear friends, we are of the opinion that if you abandon Kyoto, you are in the wrong,’ ” Schroeder said.

On the proposed U.S. national missile defense, Schroeder signaled a willingness to withhold judgment until details are determined, which he expects to be done in consultation with European allies.

“The new administration, especially the president, is acting very self-confidently, but this self-confidence includes a readiness for dialogue, first of all with the [NATO] allies but also with those outside of the alliance,” Schroeder said.

Schroeder described the administration’s missile defense proposal as “an interesting starting point” for its attempt to protect the U.S. and its allies. But long before Germany would consider any role in the system’s development, Schroeder said, evidence of a genuine security threat needs to be shown, along with proof that the technology is feasible and U.S. taxpayers are willing to pay the ever-spiraling tab for its construction.

“Is there an actual threat from so-called rogue nations? Are they really in the position to threaten the United States and its allies with missiles? Or is there a more rational threat from such countries--namely terrorism?” the chancellor asked as he ticked off a list of obstacles that appear to relegate the development of the defense system to the distant future.

Asked if German companies might want to compete for defense contracts if the project gets the go-ahead, Schroeder described that as “an interesting aspect” but said it was too soon to make such a decision.

“I don’t want to see those of us in Europe having a closed discussion about this, one that would right at the beginning say, ‘No, never, under no circumstances,’ ” he observed, suggesting that Germany can foresee an acceptable variation of the project. Schroeder also made a point of dropping the “national” label, noting that the missile defense, which calls for developing systems that can destroy missiles in flight, is intended to also benefit U.S. allies.

Of more immediate concern, Schroeder noted, is Russia’s opposition to the project and other strains testing Washington’s relations with Moscow.

“I believe it would be a mistake if relations with Russia fell back to the times when there was not even a willingness to converse,” he said, although he added that talk of a new Cold War is exaggerated.

On Europe’s plans to develop a 60,000-member rapid-reaction force to respond to crises on the continent, such as in the Balkans, Schroeder said it is the U.S. that has reservations about the security consequences. Pentagon officials have criticized member states of the European Union for creating a new army that could drain resources from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“I really don’t understand these reservations, because it has been a long-standing American demand that the Europeans be in the position to react to regional conflicts in Europe, of course strictly within the framework of NATO and in no way against it,” Schroeder said.

That demand seemed to be bolstered by comments--made during last year’s U.S. presidential election campaign--by Condoleezza Rice, now Bush’s national security advisor, that U.S. troops taking part in Balkan peacekeeping operations serve no direct national defense interests.

Schroeder described as premature any withdrawal of U.S. forces from European missions, because the rapid-reaction force won’t be ready for at least a year and smoldering ethnic conflicts demand the NATO leaders’ full attention.

“We want to take as much responsibility as possible, and we make no secret of that, but for the time being NATO needs the United States to remain functional,” Schroeder stated.

Responding to Washington’s oft-aired criticism that Europe spends less per capita on defense than the U.S. does, Schroeder said that was too narrow a view of Germany’s contributions in the post-Cold War era. Without his country’s substantial investments in the redevelopment of Eastern Europe, he insisted, there would be a deepening prosperity divide fostering resentment and unrest.

“If one looks fairly at the role Germany has played in the past 10 years, it must be said that we are the ones who carried the brunt of the weight in supporting the rebuilding of democratic structures in Russia. This is an enormous security boost,” Schroeder said.

“We have invested about as much in the east of our country in the past decade following reunification, for which we thank God, as George Bush is proposing to give back to American citizens in tax relief over the next 10 years,” he added.

Schroeder recently observed that U.S.-German trade issues were more divisive than the missile defense system and pointed out in the interview that U.S. exporters need to be more sensitive to the demands of European consumers confronted with food safety crises such as “mad cow” and foot-and-mouth diseases.

“Those who say we have to allow in hormone-treated meat need to comprehend that we have a very delicate consumer mentality at the moment,” he said of a European public that has turned against most products of industrial farming.

There is also friction over aircraft sales by rivals Boeing and European consortium Airbus, the chancellor noted, urging more cooperation on both sides because “we won’t gain anything out of a monopoly.”

On the positive side, he noted, California’s Silicon Valley is home to many spinoff companies of major German manufacturers, and the information technology field holds good prospects for “magnificent cooperation.”

“I would mention also that we could learn from each other concerning energy policy, [such as] that liberalization can be taken too far,” Schroeder said of the recent California blackouts, a problem Europeans are spared because of continuing heavy regulation. “Supply guarantees are something to which Europeans are paying proper attention.”