SPEECH by Helmut KOHL,
Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
on the occasion of the EPP Group Study Days in Berlin

BERLIN, 5 May 1998

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Dear Wilfried,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Friends,

Let me first thank you for your warm welcome. You have excelled yourself, Wilfried, in placing this in its historical context. I have to confess that this is something with which I have a problem. Any mention of a history book and I have the feeling that I am dead and buried. But I am still here. As someone who has had a passion for history all his life, I am rather cautious about this expression.

I have known so many people who said, as soon as they got up in the morning, and often on the advice of their wives, 'Let's write history', and all that came out were a few pathetic memoirs. This is why I am very cautious. In my life I have on a number of occasions - from some way off, of course - experienced the fact that history is being written as we speak, and it has given me grounds for thought.

As a young student I experienced the way in which Franklin D. Roosevelt was built up as the greatest President of America; there were large sums of money invested in his campaign. But today American Presidents are judged quite differently.

One of my unforgettable memories is when after a long session one evening with Ronald Reagan he said that he had never had any ambition to win the Nobel prize for literature. I asked him: 'in your opinion who is the greatest American president of this century - excluding those still alive, of course'. He took a piece of paper and said: 'We'll each write down a name and pass it over to the other'. To my surprise, we both wrote the same name: Harry S. Truman. It was an incredible experience for a European, a German, because Truman was the one person to see through Stalin and to say 'So far and no further'. If he had not been President, we would probably not be sitting here together today.

Another true story which I am happy to tell because it concerns my church is about Pope Pius XII. He was a great Pope, and when he died people said: 'that's it'. Cardinal Spellman, who understood a lot about parish work in New York and even more about money, held a collection and produced a large alabaster figure representing Pope Pius XII which was erected in the crypt of St Peter's. But if you go into the crypt you will be surprised. Most flowers are to be found on the tomb of Pope John XXIII. I found this very comforting. I have not told you this just for the sake of telling stories, but to make clear my caution.

I should like to extend to you a warm welcome in Berlin. You have come to Germany at an exciting time. Here you can experience an election campaign under way, a campaign when there is nothing more to be said about politics but everyone knows exactly when to be photographed. I would emphasize that word 'when' since it has nothing to do with me, but is intended for the quite young ones. And if things carry on like this - not only in Europe but also in America - there will come a time when we no longer talk about manifestos but about how to present your best profile. But that has nothing to do with our idea of politics. Because it is a fact, however, I should like to say simply that despite what you may read or hear an enormous battle is going on. I am quite optimistic about this. You know, it is a great joy to hear that you are dead and that resurrection is possible, because Christian Democrats are allowed a certain perverse delight. It is one of the forgivable sins.

In particular I should like to welcome you because you are in Berlin. If you look at the 2, 3 or 4 square kilometres of this district - these remarks are addressed particularly at our foreign friends - you will realize that they are the scenes of some terrible events in German and European history in this century. Not far from here, although no longer visible, is the site of Hitler's chancellery. Not far from here, about 5 km as the crow flies, is the site of Plötzensee, where the finest members of the German resistance were executed. And only a few metres from here - in the courtyard of the old building which is now the Berlin seat of the Federal Defence Ministry - you can see the plaque commemorating the attempt on Hitler's life on 20 July 1944, and where the main accused were subsequently executed.

Why am I telling you this? My view is that despite what appears in the press there is too little thought about where we have come from in Europe. A day like last Saturday, which I had hoped would have turned out quite differently, shows that in some areas you will find no more intelligence but even more arrogance than elsewhere in life. But this should not prevent us from understanding that it is an historical moment which we are now experiencing in Europe; and I am very grateful for the experience.

I have always endeavoured to base my philosophy on practical life. A year ago I became a grandfather and when I look at my grandchild I wonder what things will be like when he goes to the shops for the first time in five or six years' time - and if, like his grandfather, he goes to buy sweets, whether he will pay with euros in Helsinki just as he would in Rome. I am sure he will, just as he would in London, and in Dublin, in The Hague and in Berlin, and probably as time goes by in Warsaw, Prague and Budapest.

I can see Leo Tindemans in the audience. In 1950 - I had just passed my school leaving certificate - we met at a conference of young Christian Democrats from Germany and other countries. If somebody had told us then that we would be experiencing the euro within our lifetimes, we would have said they were mad. So you can share my pride that we were the visionaries who became the true realists of history.

Then there is another tangible example of what was a vision and has become a reality - the simple statement by Konrad Adenauer, whom I also heard for the first time in 1950, to the effect that German unification and European unity were two sides of the same coin. That, too, has become a reality.

I am never tired of saying to my fellow countrymen, and I say it again, in gratitude to our friends from other countries in Europe: German unification was a gift from Germans to Germans and it would not have been possible without the support, the approval and the assistance of our neighbours. Although other people here in Germany do not like to hear that, it is the truth and it must have been difficult for our neighbours. We had the Germany treaties, of course, and the signatures for German unification, but it is one thing to write a treaty and to say that's what our great-grandchildren will be doing, while suddenly overnight when the sea is frozen a storm comes up, the ice breaks and suddenly the water floods the shore.

As you are aware, I am not the sort of person to make any accusations. A lot of people in the upper echelons of society in Germany - we do not have political classes in the French sense - had the idea of abandoning unification, and many quite simply betrayed it. That is why I have no reason to look back in anger at others.

I recall one of the most critical meetings which I experienced in the EC in 1989. François Mitterrand was President of the European Council and the meeting took place on 8 and 9 December in Strasbourg. Many of my colleagues, and probably many of you, too, thought: now the Germans will withdraw, unification will become more important to them than European unity so they will simply disappear, they will accept neutrality, leave NATO - all these facts were discussed - and they will withdraw from the European alliance.

I still remember - during a break in the proceedings - a lady for whom I had particular respect amongst the Heads of State and Government of those times, saying 'we have beaten them twice and now they are back again'.

As you can see, I am not complaining, but we have to realize what it meant to have a Europe which appeared to be in equilibrium, East and West: the balance was roughly equal in the West and in NATO, and the Germans did not have any nuclear weapons - thank God and we don't want them today either; the Germans are not members of the Security Council and there are still people here in Germany who are bothered by that, but they do not include me. To take an analogy from my church, it is like being in the Bishops' Conference without being a Cardinal. It is significant for Foreign Ministers when they are meeting together if one or other of them is not present. That was the situation surrounding German unification and I am telling you this story so that you can take it away as the essential feature of our policy, and of my policy. All of us here today need Europe, but we, the Germans, need it even more because of geographical reasons, because we are in the centre of the continent. We became a nation state later than many others, because we always had a decentralized structure. The result was that the spheres of influence from West to East, from North to South, tended to run through our country rather than through others. And Germany today is a country of 80 million people with many problems, but none which cannot be solved.

In 1993 François Mitterrand described this by saying that the Germans now had problems and that if they couldn't solve them they were not proper Germans. He was referring to the economic problems of the new Länder. Then he added: 'but afterwards they will be stronger than before'. And it is because of this that I say to you that as far as I am concerned Germany must be closely linked with the European Union in the form which is possible today, particularly as we are the country with the most and the longest frontiers. As I said at the beginning, it is a country with a quite peculiar history of its own, a country in which terrible things have happened to our neighbours in Europe in the name of Germany. Two-thirds of Germans living today were born after Hitler. This is true of Europe as a whole, but there is still one-third who experienced that period. This is why it is sensible - and I am not making any accusations - for German politicians, in all aspects of their activities, to keep one ear open to history and not to sweep our experiences underneath the carpet, as we say in German. This is why it is so important for us to have experienced that period.

The decision in favour of the euro and Economic and Monetary Union is the most important one for us after German unification: I would go further and maintain that in the long-term view of history probably the most important of this century - and there are still two years until the end of this millennium. We have to be clear about what that means. We have to realize that it is Belgium, Germany, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and Spain which have now jointly taken the decision in favour of the euro.

I am quite certain that other countries will join, too. I am absolutely certain that Great Britain will join, whatever people may say there, because I know quite well that the City is already behind the euro and the experience of British policy is that where the City goes, Downing Street follows.

I have no right to exert any pressure, nor would I wish to do so. I have a lot of understanding for the Swedes and the Danes and the Greeks who have decided to wait, for whatever reason. The important thing is that we have taken this step and the main thing is to realise that a currency is of course a means of payment and problems are monetary problems. But a currency is also far more than a means of payment. It has something to do with cultural identity and it is a measure of political stability. Immediately before the First World War the Americans founded what we Germans call the Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, since up to then there had been local dollars in the individual American states. The idea of a common currency is less than a hundred years old.

Imagine what a marvellous achievement it is that in Europe, with all our intelligence, creativity, and colourful variety, and in spite of all the difficulties, 300 million of our people - that is 20% more than the population of the United States - should have a common currency.

In June 1988 we were in Hanover on the occasion of a meeting of the European Council. As President of the Council, I and a number of others for the first time floated the idea of a single currency. Let me say quite clearly, when Jacques Delors summed up that meeting and was mandated, as President of the Commission, to examine - together with the Central Bank governors - the specific stages needed to implement union in that area, too, scarcely anyone believed that anything would come of it. Eurosclerosis was the catchword which journalists threw at us - the idea of a foul disease coupled with the concept of Europe.

The next stages were the Treaty of Maastricht, the stability pacts and the seat of the European Central Bank. I should like to take this opportunity of saying that the rumours going around are quite untrue to the effect that as far as the seat of the European Central Bank is concerned the Germans and the French cobbled something together along the lines of 'we will get the seat and you will get the President'. This has been repeated over and over again but that does not make it any more true.

And so we set off down the path. Ladies and Gentlemen, a year ago nobody would have believed this, certainly not in Germany, where growing prosperity has reversed our view of life. When things are going badly we say that the glass is half full, but as things improve, we say that the glass is half empty. Thanks to this rather miserable philosophy nobody believed that we could cut the rise in prices in the EU down to its current level of 1.5%. We have got the best social policy available but we still have the interest burden and the deficit.

I should like to express my admiration of those countries which have completed this enormous task. In Germany there is often a patronizing tendency towards the southern Member States to say 'they won't be able to do it'. This is something we share with our Dutch friends. But we have seen that they can do it and it is an enormous achievement. Even if much remains to be done in terms of the budget deficit, we are setting off in the right direction. That is why we should be pleased with events as they stand.

I should also like to make it quite clear that I would have preferred it if we had been more sensible and more cautious about last Saturday. You know, if you have Heads of State and Government, Foreign Ministers and Finance Ministers on one floor accompanied by a multitude of staff, and if there are 1200 journalists in the same building and you are meeting from noon until two in the morning, there are some group dynamics which are not entirely positive. The invention of the mobile phone helped ensure that chaos reigned.

I am not apologizing for what we did wrong, I am just saying this for future occasions. With this sort of publicity we have to consider whether it is in fact possible to carry out serious discussions under the circumstances or whether it reflects our idea of democracy to cook everything up in advance and then put on a show discussion. At any rate, my experience of Saturday is that this sort of subject should not be treated in this way. The results are nevertheless positive.

I would like people finally to realise that with Wim Duisenberg we have obtained the best man for the post of President of the European Central Bank. And as an eye-witness, I know that the personal statement which he has made should be taken as its stands. I am not prepared to accept any attempt to read any interpretation into it because in my opinion Duisenberg is the best man and he is entitled to have his words taken seriously.

As far as the composition of the Executive Board is concerned, we have come up with a Board which deserves our full confidence and about which I would say that it is also one of the best which we could have produced in Europe, given that we have an election campaign going on at the moment. 'If only' is something which I shall never understand. The fact that we managed to make the appointment on 2nd May, even though we knew that elections were to take place the following Wednesday in the Netherlands, is the sort of really mature achievement which German political scientists can only dream of. However, when plans of this nature are made, the consequences are inevitable.

I am quite certain, as the first few days have shown - today is only Tuesday - that despite the comments and the understandable anger at some things, in particular those which are important to us, the main thing remains the markets which cannot be manipulated.

The most important question I was asked early on Sunday morning at a press conference was: what will the markets do now? The subtext was 'if everything collapses': it was almost as if people wanted things to go wrong. I am very pleased that the markets have confirmed a development which shows that our approach is the right one and that we should continue along this path.

Anyone following the debate on the euro in the French parliament would have realised the deep impression left by Colbert's thinking. To the northern Europeans in particular, and not least the Germans, I would say please realise the important move which the French President and the Prime Minister and others have made in acknowledging the independence of the Central Bank.

What you should not forget is that we acquired the D-Mark 50 years ago. The structure of the Mark and the rules governing it were devised by the American occupation authorities on the basis of American examples. Many German professors said 'it won't last', that it was an illegitimate child of the occupation and so on.

What I would like to impress upon you is that you should understand the German position, the position of the people in the street, the people you meet here in Berlin and elsewhere when they say 'after two terrible wars and two terrible losses of property through inflation we want a hard currency'. There are many factors behind the rise of Hitler. This is not something that we can excuse, but one of the worst ones was that after the First World War millions of Germans, in particular the middle classes, lost their property through inflation which gave Hitler the freedom he needed in politics.

The same thing happened after the Second World War. And if you want to understand the thoughts of many Germans please reflect on this for one moment. To put it in a nutshell, the absolute nadir in our history was the period immediately after 1945. The worst excesses of that period occurred in late 1947 when it became clear that the refugees could not return home and that of the 250 000 prisoners of war captured at Stalingrad, perhaps only one in ten would come home again.

There were more suicides than at any other point in German history at Christmas 1947. Five or six months later came the D-Mark, from which it has become what it has today thanks to the achievements of a whole generation. That is the reason why emotions here are so powerful. Every day I receive letters - I am talking about well-wishers - saying: what on earth are you doing abandoning the good old D-Mark for another currency ?

Please be patient with us. You will see that the success of the D-Mark will be repeated in the success of the euro. It is not something that will happen overnight, but we must make concessions to each other. Europe will only be a success if we are patient with each other and have respect for each other, respect for the present generation and respect for the history of future generations. An enormous opportunity is waiting for us.

Substantial progress has been made towards economic and monetary union. Our task now is to shape Europe from within. The broad principles are clear. We have to face up to enlargement, the financial perspective, and Agenda 2000. There is conflict building up - not just with the Presidency of the European Central Bank - such as how many Commissioners does a country get? Does each country get one Commissioner? How many votes will each country get? What will the weighting be? A lot of people who are angry about Saturday will be angry again for other good reasons. We are only half way around the course and we need each other. The one thing we need more than anything else is not to stand still but to carry on, but in the way you would on a long walk only just pausing for a moment to see what is the right way. It is not a question of wallowing in our achievements, but of asking what we have to do next. And I would like to make it quite clear to you - and I am sure that not everyone will be pleased with this - that Europe will be federal or it will be nothing. Federal the way in which we mean it - this is the opposite of the way our British friends understand it, but I am sure you understand what I am saying.

The principle of subsidiarity is not an invention but a necessity. Those who want a centralist European state in Hegel's sense of the leviathan will destroy Europe. We need the opportunity of developing in the way allowed by the principle of subsidiarity, so that decisions can be taken where people can best understand them. That is at the local level or the regional level. That is the task of the Federal Länder, or the task of the nation where necessary. The European element is the task of the Strasbourg Parliament and of the European Commission. It is not as simple as it sounds because fundamental differences clash in actual practice, and in experience. And that is where we need to make compromises.

My wish is that we should do nothing to destroy the great variety of Europe. I would like living conditions to become harmonized without losing our identity. I would like differences between Italians and Germans to persist as they have done before. Eleven million Germans will go on holiday in Italy because they think the sun shines more brightly there, the wine is better and the pizzas certainly are, and the same Germans who pick over things with a fine toothcomb wouldn't dream of checking in their pizzeria in Naples to see whether the EU directives are being complied with, particularly as the chef ensures them that they are, and in fact they are happy with it.

Old buffers have feelings which remain feelings because they are not usually followed by deeds, and that, too, is a question of experience. But if the same German comes home and then travels through German-speaking Austria, his suspicions become greater, and after he has passed Salzburg he can feel the change in atmosphere. I mean this in rather an ironic sense because I am talking about something quite precious: the lifestyles of different countries and peoples in Europe and yet it is our Europe. It is our Europe which is imbued with our beliefs from the monasteries of Ireland to the wooden churches of Norway - I say that quite deliberately because I still hope that the Norwegians will join.

.Here I have to take account of the fact that they are not very happy on the Bosphorus. I shall say it nevertheless. We are open to the world, we know that antiquity and Christianity have shaped our continent but we have quite unmistakable identities - not least we as members of the European People's Party. There is something particularly precious about saying that it is our Europe.

A few days ago there was a report in the press which - like many important things - received scant attention to the effect that American think-tanks are discussing together with politicians in the countries in question models which will not become a reality tomorrow but perhaps in the last third of the next century: the American continent, Latin America, Central America and North America thinking of a joint free trade zone - that is almost 800 million people.

A few days before Easter we were in London and on that occasion we witnessed what was happening in Asia and in the People's Republic of China and elsewhere. So let us move on and recognize the signs of the time, using the words which I like to say as a German, as the great Thomas Mann said: 'I am a German European and a European German'. This is something that each of us can say about his own country. Patriotism can no longer be seen as a form of compartmentalization. Patriotism is experiencing Europe and it will become a virtue. That is what I would invite us to share in.

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Research and Documentation Service
Group of the PPE
European Parliament