Analysis: Germany's European vision

Back on top: The Schroeders dine with the Jospins in Paris

By Caroline Wyatt in Berlin

"For Germany, the issue of Europe is not a foreign but an internal affair" - or so I am often assured by German politicians.

For British Eurosceptics, that comment could be seen as deeply ominous - an echo of what they see as Germany's historic ambitions to dominate Europe.

But while Germany's new-found interest in reshaping the European Union may be worrying the British, it's eliciting a more positive reaction in Brussels and even in Paris.

To many there, the news that Germany wants to accelerate European integration with a major round of talks by 2004 is a sign of its renewed engagement in the debate.

Break with tradition

Until recently, Germany's Social Democrat Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, showed rather less interest in Europe than his predecessor, Helmut Kohl.

Mitterrand and Kohl, who did not to ask about French relations

When Mr Schroeder first came to office in 1998, after several years as premier of the state of Lower Saxony, he apparently asked a close adviser to explain to him exactly why relations with France were so important.

It was not a question Helmut Kohl had ever needed to ask.

For Mr Kohl, his childhood memories of the destruction wreaked by World War II impressed on him deeply the necessity for close co-operation between Germany and France.

Mr Schroeder's natural inclination, though, was to see Britain as a potential leading partner on European issues.

After all, the UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's "Third Way" ideas corresponded far more closely to his own "Neue Mitte" or New Centre than did the rather more traditional Socialism of the French prime minister, Lionel Jospin.

Back to the old alliance

Indeed, in his first months in power, Mr Schroeder did a certain amount of handbagging at EU summits, in the manner of a Teutonic Frau Thatcher - telling the EU that Germany was no longer prepared to foot the bill for everything.

Fishcher (left) has pushed for integration

That mini-rebellion played well with the German taxpayer, while talk of a new Franco-German-British triangle went down badly in Paris.

But when Germany took over the rotating Presidency of the EU the following year, Mr Schroeder discovered the realities of doing business in the EU; often, the only way to reach agreement with France and others was for Germany to reach for its cheque-book.

At the same time, Britain's indecision on the euro made Mr Blair rather less of a partner than Berlin wanted - throwing Germany's red-Green coalition back into the welcoming arms of the French.

So, almost halfway through the German coalition's term in office, both Mr Schroeder and his Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer of the Green party have discovered the irresistable allure of trying to reshape Europe, where possible in harmony with France.

Vision of the future

Joschka Fischer fired the first shots by putting forward his vision of Europe's future on 12 May in a keynote speech in Berlin.

Vision of the past: Memories of WWII inform German position

It was billed as his own personal view, but much of it reflected the current thinking of the German government.

Mr Fischer's premise was that, as Europe enlarges to take in several new candidates, many of them on Germany's eastern border, far-reaching reform is vital if Europe is not to spend all of its time squabbling, its decision-making process paralysed.

But his conclusion remains deeply controversial, and not just for Britain.

What Mr Fischer proposed was a full parliamentarisation of the EU as a European Federation, with its own Parliament and a European government which exercised real legislative and executive power.

That would require a Constitution for Europe, and perhaps an elected president of Europe with far-reaching executive powers.

The new Europe would have to decide and spell out more clearly the division of power between federal, national and local levels, while an inner core of EU states could be formed, ready and willing to blaze ahead with the process of integration towards full political union.

Britain isolated again

The idea causes outrage among British Eurosceptics, for whom the term Federation is deeply negative - suggesting a European super-state, where the powers and the character of the nation state disappear.

Britain's Blair remains the odd man out

Yet to Mr Fischer and to many Germans, the word 'federal' is more positive - to them, it does not rule out nation states, and indeed it is the way Germany is already governed, with power split between the federal government and the governments of its 16 regional states.

Such fundamental differences of political thinking will be difficult to overcome.

To Germany, British outrage at the idea of an inner circle moving ahead with reform seems a little belated.

It is clearly already happening: A core EU group is going ahead with the euro, whether or not Britain decides to join.

Most countries have likewise signed up to the Schengen agreement on free movement across the EU's internal borders, while Britain stays out.

The French President, Jacques Chirac, is in Berlin this week for talks with Gerhard Schroeder.

A few days later, Britain's Tony Blair also travels to Berlin.

There can be little doubt that for him, the message from Germany and France will be clear.

Britain can protest as much as it likes - but the rest of Europe will continue to participate in a debate which will decide the future of this continent, as it searches for new political solutions a decade after the end of the Cold War reshaped the map of Europe.