GERMANY FOREIGN POLICY AND COMMON FOREIGN SECURITY POLICY

HAKAN YILTEKİN20080484

GERMANY• Officially the Federal Republic of Germany is a federal parliamentary republic in western-central Europe. The country consists of 16 states and its capital and largest city is Berlin.

• With 80.6 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state in the European Union. Germany is the major economic and political power of the European continent and a historic leader in many cultural, theoretical and technical fields.

• Germany has the world's fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP and the fifth-largest by purchasing power parity. As a global leader in several industrial and technological sectors, it is the second-largest exporter and third-largest importer of goods.

• It is a developed country with a very high standard of living, featuring comprehensive social security that includes the world's oldest universal health care system. Known for its rich cultural and political history, Germany has been the home of many influential philosophers, music composers, scientists, and inventors.

• Germany was a founding member of the European Community in 1957, which became the EU in 1993. It is part of the Schengen Area, and has been a member of the eurozone since 1999. Germany is a great power in regional and global affairs, and is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, the OECD and the Council of Europe.

German Foreign Policy• Germany has a network of 229 diplomatic missions abroad and maintains relations with more than 190 countries. As of 2011 it is the largest contributor to the budget of the European Union (providing 20%) and the third largest contributor to the UN (providing 8%).

• Germany is a member of NATO, the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the G8, the G20, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It has played a leading role in the European Union since its inception and has maintained a strong alliance with France since the end of World War II. Germany seeks to advance the creation of a more unified European political, defence, and security apparatus.

• The development policy of the Federal Republic of Germany is an independent area of German foreign policy. It is formulated by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and carried out by the implementing organisations.

• The German government sees development policy as a joint responsibility of the international community. It is the world's third biggest aid donor after the United States and France.

• During the Cold War, Germany's partition by the Iron Curtain made it a symbol of East–West tensions and a political battleground in Europe. However, Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik was a key factor in the détente of the 1970s.

• In 1999, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's government defined a new basis for German foreign policy by taking part in the NATO decisions surrounding the Kosovo War and by sending German troops into combat for the first time since World War II.

• The 1948 Marshall Plan and strong cultural ties have crafted a strong bond between the two countries, although Schröder's vocal opposition to the Iraq War suggested the end of Atlanticism and a relative cooling of German-American relations.

• The two countries are also economically interdependent: 8.8% of German exports are US-bound and 6.6% of German imports originate from the US.

The European Union and Germany

• Germany, consists of all the neighbors european countries.

• The present day in the european union, Germany is like a bridge.

• The European Union use the German’s good relations with their neighbors countries.

• Including the economic dimension, have life in a European destination is in line with the interests of Germany

• Germany was effort about, foreign relations, security, defense policy, justice for european union.

• Example; in 2007, Germany tried to change the consititution draft. And this consititution draft has changed to reforms aggrement.

• What was the this aggrement ?

The European Germany• This idea of a Euroepan Germany, first formulated by Thomas Mann, has constituted a powerfull normative idea for the formulation of German foreign policy after the Second World War. The Notion of a European foreign policy thus has positive connotations in Germany, replacing the discredited conception of national interest as the guiding principle in foreign policy.

Foreign Policy change - Adaptation and Socialisation

• Although the structural constraints facing Germany shifted dramatically with the end of the Cold War and reunification, the direction of its European policy did not. The more powerful Federal Republic continued to press for deeper economic and political integration, eschewing a more independent or assertive foreign policy course. Neorealism, neoliberalism and liberalism cannot adequately explain this continuity in the face of structural change. This article sets out a constructivist account centered around the effects of German state identity

• It develops a two-step analytical framework designed to pinpoint the content of state identity and establish its effects on state action, and then applies it to the German case. In the wake of reunification, German leaders across the political spectrum identified the Federal Republic as part of an emergent supranational community. This European identity, with roots in the postwar decades, drove Germany's unflagging support for deeper integration across the 1989-90 divide.

Socialisation of foreign policy makers : The Europeanisation of German Foreign Policy

• Singularity of German foreign and security policy within the EU

• Europeanised from the beginning – Germany established its foreign policy within an already existing multilateral framework

• Preamble to the Basic Law stipulates Germany should work towards European integration as a means to bring about regional stability.

• Key actor in tandem with France in pushing for greater co-ordination

• Multilateralism as a causal belief

Normalisation of German Foreign Policy

• According to a German Diplomat involved in the CFSP, ‘ normalisation ‘

• To be less reliant on partners and more self-confident in the formulation of German interest

• To take on greater responsibilities internationally

• To assure neighbours of good relations• To affirms that there will be no repeat of the past

• Normalisation does not signal a return to realist balance-of-power thinking in German foreign policy. As Volker Rühe has clearly stated: ‘within the European Union, no country can go its own way, nor can there be any possibility of thinking in terms of spheres of influence, coalitions and counter coalitions, containment and hegemony’

Germany and International Area

• Germany always effect the international area.

• They are always arbiters. • For example; gezi parki • Aid package for Greece

Common Foreign Security Policy

• Formally, the Common Security and Defence Policy is the domain of the European Council, which is an EU institution, whereby the heads of member states meet. Nonetheless, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, currently Catherine Ashton, also plays a significant role. As Chairperson of the external relations configuration of the Council, the High Representative prepares and examines decisions to be made before they are brought to the Council