Books & Publications

Ein europäisches Gewissen – Hans Gert Pöttering

by Michael Gehler and Marcus Gonschor Herderverlag Freiburg-Basel-Vienna, 2020 ISBN print: 978-3-45138982-5; ISBN E-Book: 978-3-45182130

A European conscience

The comprehensive biography “Ein europäisches Gewissen” (A European conscience) by the authors Michael Gehler and Marcus Gonschor, with a foreword by Donald Tusk, pays attention to small details, providing an excellent portrait of Hans-Gert Pöttering, former President of the European Parliament (EP), but also, to a large extent, tracing the history of the European People’s Party (EPP).

Pöttering’s influence on the EPP in preparation for the party’s congress in Madrid at the end of 1995 and its input to the Intergovernmental Conference of 1996 (“Perspectives for the year 2000”) has not been forgotten. When preparing the EPP guidance paper, Pöttering was primarily concerned with extending the EU co-decision mechanism to new policy areas. He wanted the EP to be able to act on an equal footing with the Council of Ministers. On the question of majority decision-making, he insisted that the procedure should not lead to the defeat of smaller states and that the principle of democracy should be upheld. In his remarkable Madrid speech on 6th November 1995, Pöttering referred to Jean Monnet in forging his own “creed” for the future of the Union: “What is at stake is that sovereignty in the European Union must be exercised collectively, as Jean Monnet intended, in order to bring about an ever closer union of European peoples.”

The biography notes that, for Pöttering, effective political action is on a par with democracy and tolerance. The EPP was thus able to participate in the Intergovernmental Conference with the three decisive criteria, capacity to act, democracy and tolerance. Pöttering had made history.

He retains a special interest in security and defence. Major in the Bundeswehr Reserve, he had to wait until 2009 for his security and defence expectations to be met in the Lisbon Treaty. Pöttering, for whom solidarity among nations is paramount, was disappointed with the results of the Nice Summit (2002), for which he had major hopes for progress on the future of the Union. He reacted angrily to the fact that, after reunification, with more than 80 million citizens, Germany ended up with the same number of votes (49) in majority decisions as France with just over 60 million inhabitants. For Pöttering, Nice was proof that he had to continue the struggle for the Union’s ability to expand and strengthen democratic legitimacy.

In the biography, the close ties between Pöttering and the US are also made clear. Nevertheless, controversies with the US about Turkey’s possible accession to the EU, which the US wanted to impose on the EU, but which the EPP, and above all Pöttering, did not want, did not fail to emerge. And his reactions to 9/11 in terms of the fight against terrorism are still valid today. The biography shows that Pöttering has countered his opponents intellectually and his friends have followed him because of the power of his innovative thinking, his vision and his hard work. His political skills enabled him to rise to the highest office that Europe has to bestow: President of the European Parliament.

As chairman of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (20102018) he was successful in difficult times. The Foundation rewarded him by appointing him European Affairs Officer. The Berlin Security Conference (BSC) elected him to its advisory board. The former President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, sees in Pöttering a man who “carries Europe in his heart.” The authors of this book deserve respect for joining up the dots and marshalling myriad details to form an overall picture of Hans-Gert Pöttering, the passionate European!

by Hartmut Bühl

→ see also the interview with Dr Pöttering on pp. 18-19 of this magazine

MAIN TOPIC Transatlantic relations

After the Afghanistan debacle, the future of transatlantic relations, already weakened during the Trump era, is now even more in doubt. Will the United States continue to be the privileged partner of Europe in a geopolitically changing world, as it was over the last decades? Will we finally see a real change in the European Union’s global security objectives responding to the aggressiveness of both China and Russia? And what will be the Union's optimum strategy for becoming less dependent on the United States and NATO? In this chapter, the authors discuss what is important for Europe at this juncture.