Germany is
likely to press for even further enlargement to the east. The EU's
commissioner for enlargement is a German, Gunter Verheugen.
The dilapidated expanses of the former Soviet satellites are Germany's
natural economic hinterland - on the way to the way more lucrative
Asian markets. Hence Germany's reluctance to admit Turkey, a massive,
pro-American, potential competitor for Asian favors. Integrating Russia
would be next on Germany's re-emerging Ostpolitik.
This firmly places Germany on an economic and military collision course
with the United States. As Stratfor, the strategic forecasting
consultancy, put it recently: "In Washington's opinion, America's
obsessions should be NATO's obsessions." Germany, the regional
superpower, has other, more pressing priorities: "maintaining stability
in its region, making sure that Russian evolution is benign and
avoiding costly conflicts in which it has only marginal interest."
Moreover, there is an entirely different - and much less benign -
interpretation of EU enlargement. It is based on the incontrovertible
evidence that the German ends in Europe have remained the same - only
the means have changed. The German "September Plan" to impose an
economic union on the vanquished nations of Europe following a military
victory, called, in 1914, for "(the establishment of) an economic
organization .
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