He is known as the Chancellor of Unification, but history will also see him as a great European. Educated as a historian, he had a thorough understanding of political processes and national and regional variations. European integration was his main focus. Although he had quite different principles and views from French President Francois Mitterrand , the German-French understanding continued to propel Europe forward.
Kohl had a deep respect for the needs and equal rights of the smaller nations. This helped sustain the cohesion so essential to Europe.
His understanding of the principle of subsidiarity was key. The firm and close friendship between Germany and France was established by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and President Charles de Gaulle Like Helmuth Kohl, they were convinced Christians and Europeans , and took care that their countries spearheaded Europe, but did not dominate it.
Kohl continued this tradition. For him, the European Union was not to be governed like a national state. Instead, he saw it as a close union to serve the common interests of sovereign states in matters of long-term importance.
To make the EU sustainable, Kohl strove for a robust European framework that would make integration solid, guarantee internal peace and prohibit foreign intervention. He was a big promoter of the euro, not just for business reasons — such as facilitating payments or calculating costs in the internal market — but above all from political considerations.
In his view, the euro would be another binding element in the European framework. Starting in , Chancellor Kohl worked with a highly competent minister of finance, Dr.
The so-called Maastricht criteria, which Dr. Waigel originally proposed as elements of the EU treaty, set standards for joining the euro area, while capping yearly budget deficits at 3 percent of gross domestic product and public debt at 60 percent of GDP. The European Central Bank was meant to be an entity wholly independent from politicians and forbidden from engaging in fiscal policy. The German government strongly supported the countries of Central Europe in their post-communist transformation, and Chancellor Kohl was essential in paving the way for their access to the EU.
He proposed monetary union to the GDR, a step that contributed to the victory of the Christian Democrats and their allies, who were calling for rapid reunification, in the East German elections of 18 March Despite opposition from the Bundesbank, which considered the strategy unrealistic and likely to lead to inflation, the currency was converted on a one-to-one basis.
Kohl had imposed this parity as he deemed it the only way in which to encourage East Germans to stay where they were. Economic and monetary union was, moreover, the prelude to political unity.
This procedure avoided the difficulties involved in creating a new German State with a new Constitution. That was a common German practice but judicial investigations into other figures in the murky financing scandal continued. Journalists and historians had asked to see the material, prompting speculation it could shed light on the financing scandal.
The former chancellor was married for 41 years to Hannelore Renner, an interpreter of English and French who stood firmly but discreetly by his side. They had two sons, Peter and Walter. In July , Hannelore killed herself at age 68 in despair over an incurable allergy to light. In , Kohl introduced his new partner Maike Richter, an economist some 35 years his junior.
The couple married in May Though slowed by illness in his later years, Kohl still made occasional eye-catching interventions on the political stage. As Merkel struggled to convince center-right lawmakers in of the wisdom of having Germany finance further bailouts of other eurozone nations, Kohl weighed in firmly.
Despite their differences, Merkel made clear Friday that Kohl had touched her life deeply when he helped forge a united Germany. Sections U. Science Technology Business U. Reunification, ratified in September , turned out to be an enormously costly business for both Germanys. The eastern states were poor, persecuted and polluted, while the taxes levied in western Germany to pay for the project, and accompanying westwards migration of jobless Ossis East Germans , caused deep resentment in some sections of German society.
Whatever else they may have done, the EU and the euro replacing the former, less politically integrated European Economic Community gave Germany the markets and the means to produce a second German industrial and manufacturing miracle. Both men remembered the bad old times.
Both reasoned that Europe would only be safe and secure if its two leading powers and its most frequent antagonists, France and Germany, worked in tandem. For Kohl, such cooperation was at one with his instinct for peaceful reconciliation.
Early in his second term as chancellor, in , he shook hands with Mitterrand on the first world war battlefield at Verdun, as if to finally bring down the curtain on two world wars.
0コメント