Germany has a Chrystia Freeland moment

Last month, Germany’s foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, gave a big speech in Berlin on how to change foreign policy in the age of Donald Trump.

Canadians might ask themselves what took Germany so long. After all, Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland gave a similar type of speech in June, more than six months ago.

Freeland argued that Canada had to take on more responsibility for upholding “a global order based on rules” that had greatly benefited Canadians. This order had “at its heart the core notions of territorial integrity, human rights, democracy, respect for the rule of law and an aspiration to free and friendly trade.”

These values, Freeland implied, were now threatened by American actions, and Canada needed to react. The next day, minister of defence Harjit Sajjan announced plans to increase Canada’s military budget by 73 per cent over the next 10 years.

Will Gabriel’s speech mean similar changes in Germany?

Gabriel spoke just after returning from visiting U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Washington.

The visit seemed to illustrate to Gabriel that the United States was not the partner it once had been.

According to Gabriel, the U.S. had retreated from international responsibility “not due to the policies of only one president. It will not change fundamentally after the next elections.”

He argued against ending the nuclear deal with Iran and for integrating Germany more with Europe, particularly in partnership with France.

“Germany cannot afford to wait for decisions from Washington, or to merely react to them,” he said. “We must lay out our own position and make clear to our allies where the limits of our solidarity are reached.” So far, so Freeland. But, as an expert in international history, I believe Gabriel’s speech was not meant to herald new policy. It was meant to position his party, the Social Democrats, at a delicate time in German domestic politics.

After the German election in October, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) failed to negotiate a coalition with two smaller parties, the Greens and liberal FDP.

Although Gabriel’s party, the Social Democrats (SPD), had initially ruled out entering into another coalition with Merkel, it relented and is starting coalition negotiations this week. Gabriel’s speech, then, was more about laying the groundwork for coalition talks. It was mainly pitched at a domestic audience and advocated the SPD’s foreign policy positions.

But if Gabriel’s foreign policy rethink is to gain ground in a new coalition, Germany will have to do more than posture. It will have to put its money where its mouth is by spending more on defence, which was only 1.2 per cent of the country’s GDP in 2015.

During the German election campaign, the SPD spoke out loud and clear against hiking Germany’s defence budget. To fulfil the expectations outlined in Gabriel’s speech, that position will have to change.

If the SPD does enter a new coalition government with Angela Merkel’s CDU, politicians like Gabriel should start planning policies to match their words.

Gabriel’s Chrystia Freeland moment may be yet to come.