Podcast: Europe First with Sigmar Gabriel

TRANSCRIPT: Europe First with Sigmar Gabriel

Sigmar Gabriel:

Imagine what our neighbors would think in 10 years from now. What kind of army is growing in the center of Europe in Germany?

Ian Bremmer:

Hi, I'm Ian Bremmer and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. It's an audio version of what you can find on public television, where I analyze global topics, sit down with big guests, and make use of small furry puppets. This week I sit down with Sigmar Gabriel. He's the former vice chancellor and foreign minister of Germany, and is an outspoken member of the Bundestag. It's like the US House of Representatives with a two beer minimum. Let's get to it.

Announcer:

The GZERO World is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company. Imagine a bank without teller lines, where your banker knows your name and its most prized currency is extraordinary client service. Hear directly from First Republic's clients by visiting firstrepublic.com.

Ian Bremmer:

Glad to be here today with Sigmar Gabriel, the former foreign minister, as well as vice chancellor of Germany. Sir, thank you so much.

Sigmar Gabriel:

Thanks for inviting me.

Ian Bremmer:

So you were there when the wall came down. Now, walls are coming back up. How does it feel to be a German today?

Sigmar Gabriel:

To be honest, I grew up directly at the border to East Germany, at the fence directly there, and never felt insecure. I always had very... a feeling to live in a very secure and safe country, because we knew that there was NATO, there was the European Union, there were the US. When I was a soldier, I was also at the borderline. We had with a radar system to look if there will be an aggressive airplane coming from the East Germany. Of course there was no aggression from there. We also didn't feel insecure. If you have been a soldier in Germany, sometimes during the night somebody shouted, you should go up and then we call it 'NATO alert.' Nobody thought that's a real NATO alert. It's something like a game, because we knew the Russians will not come, because the Americans and NATO is here and they will not risk, to go the risk of a next maybe nuclear war.

So we felt, in this alliance of NATO and the US, we felt secure. By the way, of course we criticized the Americans for a lot what they do in Vietnam and Chile. But on the other hand side, the United States was something like a North Pole for us. It sounds paradox that we were criticizing, as young leftists, what they do, but on the other hand side, we love the United States. It was an orientation in our life and we knew without the United States, and some others, we would live under the oppression of the successors of Hitler or Stalin. So it was astonishing for us when the Iron Curtain fell down. Some years ago, I have three daughters, one of them is now is 30, then she was I think maybe 20 or 22, we went through Berlin. I showed her, "Look here. Here was the Berlin Wall." She goes, "Really? There was a Berlin Wall? What a crazy idea to build a wall through the city." She couldn't imagine.

Ian Bremmer:

At 22, your daughter didn't know that?

Sigmar Gabriel:

She know, but for her it was a-

Ian Bremmer:

It was a concept. It wasn't a real wall.

Sigmar Gabriel:

It was a concept. It was a concept and she knew it, because of her school and the education of the school, but she couldn't imagine that somebody could be so crazy, in a nation where on the one side and the other side, both were Germans, to build a wall and to shoot the people if they would try to meet their relatives. So you see, only in half a generation, people could not imagine what's possible.

Ian Bremmer:

Do you think that Europe is too big, in the sense that so many of these East European countries, the institutions are weaker, it's precisely where you're seeing the slip back into more nationalist perspectives that certainly feel more confrontational in orientation?

Sigmar Gabriel:

What would be the alternative? To let more countries out of the European Union?

Ian Bremmer:

A two-track Europe, as some people talk about?

Sigmar Gabriel:

To be honest, we have a two-track Europe, because not every European member state is part of the currency union. We should prevent a situation where some member states have the feeling that they will be excluded, because we have some difficult neighbors in the European Union, who love to test the European unity. So to be honest, what does Moscow, Beijing and Washington have in common? In reality, they do not respect Europe. They respect Germany, because of our economic strength. But Europe, it's something which for them is... The Chinese, they have this group, the Europeans call it 16 plus 1. There are member states and non-member states of Europe, the European Union plus China. You know how the group is called in China?

Ian Bremmer:

What?

Sigmar Gabriel:

1 plus 16.

Ian Bremmer:

No, sure.

Sigmar Gabriel:

So they try, of course, to intervene. Russia tries to intervene in the Western Balkans.

Ian Bremmer:

They have the East European group that the Chinese have as well, which I know that the Germans do not take kindly to.

Sigmar Gabriel:

No, I told my former colleague, the foreign minister of China, that I accept the "One China" policy, but I would be happy if China would accept a "One Europe" policy.

Ian Bremmer:

So, when we started talking, before the interview, you told me that you were getting more concerned about where the world is heading right now. What is it that is worrying you the most?

Sigmar Gabriel:

The tendency that countries do not trust in multilateral agreements. The idea that only strong nations should transactional decide in which direction the world should go. The national security strategy of the United States were published, I think, at the beginning of the year, where they say "Strong nations should organize the world." Well, it's interesting that this is an idea, Mr. Putin, Mr. Erdogan, Mr. Xi Jinping, they would agree on that.

Ian Bremmer:

They support that.

Sigmar Gabriel:

They support that. That's the same-

Ian Bremmer:

The Germans would not.

Sigmar Gabriel:

No, we should say, of course, nations are important. Nations should take responsibility. It's not all internationalized. There is something where nations are very much important, but what's necessary is to have an international atmosphere where the strength or the rule of law should be our fundamental idea, not the rule of the strongest.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, you have said that in a world of carnivores, you don't want Germany to be the last vegetarian at the table.

Sigmar Gabriel:

Yes.

Ian Bremmer:

What do you do about that?

Sigmar Gabriel:

There is an idea in Germany which makes career. The idea is we should be like Switzerland. Maybe Europe should be like Switzerland, economically powerful, but a vegetarian in international politics.

Ian Bremmer:

No, and you see the surveys of workers in Germany and they feel pretty optimistic about their economic future. Of course, the feeling of the refugee crisis in Europe and in Germany, they feel very differently. Do you think that that is the principle cause of breakdown or fragmentation that we've seen in the past years in the German party system?

Sigmar Gabriel:

I would say no, but it's a trigger. The first time people were scared about the political and economic elites were the financial crisis. What did we say to our workers, to the ordinary citizens since 30 years? First, globalization is fine for everybody. We will have a trickle-down effect, and when they ask us; what's about our school system? You should invest more. Or what's about my pension, my wage? We always said, "Look, we are in a global competition. Unfortunately, it's not possible to do this now. We do not have enough money. We have to be careful, because of the global competition." Then they, overnight, they saw that we were able to mobilize around 500 billion euros to stable the banking system.

Ian Bremmer:

After 2008.

Sigmar Gabriel:

After 2008. And then people ask us for the first time, "What are you doing there? Why it was not possible to give me a fair pension after 40, 50 years working in four shifts in a factory or in a hospital?"

Ian Bremmer:

When you could bail out the German banks.

Sigmar Gabriel:

Yes, when you could bail out the German banks, what do you do? Then some years later, they always asked us, "What about my pension? Why the school is so old? Why we do not have enough teachers? Why we do not have enough policemen on the street?" We always answered, "We are again in a competition that's difficult, we have to lower our debts," and so on and so forth. And overnight, they saw we were able to mobilize 40 billion euros for around a million refugees coming in. And so during the last election campaign in 2017, I often heard the question, "What about my personal economic situation? Why do you do nothing for me and you do everything for the refugee?" And then you can try to explain two hours why it's not true. People are, we're very much in distance to the political elites, and at the end of the day we had the split off on the conservative side of the alternative for Germany, which is a right-wing populist party.

Ian Bremmer:

It feels like this notion of a centrist grand coalition that has the answers no longer really functions as well. So it sounds like you're saying the future of German politics is increasingly going to be on the left and on the right.

Sigmar Gabriel:

In Germany, if you look what is left and what is right, you will see that they are center-left and center-right in the majority. Of course, we have the left party and the Alternative of Germany, but they are not so strong.

Ian Bremmer:

Is that where Europe is going as well? These European parliamentary elections coming up? Is the center going to hold less and we'll see more movement towards the left and towards the right?

Sigmar Gabriel:

Unfortunately, yes. The pity is that-

Ian Bremmer:

Fortunate in Germany, but unfortunate in Europe.

Sigmar Gabriel:

Yeah, but because the anti-European parties will become stronger in the European Parliament.

Ian Bremmer:

Unlike in Germany.

Sigmar Gabriel:

Unlike in Germany. In Germany it's not, of course, these AFD, it's an awful party, but they got in Bavaria, in the regional elections, 11% and the 13... It's not what I wish for my country, but it's not a real danger for the country.

Ian Bremmer:

It's not Italy.

Sigmar Gabriel:

It's not Italy, and they are not strong enough to really challenge the country.

Ian Bremmer:

You've certainly argued, in past years, that we should be looking for stronger European security defense commitments. That's important to be done. In this environment, with a comparatively strong Germany, though without Merkel, and a comparatively weaker Europe, would your goal still be, Germany needs to help ensure that Europe is strong? Or would your goal be closer to, Germany needs to do more leading with lots of other countries around the world, and it's less about Europe?

Sigmar Gabriel:

I see two conditions. First, Europe should be unified, and second, we should search for a new alliance, a new form of transatlantic partnership with the US. The truth is today we cannot live with Donald Trump. That's true. But the truth is also, we cannot live without the US, so we have to search for-

Ian Bremmer:

That's tricky.

Sigmar Gabriel:

Yes, but okay, if it would be not tricky, then others could do it. So it's a job for, I think, for political leaders in their time. I don't think that... If you look back to the history of Europe, whenever Germany tried to went on his own way, at the end, we had war in Europe. For some hundred years in European history, it was always the conflict between the center, us, and the periphery. And for the first time, the European Union was able to organize the difficulties, the conflicts, in a very peaceful manner. Europe is a unique idea. By the way, the Americans were at the cradle of the European Union, because they-

Ian Bremmer:

After World War 2.

Sigmar Gabriel:

Yes. They didn't want to send for a third time their kids to a war, to Europe.

Ian Bremmer:

We didn't want to do it the second time.

Sigmar Gabriel:

Yes, but unfortunately without the help of the Americans, we would today would live under Hitlers or Stalin's predecessors, so that we are a free country in a free Europe, it's because the US entered in a second world war, but the Americans of course didn't want to do it for the third time. So today, I think we have the responsibility to do our job in a leadership, yes, but never alone, always together with the others. And we should invest, for example, in defense. I'm strictly against 2% of the GDP in the German army, because then we would invest every year 80 billion euros in the German army. France is a nuclear power. They invest 40 billion every year. Imagine what our neighbors would think, in 10 years from now, what kind of army is growing in the center of Europe in Germany. Mark

Ian Bremmer:

Sigmar Gabriel, thank you very much.

Sigmar Gabriel:

Thank you very much.

Ian Bremmer:

That's our show this week. We'll be right back here next week, same place, same time. Unless you're watching on social media, in which case it's wherever you happen to be. Don't miss it. In the meantime, check us out at gzeromedia.com.

Announcer:

The GZERO World is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company. Imagine a bank without teller lines, where your banker knows your name and its most prized currency is extraordinary client service. Hear directly from First Republic's clients by visiting firstrepublic.com.