With no “European Affairs Ministry” but 14 portfolios dealing with their respective European issues coordinating the different standpoints to one specific EU dossier, it is crucial to establish a joint German position in EU politics. How EU coordination at federal level works and what impact it has was at the center of the discussions at EM Germany’s “EBD Exklusiv” on January 21. The EU coordinators of the Federal Foreign Office and of the Ministry of Economics and Technology, Thomas Ossowski and Klaus-Peter Leier, as well as Timm Beichelt, Professor of European Studies at European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) addressed short keynotes from their professional and scientific perspective before discussing – with more than 50 representatives of member associations and institutional partners of EM Germany – the German EU-coordination “between competence and complexity”.

According to Beichelt, the EU coordination in Germany is efficient and effective. Those who say it’s not, are in fact criticizing the German institutional system which has to take into account the federal states and various departments for planning the German EU policy. Beichelt stated that the key problem of EU coordination in Germany is that elected parliamentarians weigh too little in the process of anticipating EU legislative proposals as well as when it comes to negotiating EU policy dossiers.

But is the EU coordination in Germany technocratic rather than politic? And does the significant number of voices who make themselves heard at federal level lead to a cacophonic or a symphonic pronunciation of the German position at the European Council? The assessment of the influence of German EU politics divided the audience. On the one hand, many stated that during the last years Germany has succeeded in forcing its point at European level. This has been due to a better coordination between the functional departments and the Federal Chancellor’s office. On the other hand, the principle of departmental responsibility was judged as being hindering, because the “Teutonic inflexibility” makes it impossible for the permanent representative to influence a compromise at Council level. German delegations to the European Council often bring more than 30 Berlin directives to one agenda item, but only have four minutes to speak – to some, this example is a symptom of the “German Illness”, others value this as a reinforcement of the personal arbitrage of the permanent representative. An intensive discussion was also held on the role of the Federal Chancellor’s office whose power in the coordination of German EU policy got stronger under the rule of the Treaty of Lisbon.

This conference opened the row of “EBD Exklusiv” for the year 2011, a type of conferences for member organizations and institutional partners only which the European Movement Germany launched in 2010. The key points of the discussion will form the basis of a scientific online paper which EM Germany will publish as a volume of its EU-in-BRIEF series in February.