Ethics or Economics?

The premier of the central German state of Hesse, Roland Koch, on Friday, Nov. 30, accused German Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier of pursuing a harmful foreign policy that is based solely on economic interests.

"Germany has a historical obligation not to keep quiet about moral questions," Roland Koch told the Bild newspaper. "We have no right to put economics above human rights."

Koch, who is a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), passed judgment on Steinmeier, a Social Democrat (SPD), for "creating the impression in Russia and China that we Germans are ready to do any kind of business, even when human rights are being trampled on."

"In doing so, the foreign minister is harming our country," Koch said.

The unusually strong rhetoric from the CDU politician is not only a sign of the strained relations in the grand coalition, but an indicator that foreign policy may play an important role in the campaigns leading up to the 2009 elections.

The right way

SPD foreign policy expert Rolf Mützenich dismissed the criticism directed at the foreign minister.

"We advocate the anchoring of human rights in the international law," Mützenich told the DPA news agency.

The SPD politician pointed out that China signed the most important human rights conventions and proved itself to be a responsible partner in the nuclear row with Iran and North Korea.

"Those are the points of reference for a moral foreign policy," he said.

During a visit to Paris earlier in November, Steinmeier told journalists he was "worried" about the escalating diplomatic tension between Germany and China in the wake of the Dalai Lama's visit with Merkel.

In September, the chancellor met with the Tibetan spiritual leader, whom Chinese officials see as a dangerous separatist. Consequently, China axed a series of high level exchanges with Germany, including a trip to Beijing by Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück, planned for December.

The Russian question

China, however, is not the only foreign-policy wedge between the coalition partners. German-Russian relations were much more cordial during the previous German government, boosted by the flaunting camaraderie between the then chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In a speech delivered in Stuttgart on Thursday, Schröder -- who was himself often criticized for turning a blind eye to Putin's human rights record, lashed out at Germany's foreign policy by saying he had the impression he was back "in the Cold War era."

Some politicians were promoting a "distancing, even opposition to Russia," the former leader of the Social Democratic Party said.

"I regard this approach as wrong, if not even dangerous," he added.

Less than a month after leaving the chancellor's office in November 2005, Schröder was voted in as head of the supervisory board for a company that's closely linked to the state-owned Russian energy giant Gazprom.

This move was seen by many in Germany as ethically questionable if not complete unacceptable.

Pursuing an ethical foreign policy

Merkel, on the other hand, said in a speech to the German parliament on Wednesday that there was no difference between a foreign policy based on values and one pursuing German economic interests.

"Human rights policy and representation of economic interests are two sides of the same coin," Merkel said. "They should never be opposed to each another."

Merkel will get to test her diplomatic skills and her role as a champion of human rights at a summit between leaders of the European Union and African states that is taking place in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon from Dec. 7 - 9.

The summit will also be attended by Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, a dictator whose controversial policies of seizing white-owned commercial farms and threats to nationalize foreign-owned firms make him an uncomfortable politician to deal with in the EU.

Unlike British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who decided not to attend the summit because of the presence of the Zimbabwean head of state, Merkel declined to back calls for Mugabe to be barred from the summit.