|
Guido Westerwelle, 47, is the chairman of
Germany's business-friendly Free Democratic Party and could well be
German foreign minister after September's national elections. He spoke
with German news magazine Spiegel reporters Petra Bornhoft and Sauga about how Berlin should deal with U.S. President Barack
Obama, the urgency of disarmament and why Russia is not Germany's enemy.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Westerwelle, according to current polls, a
coalition of your business-friendly Free Democrats together with
Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives could form the new German
government after September's national election, with you as foreign minister. What will you do differently?
Guido
Westerwelle: Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We have to win
the election first. Then we'll conduct coalition negotiations, and the
decision as to who assumes which post will come last.
SPIEGEL: Sorry, but in the past 40 years, the smaller coalition
partner in every coalition government has appointed the foreign
minister and vice-chancellor. Do you intend to turn down the position?
Westerwelle: Your comment about the past is correct. But I am
not so immodest as to anticipate the outcome of the election in a
Spiegel interview.
SPIEGEL: But if it does happen that way, you would be the
successor of such FDP statesmen as (former foreign ministers) Walter
Scheel and Hans-Dietrich Genscher. Are you being so
uncharacteristically reserved because you sense that those shoes might
be too big to fill?
| 
XML/RSS/RDF Newsfeed Syndication: http://freeinternetpress.com/rss.php
