Paris and Berlin also agreed to order 125 new Airbus A400M military transport aircraft, currently being developed by Airbus.

The U.S.-led wars against Iraq and Yugoslavia revealed how dependent the imperialist powers in Europe are on Washington's military intelligence and transport capability.

These moves by Paris and Berlin are aimed at reducing this reliance on Washing-ton's military might, and include plans to develop a European wing of the NATO alliance with a 60,000-strong rapid deployment force.

Both heads of state also criticized Washington's plans to move ahead with developing an antimissile shield. Schröder said these plans risk triggering an armaments race.

At the end of the summit, Chirac said at a press conference in Mainz that the French government has the "same opinion about the terrible consequences of a missile defense shield."

There were few details presented at the meeting on the question of changing the European Union (EU) institutions to make way for its supposed enlargement into eastern and central Europe, such as the redistribution of national votes in the Council of Ministers. The government of Germany, now the largest EU country with its reunification in 1990, has pressed for more voting power, a move not yet endorsed by Paris. In fact, the enlargement of the European Union is put more and more into the future.

NATO's expansion closer to the borders of Russia is now the real project pushed by the Clinton administration. The imperialist powers in Europe--in rivalry with each other and with Washington--are maneuvering around the expansion of NATO. Berlin and Paris try to slow it and promote their own interests.  
 
Putin pays three-day visit to Berlin
During his visit to Berlin in mid-June, Russian president Vladimir Putin praised as "constructive and sensible" the German regime's position on Washington's plans for a defense shield, according to an interview published in Welt am Sonntag. Putin also expressed Moscow's concerns "at the attempt to put NATO at the center of the formation of a European security system." He later warned that attempts by NATO to admit the Baltic states into the military alliance would make a "country like Russia feel threatened" and "could destabilize the situation in the whole of Europe and the whole world."

Germany is more exposed than any other country in Europe to political instability to its east, and not the least in Russia. More than 60 percent of Russia's foreign debt of $150 billion is to German banks. Among the questions that were at the center of Putin's state visit were pressing for some debt relief and for new investments by German capitalists in Russia. "Germany is Russia's leading partner in Europe and the world," Putin said June 16.

Putin also used his visit to Germany and other European countries to counter Washington's drive to set up an antimissile system. His meetings in Germany led to agreements on German investments in Russia worth $1.7 billion, and cautious German backing for a Russian plan to involve itself in the defense of Europe against missile attacks. The Russian president proposed a "theater" antimissile system it has under development, allowed under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, in opposition to Washington's plan, which violates the 1972 accords.

Washington's plans, Putin said, would be a "big strategic error that will only increase strategic threats to the United States and Russia, as well as other states." The Russian president added, "We have come to the conclusion that the missile threat from the so-called rogue states of the Middle East or the Asia region that is referred to by the United States does not exist in reality and is not going to emerge in the visible future."

Schröder said Putin's proposal for a missile defense system from the Atlantic to the Urals "deserves thorough consideration and should be discussed both in the NATO-Russia Council and through bilateral relations." The German chancellor added, "We agree on the necessity of political measures with regard to arms control in order to preserve the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty."

Berlin's opposition to debt relief for Russia remains unchanged. The International Herald Tribune quoted a German official saying, "We have told them we are not going to treat them like Angola. Russia is a potentially rich country." Differences over the debt were not allowed to cloud the meeting. Chancellor Schröder and his wife have accepted an invitation to spend Christmas in the Kremlin.

The outcome of the meeting is certain to cause concern among Berlin's imperialist allies, among them Paris and Washington.

Carl-Erik Isacsson is a member of the metal workers union in Södertälje, Sweden.  
 
 
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