Word: bonne
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...rare moment of levity in an otherwise dour and downbeat Franco-West German summit meeting between the two leaders. Five hours of discussion had failed to dissipate a growing malaise between Paris and Bonn, much less restore the intimate Franco-German relationship that flourished under ex- President Valery Giscard d'Estaing and former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. The current differences, over trade talks and agricultural prices, seem certain to hinder progress toward greater West European unity. More important, on the prickly issue of Star Wars and Ronald Reagan's invitation to West Europeans to join in the U.S.'s Strategic Defense...
...Kohl's conservative Christian Democratic Union made its poorest showing in 35 years, garnering just 36.5% of the vote. By contrast, the left-of-center Social Democratic Party posted its best performance ever, winning a majority of 52.1%. Every major city in the state except the federal capital of Bonn fell to the Social Democrats, as did more than half the districts formerly held by the Christian Democrats. Kohl called the results a "major defeat." His party, he admitted, lost large numbers from two of its most faithful constituencies: farmers and the elderly...
Contradictory though that sounds, it is a fair summation of European reaction to President Reagan's suggestion, repeated at this month's Bonn economic summit, that U.S. allies join the $26 billion research program to develop a space-based defense against Soviet missiles. Britain and Italy have both indicated a desire to help out; West Germany will send a mission to Washington to explore what role it could play in the Strategic Defense Initiative, as Star Wars is formally named. Even French President Francois Mitterrand, while loudly refusing to have anything to do with SDI on a government level...
Just what role Washington wants the Europeans to play, however, is not at all clear. "Subcontractors!" exclaimed Mitterrand (in English) after listening to Reagan's pitch at the Bonn summit. "That was the word I heard. It confirmed my intuitions." Other government leaders insist that their countries want to be treated as full partners who will be kept apprised of major research developments and get to share in the technology. But a Pentagon briefing last week left officials of the British Defense Ministry with the impression that the U.K. would be . . . well, a subcontractor...
More impartial witnesses gave his trip mixed reviews. The Bonn economic summit ended in disappointment when French President Francois Mitterrand refused to join the other leaders in agreeing to a new round of trade talks. Reagan managed to defuse the Bitburg uproar, but the incident nevertheless left a sour taste. By and large, however, Reagan handled his diplomatic duties with sensitivity and skill. Whether they liked him or not, Europeans could no longer dismiss him as an unschooled cowboy, as they did a few short years...