Word: schmidts
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Maybe so, but to a good many Europeans these days it certainly looks as if the two leaders are pedaling down the same path, if not doing a little hand-holding on the side. Since coming to power within two weeks of each other last May, Schmidt and Giscard have chatted weekly by telephone (sometimes oftener), got together to discuss defense and foreign policy four times, mapped new plans and programs for the European Economic Community, and established a working relationship that is almost as informal and candid as if they were members of the same government...
Personal relations between the two leaders' immediate predecessors -Georges Pompidou and Willy Brandt -were never close and sometimes downright frosty. Thus the spectacle of a genuinely close relationship between Paris and Bonn is both refreshing and a little startling to many Europeans. Indeed, the Giscard-Schmidt friendship has caused a certain amount of anxiety among some EEC members, who fear that the Community's two most powerful representatives could gang up to promote their own interests to the detriment of the smaller countries. Those fears may have been somewhat premature. Last week Bonn shocked the EEC-as well...
Fast Friends. Few know the ins and outs of the Community's problems better than Giscard and Schmidt. The two men first got to know each other at EEC conferences where, as Finance Ministers for their respective governments, they mapped out monetary policies and trade negotiations. They not only became fast friends but agreed on the EEC's failings. Giscard, who detests the pomp and circumstance of Common Market summitry, has tried to set up more informal meetings; recently, he was host to the leaders of the Nine at a casual working dinner in the Elysee Palace...
...technocrat who rose through the ranks of the Social Democratic Party, Schmidt, 55, is only five years younger than Willy Brandt, but his brusque, businesslike style has made it seem as if a new generation has taken over in Bonn. Bouncing out of his Rhineside bungalow early each morning, he likes to blast a referee's whistle as he starts across the lawn to the chancellery. The message to his aides: get things moving. To Germans, he is known as a Macher (doer). He has cut out the rambling presentations from ministers that Brandt allowed and lectured them...
That kind of toughness has won him both friends and enemies. Axel Springer's Die Welt calls him "a right leftist without trimmings." And Schmidt an swers: "I don't mind when people call me hard or decisive. I think I am a normal man." Privately, he enjoys his reputation as a hard-nose and sometimes puts on public displays of toughness to nurture the image. He recently lashed out at some youthful left-wing critics in his party with such vehemence that even seasoned politicos winced...