Germany and France: The Kohl-Mitterrand Scandal

     From Athens, Harry Papasotiriou comments:
     "Regarding French involvement in the German Christian Democratic funding scandal, I suspect that there may be more to the Mitterrand connection than at first meets the eye. Mitterrand and Kohl were the architects of European Monetary Union, which they saw as a key step towards European federalism. In the 1994 elections Kohl's opponent was the dreaded "Red Oskar" Lafontaine, whose leftist economics would put European Monetary Union at risk. It may well turn out that the Socialist Mitterrand was prepared massively to assist the re-election of the Christian-Democrat Kohl in order to secure Germany's indispensable staying on board on the monetary union and federalisation project. If this conjecture turns out to be true, then European federalism is a much more serious project than hitherto understood. It means that tough "LBJ/Nixon" types are behind it, rather than just starry-eyed "McGovern" type idealists!"


     My comment: My reading is that it involved French secret funds. Elf-Aquitaine wanted to get a foothold in East Germany, and Mitterrand provided secret funds to greatly boost the price. Kohl could not admit that secret funds had been used. Every government has secret funds which it usually uses to promote some foreign policy. The use of secret funds is a major factor in several scandals, notably in Spain. Transparency International, which is headquartered in Germany, has not brought transparency to the issue of secret funds. Or has it?

Ronald Hilton - 1/28/00