Theo Sommer is often hailed as the doyen of German liberals. With his long career in journalism and engagement with issues facing his country, his is seen to be the voice of a forward-looking Germany. Long-time publisher/editor of the influential weekly, Die Zeit, he has often advised the German government, also serving as vice-chairman of the Commission on Common Security and the Future of the German Army. At a time when Germany heads the EU and the G8, he talked to Mini Kapoor about Europe’s place in today’s world.• You once wrote that Germany “is the only country which is beset by the problems of the West and the problems of the East”. With Vladimir Putin’s recent protest against a unipolar world, is Germany poised to mediate?Well, we do not live in a unipolar world. Many of us thought that after the Cold War, there would be only one surviving superpower. But that sole surviving superpower made a mess of things, and at the moment no one is really leading. We live in an a-polar world. Things are in flux, and I’m sure we’re going to live in a multipolar world in about 30 years.• So what’s the role for Europe?I think Europe carries a lot of weight when it comes to soft power. The American experience in Iraq shows that hard power is not enough. So I would hope for cooperation with a post-Bush US — that has come to its senses again and recognises its limits.• Would an expanded NATO be better placed to solve conflicts?NATO has expanded already after the end of the Cold War. I don’t see any need for it to expand any further. I do not believe it is possible to turn NATO into a global unit acting around the world. That is what the Americans are trying to achieve, but Europeans have their doubts about that. There is no unifying threat the way there was during the Cold War. There is terrorism, okay, but it is hard to localise, it takes different shapes and forms in different parts of the world, and it will never have the same kind of unifying effect as the Soviet threat.• After German unification, you introduced the concept of “core culture”.Actually, the literal translation is “leading culture”. It was used in connection with recent waves of immigrants. We have a population of 82 million, of which about 10 per cent are foreign-born and close to 3 million are Turks. There has been a debate, to what extent should they amalgamate themselves. The term “leading culture” cropped up in this context. People said, well, they have to adjust to the laws of the country, which is clear. We will not have the Shariat in Germany. To that extent we expect them to accept the German way of life. For the rest, their belief is their private affair. It is more a theoretical problem, because very many have adjusted. The problem is, of course, when people from Norway or Spain or Germany emigrated to the US in the 19th century, they never came back. They had to adjust to the American lead culture. Nowadays there is a lot more contact with their countries of origin. In Berlin, I think, there are 14 Turkish TV channels. This slows the process. On the other hand, there is upward mobility. The melting pot does not work as fast as it used to, but it’s still going to work. What is of the essence is mutual tolerance.• Does this in any way impact German foreign policy?Germany did not participate in the Iraq war. We did not think that the case for war was convincing. I think our case has been borne out by events, unfortunately. But, for instance, closer home, in the Balkans we have intervened, but not as Germans. That is not seen clearly enough in India yet: We don’t react as Frenchmen or as Germans anymore, we react as EU members. It is not the old kind of nationalism. The EU has grown very quickly. We are slowly finding our bearings in that new wider Europe. The question is, now to what extent we can expand eastwards, southwards. I think that there are natural limits somewhere, historical limits, limits defined by the state of development. But that doesn’t mean we exclude the others. The EU is in the process of defining a neighbourhood policy. And I think this will be basically the area in which Europe will act. So far it is quite a historical achievement to have created such an area of peace, stability, prosperity. I think this way of democratising is much better than exporting democracy by military force.• Yet, looking back, the success of the EU was in no way inevitable.Europe is still a work in progress. In March, the EU celebrates its 50th anniversary, ever since we have been debating two issues. One was widening; we started with six, now we’re 27 and by 2020/2030 we’ll be 30 or 35. The other was deepening, which meant sharing sovereignty in ever more areas. Usually widening has led to more deepening; it was simply necessary to adjust the mechanisms so the EU could function with a larger membership. • You now head a paper called The German Times. Does it seek to influence EU specifically?With a friend in Berlin we started a paper called The Atlantic Times in 2004. We have debates between Americans and Europeans about what kind of community of values, interests there still is between Europe and America, the kind of community there ought to be. And now with the EU growing bigger and bigger, we do the same thing for a European audience (with The German Times). So far we don’t really have a European public yet. We have it in the elites and the bureaucracies and some political parties. But on the whole, we still think German, French, Italian. So we’re trying to lift this into the consciousness of people that there is a need to slowly establish a European identity.
