Confidence in Old King Kohl

By Bruce W. Nelan

Helmut Kohl and Germany look like a good physical match: the tall, burly Chancellor casts as large a political shadow at home as his powerful country does across the European Continent. While Kohl needed a lot of help from his coalition partners to win a fourth straight four-year term last week, he was the real issue of the campaign. Some posters carried only his portrait, without bothering to mention his name or that of his Christian Democratic Party. Unfazed when popularity polls showed him trailing 11% early this year, he insisted he would still win the national election. As his prediction came true, he smiled and asked, "What more could I have hoped for?"

Well, possibly a larger majority. He and his partners from the Christian Social Union and the Free Democratic Party will control the new 672-member Bundestag by only 10 seats -- a drop of 124 from four years ago. No one has forgotten how swiftly and confidently Kohl engineered Germany's unification, but this electoral decline is about what has happened since then. It marks the price he paid for a steep post-union recession, now ending, and the resentment felt in both eastern and western Germany over the high cost of bringing them together. Even so, unified Germany stuck with Kohl's leadership.

In the capitals of Europe and in Washington as well, that was excellent news. Demonstrations of continuity and stability are particularly welcomed from Germany, the colossus of Western Europe and the world's No. 3 industrial economy. Most of Germany's neighbors were at least a bit apprehensive about how the country would behave after coming triumphantly together five years ago, but Kohl's administration has reassured them. "Germany is not what it was in the past," says a French government official in Paris. German neo- Nazis have committed shocking public atrocities, but they do not presage a national trend toward extremism. An important proof: the far-right Republican Party took only 1.9% of last week's vote.

One criticism Germany's neighbors sometimes make about Kohl is that he is preoccupied with domestic politics and lacks vision. But it seems an odd charge to lay against a man dedicated to expanding the Atlantic alliance and making the European Union live up to its name. "Germany," says a senior NATO official in Brussels, "is probably the only major country that is whole- heartedly committed to both NATO and the European Union." Germans must realize, Kohl said last week, that their new unity "will be wasted if we don't press ahead in parallel with European unity."

Kohl wants to see Germany so embedded in European institutions that it will never again be tempted to swing its weight alone. He is so eager to create a common currency and a common foreign policy that he is willing to do so in a two-tier union, with an inner core of those ready to move forward by the end of this decade and an outer ring of those not financially or politically ready.

Similarly, Kohl likes NATO so much he wants to see it grow bigger. He is uncomfortable with Germany's exposed position on the frontier between the solidity of NATO and the uncertainty of what used to be the Warsaw Pact. He would like to move NATO's border east, embracing Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, even in the face of vehement opposition from Russia. On that score he may face Washington's displeasure too, even if Bill Clinton did say when he visited Germany last July, "I always agree with Helmut."

The passion of Kohl's European dreams will not keep domestic problems from claiming much of his attention during what he says will be his last term in office. He will have to go on paying the bills, now up to $330 billion, for rebuilding the east without overburdening the country's highly taxed citizens. He must try to keep the economic recovery on track, bring down unemployment rates (running nearly 8% in the west and 14% in the east) and work with overpriced industry and unions to mend Germany's sagging productivity.

The Social Democrats say they will not be cooperative: they vow to do their best to overturn the ruling coalition before its term is over. Though his party has lost the past four elections, Social Democratic leader Rudolf Scharping calls Kohl's alliance "a coalition of losers." Kohl did not seem worried last week. "A majority is a majority," he observed. Correct, and ! Helmut Schmidt, one of Germany's most effective Chancellors, governed for six years with an identical 10-seat margin. For that matter, Konrad Adenauer became Chancellor in 1949 by a majority of only one seat. Kohl is betting that he will be on hand two years from now to celebrate overtaking Adenauer's postwar record of 14 years in office.

With reporting by Bruce van Voorst/Bonn, with other bureaus