News from Berlin these days tends to come from the enormous parties in front of the Brandenburger Tor or in the Tiergarten. But spare a thought for a moment from whether Ghana will beat the eminently beatable Brazilian team and glance over to the Reichstag building, home of Germany’s parliament.
Today, more or less as I write, Joschka Fischer is taking part in his final session as a German parliamentarian. He leaves behind a long list of firsts, significant achievements and all of the right enemies. Member of the first Green delegation in the Bundestag, first parliamentary leader of that delegation, first Green minister in a state government, member of the first Red-Green cabinet at the national level — and thus first Green vice-chancellor and first Green foreign minister.
He’ll be teaching for a year at Princeton, but nobody in the German press believes we have heard the last of Joschka Fischer. I don’t believe it either. He’s too big a talent to fade away.
Thanks for pointing out his departure, I think I’ll have a drink to celebrate this event. One less opportunist battening on and bamboozling the public. As for Fischer’s talent being too big for him to fade away, are you sure you didn’t mean his ego?
Maybe Rupert Murdoch will ring him up like he did this week with Spain’s former president Jose Maria Aznar and make Fischer responsible for German things. I also agree that politics and everything else seems to be taking a back seat to the World Cup as always: here in Spain Zapatero is looking for a good moment to quietly let slip that he’s about to start negotiating with ETA. I reckon 9p.m. this evening would be about right, with 90% of Spain glued to the France-Spain kick-off.
I follow German politics, but am not close enough to know whether or not I’m being far too hopeful to think he may one day add another first – first Green Bundespraesident?