TIGER TENSIONS
April 19, 2008
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,548459,00.html
Germany and France at Loggerheads over Arms Deal with Libya
Berlin is unhappy with a French arms deal with Libya. President
Nicolas Sarkozy wants to sell 12 Franco-German Tiger combat
helicopters to Moammar Gadhafi despite objections from Chancellor
Angela Merkel.
AP
The Eurocopter-made Tiger combat helicopter.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has found it difficult to get along
(more...) with French President Nicolas Sarkozy since he took office
almost a year ago. Although in the end they found a way to get over
their disagreements on France's proposal for a Mediterranean Union
(more...), now another source of tension could be about to flare up.
A French arms deal with Libya is causing strain between Paris and
Berlin after it emerged that Sarkozy wants to sell Libyan dictator,
Moammar Gadhafi, 12 Tiger combat helicopters, which are manufactured
by the Franco-German Eurocopter. The German government wants to
prevent the deal going ahead and has already expressed its
reservations in private talks with the French. However, Sarkozy
appears happy to ignore these concerns and Germany has no right to
veto the project.
According to an accord that was hammered out by the then German and
French defence ministers, Helmut Schmidt and Michel Debre, in 1972,
the partners cannot prevent each other from selling arms developed
together to a third country. It is only if the ex****t were to
contravene German law that the delivery of components could be
withheld in an "exceptional case." However, if Chancellor Merkel were
to try to fall back on this proviso to block the Libyan deal it would
be likely to lead to a serious spat with France.
Last July Sarkozy infuriated his EU partners when he signed a number
of agreements on future cooperation with Gadhafi (more...) including
deals on defense and civilian nuclear energy.
spiegel
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