Berlin still very upset over NSA scandal
The organizers did everything they could to ensure a peaceful conference. The two-day event in Berlin hosted by the German Federal Academy for Security Policy - with DW as a media partner - sounded inconspicuous enough. Titled: "Europe's stability - Germany's security," it dealt with the fallout of the financial crisis for European security.
Panelists discussed the ramifications of the financial crisis for political decision making, how to deal with a resurgent Russia as well as the challenges posed by the rapid rise in refugees fleeing to Europe in the wake of events in Syria and Iraq.
Transatlantic relations and US foreign policy cropped up only once in a while on the sidelines of a predominantly European-focused debate. The NSA scandal wasn't brought up at all - that is, until the very last panel of the gathering, where it gave the conference a bitter aftertaste.
Financial crisis - a chance for the betterment of Europe?
Taking a page from Winston Churchill's playbook - "never let a good crisis go to waste" - panelists were asked to debate how the financial crisis could be reconfigured as a chance for the betterment of European integration and the transatlantic alliance.
The panelists, James D. Melville, the US' deputy ambassador to Germany, Roderich Kiesewetter, a member of the Bundestag's Committee on Foreign Affairs for the CDU, and Gregor Gysi, the parliamentary leader of the Left Party in the Bundestag, understandably struggled to find a common thread connecting the financial crisis with the improvement of transatlantic ties and the deepening of the European project.
Gysi asked why the US wouldn't sign a no-spy Agreement with Berlin
As a result, each panelist focused on a certain point. Gysi repeatedly lamented the failure of the UN Security Council to fulfill its role as the world's decisive political body. As a consequence, he suggested the US, China and Russia should be locked up in a single room and be forced to stay in there until they had solved the world's problems.
Kiesewetter and Melville's comments were more realistic. Kiesewetter urged that with all the debate about a larger international role for Germany and calls to beef up the country's military forces, Germany must first define its strategic interests and have a public debate about the issue.
Melville reiterated two truisms often stated by the Obama administration. One: that not even the United States can solve the world's problems alone; and two: that in global politics, Germany punches below its weight, with Washington supporting a stronger role for Berlin on the international stage.