Ο ...Doctor!!!
Τελικά, υπάρχει Θεία Δίκη!
...Και που να αρχίσει η Μέρκελ, να χάνει και τις εκλογές!
Σταύρος Κυριαζής
Feb 17th 2011, 17:57 by B.U. | BERLIN
KARL-THEODOR ZU GUTTENBERG is Germany’s most dashing, refreshing and popular politician. He is also the most accident-prone. The 39-year-old defence minister has a reputation for straight talking and bold strokes. He admitted early on that German troops in Afghanistan face "warlike conditions", which in Germany counts as a daring confession, not a statement of the obvious. He ended conscription, a pillar of Germany’s post-war order, as part of a broader plan to make the armed forces leaner, more professional and more deployable.
But the rising star from Bavaria—Mr zu Guttenberg belongs to the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian wing of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union—has stumbled into one political mess after another. There were questions about his role in disclosing the truth about a bloody air attack called in by German troops in Afghanistan (the top civil servant and the top general took the fall for that one).
His handling of recent controversies—the death of a cadet aboard a training ship, an accidental shooting of a soldier in Afghanistan, and the opening of soldiers’ post—raised new doubts about his coolness under fire. Mr zu Guttenberg seemed likely to survive these mishaps, helped by a general suspicion that his real offence is to have outshined his rivals.
But now Mr zu Guttenberg is embroiled in a scandal that he may not be able to blame on anyone else. Yesterday Süddeutsche Zeitung, a newspaper, reported that parts of his 2006 doctoral thesis seemed to repeat passages by other authors without attribution. "Constitution and Constitutional Treaty: Comparing Developments in the US and the EU" apparently drew on articles in other newspapers, the US embassy website, even an essay by a former defence minister. Internet sleuths are gleefully crowdsourcing more examples.
Mr zu Guttenberg calls the charges of plagiarism "fanciful"; any lapses in scholarly propriety will be corrected in the next edition, he says. His allies suggest he is the victim of a left-wing plot: Andreas Fischer-Lescano, a law professor who uncovered the apparent plagiarism while writing a review of the published thesis, is a founding member of a think tank positioned well to the left of centre.
That seems desperate. Mr zu Guttenberg has a better chance of spinning the copycat passages as trivial examples of carelessness, unrelated to his job as defence minister. So far, the opposition is not demanding his resignation. The University of Bayreuth, which awarded the thesis top honours, could withdraw Mr zu Guttenberg’s doctorate if it finds he has seriously breached the norms of scholarship. His political future will depend on whether the affair so damages his credibility that he can no longer continue in office.
More important than Mr zu Guttenberg’s career is the fate of the armed forces reform he has initiated. It was already in some trouble before this latest scandal broke. Along with ending conscription the defence minister wants to reduce the size of the armed forces, from 250,000 to 185,000, while increasing the number that can be deployed on foreign missions.
The reform would redefine the roles of the top generals, shut down bases and slim the bureaucracy. An evaluation of the reform, written for the chancellor but leaked to the press, raises doubts about its “future viability”. Germany’s allies worry that Mr zu Guttenberg is paying too little attention to the defence needs of NATO and the European Union.
Yet the biggest problem may be that the changes, which Mr zu Guttenberg billed as money-saving, now look as if they will initially be a net drain on the budget. The government’s budgetary plans call for the defence ministry to save €8.3 billion ($11.3 billion) by 2014. Now Mr zu Guttenberg wants extra money to make the armed forces more attractive to volunteers and to shut conscription centres, among other things.
The savings demanded by the government will result in a “dwarfication of the armed forces,” warned Ulrich Kirsch, head of the Armed Forces Association. But Mrs Merkel and the finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, were disinclined to let Mr zu Guttenberg off the hook even before they became better acquainted with his academic work. It is hard to imagine that they are feeling more indulgent now.
