Also wants to improve university cooperation: Kretschmann in Strasbourg. F.: dpa
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By Henning Otte
Strasbourg. It is an iconic image: Winfried Kretschmann climbs onto a water police boat on the Rhine, on which Germans and French normally patrol together. From Kehl we go by water to Strasbourg on Thursday. Is he worried about getting seasick? “I can swim,” says the 73-year-old cheerfully. The message of this trip to the neighbor is clear: “We are all in the same boat,” agrees Pierre Michel Arcade, the co-commander of the Franco-German unit, and promptly translates it into French: “On est tous sur le même bâteau.”
Kretschmann hardly speaks a word of French, but attaches great importance to interacting with the French. Especially in times of crisis and war like these, we have to stick together even more in Europe and expand cooperation at all levels. As an example, the Green cites how Baden-Württemberg and the eastern French region of Grand Est would have supported each other during the corona pandemic. When the first wave raged in Alsace, about a dozen seriously ill people were brought across the border and ventilated. “We will not forget that,” says Josiane Chevalier, the prefect of Bas-Rhin.
When things got tight in the intensive care units in the southwest at the end of 2021, the French were ready. In the end there were no transfers. With the assistance pact, they have shown that they don’t just function as a “fair-weather community,” says Kretschmann. He knows that at the beginning of the pandemic in spring 2020 there was a lot of upset in Alsace because Germany had unilaterally introduced border controls. Suddenly, around 23,500 French cross-border commuters were checked again, for example on the way to work.
The joint customs and police center and the water protection police in Kehl are showcase projects of cooperation. Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU) is proud that the center in 1999 was the first project of this kind in Europe. Andreas Stenger, LKA President, enthuses that the center is a “bridge between cultures” and ensures a smooth exchange of information. But there are also brake pads. If, for example, the German side monitors a threat as a preventative measure, it ends the moment he crosses the border. Here he wishes for more votes.
Andreas Ridder, head of the water police, practiced in daily interactions, quotes the writer Kurt Tucholsky: “You have to understand the Germans in order to love them. You have to love the French in order to understand them.”
For Kretschmann, it is the ninth visit to France in his eleven-year tenure. In view of the war in Ukraine, he thinks we need to stand together even more closely. Russian President Vladimir Putin has not only reduced Ukraine to rubble, “but also the entire post-war order”. The answer to this can only be to further consolidate the European community of values.
In concrete terms, Kretschmann wants to promote cooperation between different universities in the border area: “We’re very close to a real European university,” he said. French President Emmanuel Macron anchored in the Aachen Treaty of Friendship with Germany that there should be European universities in the future. One wants to realize one now, says Kretschmann. The war in Ukraine made it clear to all Europeans that the peace project should not be taken for granted. “I hope that the guns in Ukraine will wake us up.”
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