Joschka Fischer smiled bravely as he admitted that the resignation of the entire EU Commission was, frankly, the last thing the German government needed. "There's something new every day. You'd think we had enough on our hands but here we go with another crisis," said the German Foreign Minister.
Less than a week after the shock resignation of Oskar Lafontaine as Finance Minister, Germany faces a fresh crisis in its role as holder of the rotating EU Presidency. With only a week to go before EU heads of government gather in Berlin for a crucial summit, the dramatic news from Brussels threatens to derail the delicate negotiations surrounding the Agenda 2000 reform package.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, was in Brussels yesterday as part of his week-long tour of EU capitals that will take him to Dublin to meet the Taoiseach on Friday. He described the Commissioners' resignation as a logical consequence of their mistakes but he insisted that the crisis in Brussels would have no impact on the Berlin summit.
"I have to make sure that the Agenda is agreed in Berlin to keep Europe able to act. That is my priority," he said.
German officials insist that the Agenda 2000 negotiations are now so advanced that the Commission's fate is no longer relevant to the outcome of next week's summit. But Mr Fischer admitted that the sudden vacuum at the top of the EU raised the stakes at next week's meeting.
"We need a success in Berlin more than ever. We must not let the impression take hold that the European Union is unable to act," he said.
Opposition politicians from the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) called yesterday for the summit to be postponed until the crisis in Brussels is resolved. Mr Schroder will not countenance such a step, not least because he has invested so much of his own political capital in the summit's success.
Germany successfully persuaded the EU to move the summit from Brussels to Berlin so that the reform package would see the light of day in the new German capital. Mr Schroder has attempted in recent weeks to play down expectations of a substantial cut in Germany's net contribution to the EU budget. But, following Mr Lafontaine's sudden departure amid accusations of chaos at the heart of government, the Chancellor badly needs the political glory of a successful summit.
Since his election victory last September, Mr Schroder's sole contribution to his government's policy making has been to undermine and block the work of other ministers. The chancellor remains popular among voters and is poised to become chairman of his Social Democratic Party. But he needs to secure agreement in Berlin if he is to establish himself as an authoritative figure who can boast of concrete, political achievements.
The Commissioners' resignation presents the German presidency with an added burden, bringing forward a potentially fraught debate among EU member states about who should occupy the key posts in Brussels.
The opposition Christian Democrats yesterday accused the Chancellor of applying to the EU crisis his domestic policy of doing nothing in the face of adversity. They called for the immediate appointment of an emergency Commission, which must not include any of those Commissioners who were criticised by the Brussels investigating committee.
Among those named by the committee was the German Commissioner responsible for Regional Policy, Monika Wulf-Mathies. A prominent member of Mr Schroder's Social Democrats (SPD), Ms Wulf-Mathies was defiant yesterday, signalling that she hopes to return to her Commissioner's post for a further term.
The SPD leadership indicated yesterday that they will back Ms Wulf-Mathies, claiming that her offence was a minor one of failing to follow the correct employment procedures. The investigating committee found that Ms Wulf-Mathies was guilty of favouritism when she employed a lawyer with whom she was personally acquainted as a personal adviser. But the report described the case as "borderline" and concluded that the EU had benefited from the appointment.
The second German Commissioner, Martin Bangemann, was due to step down at the end of his current term and he will be replaced by a member of the Greens, in accordance with the coalition agreement signed between the two governing parties.
The Chancellor said yesterday that EU leaders were unlikely to choose a successor to the Commission President, Jacques Santer, at next week's summit. But the chairman of Bonn's parliamentary foreign affairs committee, Hans-Ulrich Klose, yesterday suggested that the former Spanish prime minister, Felipe Gonzalez, was the ideal man for the job.
"It should be someone at least of the calibre of Jacques Delors because the EU is in an important phase of widening and deepening," he said.
As he considered the political turmoil around him yesterday both at home and in Brussels, Mr Schroder responded with his customary, wry optimism. "Crises and problems are always a challenge too, they're always a chance," he said.