After months of being humbled and hounded at the centre of a political scandal, German foreign minister Joschka Fischer is back on vintage form, writes Derek Scally in Berlin
German foreign minister Joschka Fischer is a man of many faces: tetchy schoolmaster and deadpan comedian, humble public servant and haughty world statesman. All faces are on display during an interview with a group of foreign correspondents in Berlin, as Fischer emerges from the most difficult period of his 30-year political career, culminating in a recent 12-hour marathon of televised testimony before a parliamentary inquiry.
"We realised that the inquiry committee was exhausted, I wasn't," he says with a straight face. "I'm a marathon man. I drank lots of water."
His light-hearted remarks conceal the political pummelling he has endured since Christmas over whether simplified visa rules introduced by his ministry five years ago, and abolished three years later, allowed thousands of people from Ukraine, Albania and Belarus into Germany illegally, posing as tourists.
Opposition conservatives say the rules opened German borders, and by extension the Schengen zone, to criminal gangs of human traffickers.
In his testimony, Fischer dismissed claims of huge criminal immigration but admitted mistakes in reacting too slowly to embassy concerns in Kiev.
That mea culpa robbed his conservative inquisitors of the chance to land any significant blows on him and the ongoing inquiry is not expected to produce any new revelations.
But the opposition can nevertheless take satisfaction that the affair has toppled Fischer from his pedestal, after seven years, as Germany's most popular politician, aided by Schadenfreude-filled media portrayals of Fischer as an arrogant egomaniac.
"What should I say? 'I am arrogant.' I have to accept that?" he asks, shaking his head and letting out a loud sigh worthy of a theatrical ham. "The Lord sometimes sends us tests. Sometimes you have to take your cross and carry it, and as a good Catholic I'll do that."
Fischer, though not Green Party leader, has served as his party's untiring dray horse in the last years, dragging the party to ever-improving election results and picking up the votes lost in general and state elections by its Social Democrat (SPD) federal coalition partners. But now the two parties face a challenge in a looming election in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, home to 18 million people and Germany's last SPD-Green state coalition government. Fischer declines to discuss whether his recent difficulties are likely to influence the result.
"I'm the foreign minister not chief editorial writer," he says. "I've been in politics long enough to know the ups and downs. Surveys are nice or less nice, election results are what counts. An old farmer's saying goes: 'When the cock crows then the weather is sure to change. Or not'."
Despite his self-professed loathing of political crystal ball-gazing, he admits concern that a "no" in the upcoming French referendum on the European constitution would lead to a "considerably weaker Europe".
"France is the founding nation of the European Union. I don't want to think about a 'no'. I just hope the French decide for Europe and say 'oui'," he says.
German politicians have spared themselves a referendum campaign: the Bundestag is expected to ratify the constitutional treaty in its vote tomorrow, with the second vote in the upper house, the Bundesrat, two weeks later.
Fischer switches into schoolmaster mode when discussing the constitution, counting on three fingers what he sees as the key points of the document.
"Common foreign policy; more democracy through more efficient institutions; and fundamental European rights.
"They replace nothing, but on the European stage, where more will be decided, these will apply," he says.
Fischer says he is proud of the constitution despite criticism that it is over-complicated.
"You've got all the treaties in one document. Naturally it's complicated . . . but it's a huge achievement. The greater the distance I have from it, the better I find it," he says.
He says he is satisfied by the public debate that accompanied the 60th anniversary of the end of the second World War and the discussion surrounding German civilian war dead.
"Germany cannot distance itself from its past. This anniversary a chance for the younger generation to get further information and I have the impression that this chance used," he says.
In a recent speech, however, he warns against mixing up the remembrance of Nazi victims and Nazi perpetrators.
Another ill-mannered face of Fischer emerges as the interview progresses, as he does little to conceal his boredom.
The German economy is experiencing "adjustment problems" after the unification boom during what he terms the "lie-filled 1990s, something for which you cannot make this government responsible".
The EU ambitions of Ukraine should be encouraged but Kiev has to accept the current pace of discussions and that "security questions have to be answered".
On the EU weapons embargo to China, he repeats his remarks to the Bundestag that China can increase the likelihood of an EU compromise by addressing concerns on human rights and Taiwan.
The foreign minister only begins to warm up when the discussion turns to the Iranian nuclear weapons question.
He rejects any suggestion that months of stalemate with Tehran has seen a hardening of the London-Paris-Berlin position.
"We are working on the basis of the Paris letter from December. There must be a decision in Tehran to freely stop uranium enrichment," he says. "We are prepared to talk anywhere, at any time."
His brow furrows in concentration as he speaks at length and in impressive detail of the recent meeting of Balkan leaders and the prospects of the Middle East peace process.
"The 'road map' has gained a practically mythological quality. It's been written off so often as dead. But," he says, switching to English, "it's the only game in town. As long as we have nothing else it would be good advice to hang on to that."
As the interview ends, Fischer's increasingly lengthy answers show he finally has his statesman face on, a mode Der Spiegel magazine calls "Fischer explains the world".
Finally, after months of witnessing a humble, hounded Fischer at the centre of a political scandal, it seems that the vintage Joschka Fischer is back.