WASHINGTON - German Chancellor Angela Merkel delivers a major speech to the US Congress
Tuesday, nearly two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, amid tough questions on Afghanistan and climate change.
Merkel was scheduled for talks with President Barack Obama before heading up to the US Capitol to deliver her speech. The leaders' talks will precede an EU-US summit.
In her first US trip since winning a second term in September, the German leader was expected to speak on the future of transatlantic ties and the demise of European communism days before Berlin marks the 20th anniversary with November 9 festivities.
She said in her weekly podcast that she would use the occasion to thank the United States for backing German unification in 1990, 11 months after the Wall's fall, with "great enthusiasm and fondness."
Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany, will be only the second German chancellor to address the US legislature, after West German leader Konrad Adenauer spoke to separate sessions of each chamber in 1957.
But beyond the pomp and expressions of goodwill, Merkel will be confronting a series of tough issues of strategic importance.
Afghanistan, Iran, standards for financial market regulation and climate change are all expected on the agenda, her spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said.
The invitation extended by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has largely silenced early media reports of chilly relations between Obama and the conservative German leader, who enjoyed generally warm ties with his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.
But Josef Braml of the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin said Merkel would be naive to think the honor did not come at a price.
"It is a gesture where a service is expected in return," he said. "The German government should do more to help shoulder the burden of international commitments," notably in Afghanistan as Obama reassesses the US deployment.
With over 4 300 soldiers, Germany is currently the third-largest supplier of foreign troops in the war-ravaged country after the United States and Britain.
German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said his country would not shirk from its responsibilities in Afghanistan, telling Bild daily that the Taliban are waging a "war" against the international community.
Braml said now that the German election is over, Merkel was likely to face requests for more forces and training personnel for Afghanistan, more funds to stabilise neighbouring Pakistan, as well as firm backing for possible UN sanctions against Iran.
Germany is one of Iran's top trading partners and is working with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to settle the nuclear dispute with Tehran.
"The grace period is over, now we need to deliver," Braml said, warning that a refusal risked greatly diminishing Berlin's influence in Washington.
Merkel, who leaned hard on Bush to make concessions on climate change, also aims to make headway ahead of UN-sponsored climate change talks in Copenhagen next month aimed at clinching an agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"It is not yet clear whether Copenhagen will be a success but the European Union and Germany in particular will push for us to achieve ambitious, forward-looking political resolutions," she said.
The chancellor is also seeking proof that the United States is serious about new market rules to head off future global financial crises.
"The international financial and economic crisis has not yet been surmounted and we have not yet ensured that such a crisis cannot repeat itself," she said.
Jackson Janes, head of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in Washington, said "there is a lot of concern in Berlin that Washington will not be as rigorous in its pursuit of reforms and will return to old ways of oversight."
Her new foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, was due to come to Washington on Thursday for talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sources said.
