From german-foreign-policy.com 14th November 2003
Translated and commentated by Rodney Atkinson

With the takeover of the second biggest construction company in Australia the German corporation Bilfinger Berger AG is continuing its expansion abroad. Australia serves as a springboard for Berlin's foreign policy in South East Asia where Berlin seeks to assert its leadership against the dwindling dominance of the USA and the coming power of China. (NB Germany has been the most accommodating and unquestioning of China's unsavoury political ways in return for large investments in that country) The traditional dominant position of the anglo-american States in Australia has, according to "Asien-Konzept" a publication of the German Foreign Office, "robbed Germany of a previously effective instrument, to forge long term links between Germany and the South East Asian elites". (1)

The German corporation, which already obtains 60% of its turnover from abroad, had previously declared it would use its one thousand million Euro "War chest" for foreign acquisitions in order to compensate for the weak construction market in Germany itself. (Note how the failure of German Europe economically, brought on by 4 years of the Euro (and 7 years of preparing for the Euro!) leads automatically to foreign economic adventures, just as such failure in the 1920s and 1930s led to political authoritarianism and imperial expansion). The Bilfinger board responsible for foreign investment announced further acquisitions in Poland and in the USA. In Asia Bilfinger Berger has already achieved several major contracts. With the takeover of the Abrigroup Ltd in Sydney the German construction company seeks to build its position to become the second biggest Construction group in the Australian market where one of its subsidiaries has been active for ten years in the growing market for infrastructure projects.

Establishing links to Germany.

Australia is seen as an important building block for the "securing long term German foreign policy interests in South East Asia" (1) Berlin hopes to profit from its opposition to the USA's war against Iraq to spread its influence in the area. To this end an Action Plan Partnership 2000 seeks to promote under the auspices of the German Foreign Office, the Australian Foreign and Trade Ministry and the German Economics Ministry "intensive bilateral relations into the future" in particular through a political follow through to German economic expansion in Australia.

South East Asia could "become one of the most dynamic growth regions in the world economy and thereby a much more important market for Germany" the German Foreign Office maintains in Asien-Konzept. "The great majority of the future elites of South East Asia are at present educated in anglophone countries (Great Britain, USA, increasingly Australia) and therefore have a long term affinity to those countries….This deprives us of an instrument which used to be effective in establishing long term links to Germany and so act "on the spot" as commercially attractive witnesses of our country's economic, political and cultural attractiveness. We will therefore have to appreciably increase our exertions to win back this terrain."

(1) "Asien-Konzept" (Suedostasien) from the German Foreign Office, the full text is available on www.auswaertiges-amt.de

Quellen:
Aktionsplan Partnerschaft 2000; www.auswaertiges-amt.de
Bilfinger Berger strebt Zukäufe im Ausland an; Financial Times Deutschland 15.04.2003
Bilfinger Berger geht bald auf Shopping-Tour; Handelsblatt 21.08.2003
Bilfinger verstärkt sich in Australien; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 24.10.2003