In spite of concerns about the "injustice" of Germany's net contribution to the EU budget, the Bonn government was not interested in stunting Ireland's successful economy by severely cutting funding, its Vice-Chancellor and Foreign Minister, Mr Joschka Fischer, has indicated.
Following a meeting yesterday in Dublin with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, Mr Fischer told journalists that while his country was the largest net contributor to the EU, it had also "a lot of benefits from the common market".
Mr Fischer, a Green party Minister in the new Germany coalition, was visiting Ireland as part of the traditional tour of capitals undertaken before a country takes over the EU presidency. Germany is due to take over on January 1st.
Asked if Germany was sympathetic to the concept of Ireland getting a "soft landing" by way of the gradual phasing out of EU benefits, Mr Fischer said: "We are not interested in cutting off a successful story."
The EU accepted that Germany faced real problems because of the injustices associated with the size of its contribution. Germany wanted to tackle the problem but "it would not be wise to open the EU to the east by cutting back the success story in Ireland".
"With good will, we will find a balanced solution," he added.
Mr Andrews said that during their discussion he had told the Vice-Chancellor that Ireland was sensitive to the scale of Germany's contribution. However, he had "restated in the strongest possible way" his opposition to co-financing of the Common Agricultural Policy.
According to the Minister, the Government's chief concerns were about the need for adequate transitional arrangements under structural funding; the continued eligibility of single currency participants for cohesion funding provided they met the criterion; and the need for substantial amendments to the CAP reform proposals if they are to be acceptable to Ireland.
Meanwhile, a suggestion that Mr Fischer represented good news for Ireland in relation to the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant came from the the Green Party TD Mr John Gormley, who also had a meeting with Mr Fischer. The Vice-Chancellor will take over the presidency of the Council of Ministers in the New Year.
"The German Greens, as coalition partners, are insisting that nuclear waste should go directly to final storage. This would then end the reprocessing contracts agreed with Sellafield, making the plant redundant economically and, hopefully, leading to its shutdown."