Berlin - Germany is trying to reach a decision about piracy patrols off the Somali coast, a government spokesman said Friday in Berlin as questions grew about the months spent in legal wrangling on the issue. Thomas Steg, deputy spokesman to Chancellor Angela Merkel, said the cabinet would decide by December 10 "at the latest" and was even "striving" to settle the issue a week earlier, on December 3.
A European Union anti-piracy patrol mission, using NATO warships currently on station in the area, is to be officially incorporated on December 8.
This week, the piracy crisis shifted up a gear when the Sirius Star, a supertanker owned by a subsidiary of Saudi oil company Aramco, was hijacked in the Indian Ocean with a full load of 2 million barrels of oil on board.
German warships have frightened away pirate approaches to other merchant ships in the Gulf of Aden, although the German sailors apparently lack authority to shoot at or arrest pirates.
After the Second World War, Germany adopted a constitution which effectively prevents Germany from ever starting a war again and limits the power of the military.
Not only will the German parliament have to authorize any shooting, but a German sailor may be committing a crime if he even lays hands on any Somali pirate.
Steg said government ministries were "intensely" debating "the complex issues of national and international law," but added, "We are not under time pressure. There will be a decision in December."
The delay, which first became public in August, has begun raising questions in foreign capitals.
Visiting India, which claimed battle honours this week for sinking the first pirate ship, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter offered assurances this week. He hoped Berlin officials would settle the issue "in the very next few days."
In New York, German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung also tried to soothe the growing questions, telling UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday some "legal issues" and a "plan of operations" needed settling first.
Germany is expected to contribute only one boat to the EU force, the Karlsruhe.
It is a missile-armed frigate, far smaller than the mighty German battleships of yore. Its helicopter chased away pirates three times this week from an Ethiopian, an Egyptian and a British merchant vessel.
If the pirates had read German newspapers, they might have coolly ignored the helicopter's threat. To legally arrest a pirate, a commissioned German police officer would need to be at the scene to recite the words, "You are under arrest."
Police have not been deployed to serve on the Karlsruhe.
Steg said Berlin officials were still debating what rights any captured pirate would have, where to try him and which prosecutors to assign to the case.
Inside Germany, some critics say the endless bickering in Berlin meeting rooms about what the sailors may and may not do in the hot sun off Somalia is becoming bizarre.
Manfred Gertz, who heads the Bundeswehrverband, a quasi trade union for soldiers, sailors and airmen, said, "It's a piece of Absurdistan," coining a word from "absurd" and the names of obscure nations in operettas.
He said international law offered ample authorization to fight piracy with lethal force.
Domestic commentators attribute the delay to a linkage with another political debate in Berlin, over the powers of the military to repel lethal attacks by terrorists on German soil.
As things stand, Germany's air force lacks the authority to shoot down a terrorist flying a plane straight at a German nuclear power station, since Germany cannot declare war on a person. Only police are allowed to intervene.
Critics see the conundrum this way: The police have the legal powers to fight terrorists, but not the weapons. The military have the weapons, but not the legal powers.
Defence Minister Jung and his Christian Democrat colleague, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, have sought a change to the constitution to solve the riddle.
After years of debate, Social Democrats in Merkel's coalition government seemed to agree last month, then changed their minds.
A liberal radio journalist recently explained why restraining military powers was a sacred principle of German democracy.
"It's a lesson of our history never to let the military usurp the powers of the police," he said.
Strangely, Jung has taken the strictest line over the navy's rights, asserting it has no legal power to capture pirates.
Commentators suggest that by insisting his warships have no authority to stop or blow up pirate boats, Jung is indirectly urging his opponents to grant the military anti-terrorist powers.
One opposition politician, Rainer Stinner of the Free Democrat Party (FDP), was sarcastic this week, charging on N-TV news television that the legal debate was just an excuse to stay out of the conflict.
The FDP and the Social Democrats are diametrically opposed to Jung on both issues, saying that the navy has ample authority to deal with pirates abroad, but should never be allowed to fight terrorists at home.
Stinner said he did not see the problem, since the German army had captured war criminals during the 1990s in Bosnia-Herzegovina and arrested more than 100 looters in Kosovo in 1999.
At present approximately 17 vessels are in the hands of Somali pirates along with more than 300 crew being held hostage, according to the International Maritime Bureau.
German-owned vessels have been freed in the past after payments of huge ransoms to the Somali bandits.
