Orkhan Sattarov, the head of the European bureau of Vestnik Kavkaza
A few days remain until a planned visit by Vladimir Putin to Germany, the country which is reasonably thought to be the main European partner of Russia. It is expected that Angela Merkel and the Russian president will participate in the major industrial exhibition which takes place in Hannover annually. This year, Russia is a country-partner of the Hannover exhibition – a direct claim of the Russian economy to act not only as a resource exporter, but as an exporter of high-tech industrial products.
Economic ties between Moscow and Berlin are stronger than ever before, trade turnover items are bigger than in previous years. It has reached $105 billion; German investments to Russia in the context of improvement of the investment climate in the RF are growing as well. According to the consulting company Ernst&Young, Germany became the second important investor to Russia last year, after the USA.
However, ahead of the visit by Russian President, German mass media focused on a different aspect of the bilateral relations. Journalists and political elite of the country paid attention to massive checks of activities of foreign non-governmental organizations in the Russian territory. The Germans didn’t like that among subjects of Russian prosecution checking was Fridrich Ebert Fund, Heinrich Boll Fund, and Conrad Adenauer Fund which is close to Merkel’s party. Leading politicians of the country, including official representatives of the federal government, decided to express their view on the situation. “We are concerned with the developments in Russia. The measures which are negatively influence this important work (funds’ activity) damage the bilateral relations,” the secretary of German Chancellor says. The foreign minister of Germany Gido Westerwelle invited the Russian ambassador to the Foreign Ministry and expressed his concern about the checks. The general secretary of the Christian Democratic Union called actions of the Russian authorities “unacceptable.”
The situation over German funds woke up traditional critics of Russia from the Green Party. For example, the well-known in Moscow German MP Faulkner Back criticized Russia heavily; in 2006 he tried to hold an unapproved gay parade in the Russian capital, as the result he was beaten by opponents of the parade. Now Back demands reconsideration of the beneficial visa regime for Russian state servicemen.
However, few people in Germany believe that threats and warnings can seriously influence Russia. Spigel reports that the German government’s criticism toward Russia demonstrates its helplessness in communication with “the authoritarian political style of Putin.” At the moment the ruling coalition in Germany is confused and doesn’t know how to react at the policy by Russian President toward “otherwise-minded”, i.e. German funds. “Those who used to support moderate policy toward Russia can change their views now,” Spigel writes. However, the periodical doesn’t explain what the essence of “tough actions” by the Russian government is.
At the same time, Bild, citing direct German participants of the checks, reports that the General Prosecution’s inspections have been quite “civilized”, and the funds do not experience any problems with their common activity. “We consider it a routine check,” the representative of Conrad Adenauer Fund in St.-Petersburg, Matias Branner, told Süddeutsche Zeitung.
For sure the question on checking German funds in Russia will be one of topics for the discussion during the meeting between Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin. Considering boiling of the German mass media and the coming elections to Bundestag, German politicians have to react sharply at social attitudes in the country. So, they will criticize Moscow a lot for prevention of accusations of betraying national interests of Germany.
However, there is no reason for waiting for a serious worsening of Russian-German relations because of the incident. Germany feels well about cooperation with China where much greater restrictions of human rights and freedoms are registered. Beijing got used to the formal criticism by German leaders, understanding that these are the rules of German internal politics. Berlin realizes that Russia has its own internal game rules and a foreign country must not interfere with them.
