After the Munich Security Conference, the Foundation ‘Public Opinion’ published results of a poll on ‘Should our country strive to improve relations with Europe?’ According to sociologists, today the prevailing opinion in Russia (but it is not as dominant as it was six months ago) is that the Russian authorities should strive to improve relations with Europe. Two thirds of respondents are sure that the authorities of the country are working on this problem. Speaking about Europe’s efforts on restoration of good relations, respondents have different views, however – the view that the European countries don’t want to ‘make peace’ is more popular – 44 percent of respondents; 40 percent of people have the opposite point of view.
Meanwhile, Dr. Hubert Tilike, a German expert in the field of disarmament and arms control, a political scientist, said that at the MSC not everybody wanted to share views to achieve compromises, even though this is the meaning of diplomacy. “Representatives of Poland or the infamous Senator McCain demonstrated no diplomacy. They spoke only about confrontation, about driving Russia into a corner, blaming it for everything,” Tilike said. We remind you that Senator John McCain, an American Republican politician, stated that he skeptically assessed the agreement on the settlement in Syria which was achieved in Munich: “The agreement gives an opportunity to attack Aleppo for one more week. It demands from the opposition to cease fire, but enables Russia to bomb ‘terrorists’, as they say, who are in fact everybody, including civilians,” McCain claimed.
At the same time, according to Hubert Tilike, the French Prime Minister and the French Foreign Minister pointed out that Russia is a great diplomatic power. “I heard the German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier say that the Ukrainian crisis must be resolved with the participation of Ukraine, but on the other hand, it was pointed out that Germany, being the chairman of the OSCE, should play its role in resolving issues by diplomatic means. He once again emphasized the OSCE's motto: "Resume dialogue, build trust." This is the motto that comes to the fore, and it is very different from the tone that was used by NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg or Senator McCain,” Tilike stated.
He thinks that there are reserves and opportunities for normalization of relations between Russia and Europe: “The only question is how to use them. As for Germany, now, as the chairman of the OSCE, one may wonder – how will it be fulfilled? Will we continue to be under the patronage of the Americans and do only what they say, or will we adhere to the opinion that it is impossible to solve anything without Russia?”
The expert believes that nothing will work out without an independent German foreign policy. “This was expressed in some speeches and some words of German representatives. It is impossible to always follow the US. It is necessary to formulate and represent our own interests. Germany is the leading power in the EU, and that is why it bears special responsibility for a realistic examination of things,” Tilike believes.
