Germany is conducting and will conduct a dialogue with Russia, and there is no alternative option, despite the conflict of interests, according to an official representative of the German Foreign Ministry, Martin Schaefer. At the same time, Reuters, referring to members of the CDU in the Bundestag, reports information that Angela Merkel would like to lift the anti-Russian sanctions as soon as possible, but she sees no opportunity for this. The German Chancellor associates the lifting of sanctions with fulfillment of the Minsk agreements. According to her, Moscow is preventing fulfillment of the agreements. Experts believe that the position which is voiced by Angela Merkel has been created in the US.
Moscow wonders why the Federal Chancellor (1998-2005) Gerhard Schroeder often didn’t support the initiatives of Washington and was heavily criticized for not doing so (a big controversy took place when Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac rejected supporting the US in its invasion of Iraq in 2004), but Merkel behaves absolutely differently.
Answering the question, Alexander Noy, a Bundestag deputy from the Left Party, stated: “At that time, Merkel was leading the opposition and immediately flew to Washington and said that this would not have happened under her, Germany would also have become a part of the coalition that entered Iraq. To a large extent, the Chancellor and a part of today's establishment in Germany have a transatlantic orientation; they may feel affection for the United States too emotionally.”
Noy is sure that Berlin must break away from US domination, but MPs who have similar views do not even dare to express such thoughts.
“Recently, the Chancellor said that if Germany wanted to play a leading role in the EU independently from the US, there must still be trusting relations between Germany and Poland, which is a bridge between Russia and Germany. That is, this German hegemony in Europe will largely or to a larger extent depend on how it will be supported by the United States,” the German MP believes.
According to him, “the Cold War ended, but the United States and the West still want to use this victory in the Cold War somehow. The winners must exploit all of its fruits. At this stage, it is unlikely that we will be able to create a multipolar world. It is necessary to somehow relativize western power. These turning points are always very dangerous, because the dominant power does not want to come to terms with its plan, and rising countries (Russia, China) do not want to accept the fact that they are not perceived as such. The US has no desire to accept the presence of a new global actor which has been previously destined to be a simple spectator. This process of getting used to a multipolar world is just beginning. Both Russia's actions in Syria and in Ukraine are perceived precisely from this point of view, because these countries are regarded as the western sphere of influence.”
