By Vestnik Kavkaza
Germany actively supported the fourth package of sanctions adopted by the EU yesterday. Until quite recently Germany was thought to be a country which had the most friendly and effective relations with Russia; Germany used to be called Russia's lawyer in the EU. It seems the lawyer acted only according to its pragmatic interests – Germany was the most important trading partner for Russia, while Russia was a significant partner for Germany, especially in the sphere of energy supplies.
When Chancellor Angela Merkel came to office in 2005 she made it clear that Germany should treat Russia in a cooler, but pragmatic way. Due to the Ukrainian crisis the gap between the countries grew. Yesterday Merkel called for the launch of new sanctions against Russia. The Chancellor admitted that the situation in the southeast of Ukraine had become better, but she has no clear understanding of further fulfillment of the plan on normalization of the situation. The absence of a clear understanding is a significant reason for launching new sanctions, according to her.
Commenting on the position of Berlin, Alexei Kuznetsov, the deputy director of the IMEMO of the RAS, noted that in Germany, “unlike the majority of the European countries, built gas storages enable them to survive the winter, even if there are problems with gas supplies.” He also says that business has lost several hundred million euros, but they managed to win the support of several entrepreneur unions. German business is ready to wait out some sanctions.
Kuznetsov is sure that “by the end of 2013, when the new government was formed, Germany tried to increase its foreign political weight. That’s why they are actively fighting for Ukraine, after Yanukovich rejected the signing of the association agreement. We remember that not only Poland, but also Germany was involved in the takeover in Ukraine.”
Kuznetsov blames certain top German officials, including the Federal President, for the worsening of Russian-German relations: “He boycotted the Sochi Olympics not because of Ukraine – there was no crisis at the time, but due to discrimination against homosexuals in Russia, The Federal President is the son of two Nazis. He is a well-known democrat, but in fact his father was repressed in Stalin’s period for his Nazi past. He was a Nazi, and after that his son became anti-Communist, and it hasn’t disappeared anywhere. The current Foreign Minister had to leave Breslau, because in 1945 the eastern regions of Germany were given to Poland. Who knows how the personal factor plays its role for different people. But we shouldn’t exaggerate it.”
Kuznetsov says that another factor of tension between Moscow and Berlin is the “traditionally negative attitude of the German mass media toward Russia”: “The reasons for this is that the model of Russian political life doesn’t fit German canons. A strong leader who heads a country is thought to be an authoritarian figure in Germany. That’s why a very negative attitude toward Putin is always transferred to the country in general. The pressure of public opinion was revealed in the context of the Boeing crash. There is no evidence who shot it down or not. But if we read German mass media, they have already come to their conclusions. Some people think that the segmental sanctions were finally approved because the EU population perceived that the airplane was shot down by the Russians.”
