After heavy criticism, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke out on Monday for the first time in a month about the war in Ukraine. Through a spokesperson, she defended her decision, in 2008, to oppose NATO membership for Ukraine. At the same time, Merkel expressed her support for all German and international measures against “Russia’s barbaric war.”
In a video message Sunday evening Ukrainian President Zelensky accused both Merkel and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy of co-responsibility for the massacre that Russian soldiers inflicted on Ukrainian civilians in Butya, near Kyiv.
“I invite Mrs Merkel and Mr Sarkozy to Butya to see what their policy of concessions to Russia has done in fourteen years,” said Zelenski, ‘and to see with your own eyes the tortured Ukrainian men and women. We hold the Russian army responsible, not the West, but we have the right to complain about indecision.”
With his reference to ‘fourteen years’, Zelenski is most likely referring to the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest. After years of preparation, Albania and Croatia were invited for NATO membership. Attempts by Ukraine and Georgia to become candidates for membership were defeated by French and German resistance. “It makes no sense to provoke Russia,” the then German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told German media at the time. Ukraine and Georgia were promised they could join one day, but not now.
Crisis manager without vision
Today, Steinmeier is President of Germany, reelected in February for another five years. Former CDU Chancellor Merkel has been criticized by critics for putting German economic interests ahead of issues such as human rights and the promotion of democracy, and for acting as a crisis manager with no ideological vision during her reign. Merkel’s enthusiasts see this as a plus: keeping stability was her vision, according to their lecture.
While Merkel mainly acted for economic and political-strategic considerations, Steinmeier was also ideologically in favor of close ties with Russia. Within his party, the social-democratic SPD to which current Chancellor Olaf Scholz also belongs, the belief that peace in Europe benefits from ever closer economic and political cooperation with Moscow has long dominated. An overly harsh stance, such as economic sanctions, is counterproductive in that view. Only after Russia attacked Ukraine in March did the SPD make a turn and the German government decided to send weapons to Ukraine.
Steinmeier was, among other things, a major advocate for Nordstream 2, the controversial Russian-German gas pipeline. In recent years, Germany has become increasingly dependent on (cheap) Russian gas, despite warnings from the US and European allies. The many billions of German euros flowing to Moscow in exchange for that gas helped finance Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
“Nordstream 2 was clearly a mistake,” Steinmeier says now. “We held on to bridges that Russia no longer believed in and that our partners warned us about. I thought Putin would not accept the complete economic, political and moral collapse of his country for the sake of his imperialist delusions. But I was wrong, as were others.’
Unlimited weapons for Ukraine
Germany is now on an increasingly hard course, though it continues to resist the toughest economic sanctions, such as an embargo on Russian gas. Also Monday, Robert Habeck, Minister of Economic Affairs and Vice Chancellor on behalf of the ruling party Greens, pleaded for unlimited arms supplies to Ukraine. Germany has supplied thousands of anti-tank weapons and portable anti-aircraft missiles since the beginning of the war. Habeck wants more. Germany also declared 40 Russian diplomats suspected of espionage as an ‘unwanted person’ on Monday. They must leave the country within five days.