With the new government in place, a political coalition formed, and the latest news that previous chancellor Angela Merkel might block a military acquisition for the Ukrainian armed forces in the NATO procurement system, more and more experts and journalists are raising a question – where is Ukraine now in German foreign politics, and will Berlin become more or less pro-Russian with the Social Democrats in power?
This week a security and human rights experts’ delegation from Crimea Platform – Expert Network visited Berlin for a round of public and closed-door events to discuss the priorities of the new German coalition, possible appointments, and the position towards sanctions and dialogue with Moscow. While Crimea issues became a top priority, the whole security situation with the Russian military-build-up at the Ukrainian borders could not be skipped, as well as sanctions policy, etc.
So, here are a few marginal notes from the trip and open conversations that, on the one hand, give some hope for certain changes in German politics. But on the other hand, they demonstrate clearly that extensive work should be done in specific directions.
The new coalition of Social Democrats, Greens, and Free Democrats needed to navigate a whole package of compromises between their party positions, where domestic issues clearly prevailed over foreign policy. To find a compromise for economic and climate issues, social reforms and response to the pandemic, the parties tried to avoid sharp angles in foreign policy priorities, where Greens had a much stronger anti-Russian position, while many in the SPD are still leaning for more engagement and dialogue with Russia. However, conversations with those involved in the coalition negotiations proved that the main tendency is not to push this issue domestically, but to delegate it to the higher European level.
So, the German counterparts decided not to discuss the Nord Stream-2 issue as a foreign policy one but to delegate it to the economic group while developing the Agreement. As a result, the way out was to transfer the issue to the European level, where most of the involved parties are much more cautious about Russia’s assertive actions. As a result, the Coalition agreement included the phrase: “We want to diversify the energy supply for Germany and Europe. European energy law applies to energy policy projects in Germany as well”. A nice trick with the hope that Brussels will absorb all the blame and not Berlin.
The second issue concerns the protection of the Eastern borders. There are two pieces of good news. First, there is a clear highlighting on Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia among the Eastern Partnership states. But even more:
“We demand an immediate end to the attempts at destabilization against Ukraine, the violence in eastern Ukraine and the illegal annexation of Crimea“
and, while talking on Russia: “We address the interests of both sides on the basis of the principles of international law, human rights and the European peace order, to which Russia has also committed. We respect the interests of our European neighbours, especially our partners in Central and Eastern Europe”. The last sentence was extremely emphasized during the conversations, as underlining focus not only on the security concerns of the EU members states, but all Eastern European states.
In general, stronger EU and transatlantic ties can be expected, which reflects upon the new chancellery team, where transatlantic advisors prevail over other specialists. On the one hand, it is a good tendency after the period of cooling in US-German relations. But on the other hand, it brought us to the situation with the current absence of Eastern European specialists in the foreign policy team, so this may lead to a different prioritization. Also, many experts stressed that the new “green” MFA team is much less experienced than the SPD chancellery team, so it bears some risks in the Eastern dimension.
Sanctions is another complex issue. In closed-door conversations, the German members of the Bundestag were not pushing the question of softening the sanctions regime. However, the constant question was – are sanctions efficient? Efficiency is highlighted in several levels of the problem. Is the current sanction regime efficient enough to deter Russia and change its behaviours? How to monitor their implementation? And if the sanctions regime were improved - what should be priorities and instruments used? Here we see a clear necessity to improve Ukraine’s foreign policy work, as members of the Bundestag are really eager to have data and more information that can support their causes in the Parliament; they are interested in details and concrete proposals.
One of the main conclusions on sanctions was definitely the idea that their political symbolism is not less important than the economic pressure, because Russia needs to understand that each action will have a counteraction and such decisions are not divisive for the EU members states.
The most challenging issue remains security and military support to Ukraine. While the previous German government was avoiding this conversation, and more evidence demonstrates that some initiatives were even blocked, including weapons supply and the presence of the navy in the Black Sea, the motivation should be studied carefully. Except for the general arguments about possibly provoking the Russians and risks of the military support on behalf of the Normandy Four participant, an unexpected reason was heard.
Christoph Heusgen, who will succeed to the position of the Munich Security Conference chairman in 2022 and previously was named as the Angela Merkel's most influential foreign policy and security adviser, said it during his answers at the European Council on Foreign Relations Annual Meeting in Berlin in December. He was replying to the question as to why the German government in 2014 had rejected Ukraine’s request for military support but a week later provided rifles, machine guns, grenades, anti-tank systems and armoured vehicles to the Kurdish fighters against Islamic State.
The reason was that the Ukrainian government was unstable, and that Germany was not supplying weapons to conflict zones, and there were no guarantees as to how Ukraine would use these weapons. It seems that this position still hasn’t changed. Such arguments sound odd, as the Ukrainian government has definitely become much more stable and reliable after seven years of war, compared to the Kurdish forces. Therefore, the question is what the Ukrainian government has been doing wrong if, after so many years, it has not been able to change this paradigm of thinking.
The Crimea Platform. This is still a bit of a terra incognita to the German audience. It caught some interest in August with the inaugural summit, but after four months, questions have remain regarding its main goal, and how will it operate. It seems that human security looks like the best entry point to the German media and politicians, as well as the necessity to link Crimea and Donbas as parts of one picture rather than two separate cases, as is currently seen in Germany.
Violations of international laws are also something that the new generation of German MPs care about, as well as such issues as climate/environmental problems due to the occupation of Ukrainian territories, the protection of cultural rights and the identity of the local populations. These issues rarely come to the attention of media and politicians, but with the new social democrat-green-liberal coalition, they may inspire a new round of German policy towards Ukraine.
