A few months after his departure from power, the former Chancellor is blamed for having shown a certain “laxity” with regard to the Russian president.
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Analysis. Angela Merkel is back. Three months after leaving power, the former Chancellor is at the heart of the public debate in Germany. The reason: the war in Ukraine, which leads to a severe review of its policy with regard to Russia, including within its political family.
The first to sound the load was Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. “After Georgia [in 2008] then Crimea and Donbass [in 2014], we did not do anything to truly dissuade Putin,” Tweeted the former Minister of Defense (2019-2021), February 24 , a few hours after the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine. Evoking a “historical error”, the old designated dauphine of M me Merkel has not named his ancient boss, but the allusion was transparent.
Since, other Conservative leaders have followed him. Like Friedrich Merz, the President of the Christian-Democrat Union which, on 27 February in front of the Bundestag, called a “Field of Ruins Foreign and Security Policy led by Germany and Europe. less years “. Neither did not need to quote Angela Merkel so that we understand who he was, according to him, the first responsible for the cooking failure.
Original sin
What precisely reproached for the ex-Chancellor? The titles of two long surveys published recently in the German press summarize the things “war in Ukraine: the guilt of Putin and the contribution of Merkel” (Süddeutsche Zeitung, March 18) and “the laxity of the Russian politics of Merkel as Inheritance: a little boycott but nothing more “(Der Spiegel, March 19).
For some, the original sin would go back to the NATO summit in Bucharest, in April 2008. By pronouncing against the accession of Ukraine and Georgia to the Atlantic Alliance, also shared by the President. French Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel urged the expansionist appetites of Vladimir Putin. Four months later, Russia attacked Georgia. “The postponement of the adhesion date [of NATO Georgia] has strengthened the determination of Russia to take action,” said the Czech Minister for Foreign Affairs at the time Karel Schwarzenberg. Spiegel. “The appeasement is not an alternative,” he added, without imagining that the same reproach would then be made several times about Angela Merkel’s policy vis-à-vis Moscow.
It was particularly the case in 2014-15, after the annexation of Crimea by Russia and the beginning of the war at Donbass, in the east of Ukraine. Certainly, Germany was part of the countries that pushed for the European Union to impose sanctions to Russia. Similarly, Angela Merkel was actively involved, alongside François Hollande, to try to find an issue at the conflict in Donbass: it was the “Normandy format”, name given to the Russian Quartet, Ukraine, Germany, France, constituted in Margin of the 70th anniversary of the landing, in June 2014, and which led to the Minsk agreements, in February 2015.
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