Germans want more cooperation with Russia: opinion

“A German majority rejects the country’s pledge to meet NATO’s target for rising military spending; 69 percent of the German public want more cooperation with Russia and only 35 percent with America,” John Vinocur, a former executive editor and vice president of the International Herald Tribune, said in the opinion piece.

He added that “a consistent German polling majority refuses to defend Poland and the Baltic states if Russia invaded them.”

Vinocur argues that Germany has demonstrated “wobbly geopolitical instincts” and that its political environment “is leaning dangerously in Russia’s direction,” with an “increasingly unfavorable view of the West, and the refusal of obligations to the West.”

Vinocur writes in his piece that various politicians in Berlin have called for a position of "equidistance" between Moscow and Washington and that Germany made clear its position of “flight from military commitment” at a “critical point in modern European history” when Russia reportedly staged massive military exercises following its takeover of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Vinocur argues that former German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel exemplifies his country’s geopolitical misjudgments. He describes Gabriel as "the prime protégé" of former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, "who has come to hold both the chairmanship of Gazprom’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline and Rosneft, Russia’s energy giant.”

The journalist writes: “Schröder’s jobs were enough for a Wall Street Journal columnist to call him Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most important oligarch — one who personally deserves a place on America’s Crimea sanctions list.”

During his time in Angela Merkel’s coalition government, Gabriel “turned up the volume of Schröder's Putin-loyalty line to full blast,” according to Vinocur, and “banged the drum" for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline "with a paradiddle of statements pleasing to Moscow, including a promise to block foreign ‘meddling’ against Russia by the European Union and the United States."

Gabriel also opposed Germany increasing its defence budget to meet NATO’s target of 2 percent of GDP, Vinocur says in his piece, entitled "How Germany went wobbly on the West."

US Vice President Mike Pence in early April warned that America “cannot ensure the defence of the West” if its allies grow dependent on Moscow as a result of projects such as Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany.

The contested pipeline aims to send Russian gas to Germany via the Baltic Sea, bypassing the Baltic states, Poland and Ukraine.

(gs/pk)

Source: politico.eu