Hill, S. (2014) “Why Merkel’s Foreign Policy For Eastern Europe Is Failing“, Social Europe Journal, 23 September.
The fragile cease-fire in eastern Ukraine provides an opportunity for political leaders to reflect on how we arrived at this dangerous place of Cold War-like tensions between Russia, Europe and the United States. From Washington DC to Berlin to Warsaw, western leaders are scrambling to figure out where to go from here.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s foreign policy of engagement towards Russia and her personal relationship with President Vladimir Putin lie in tatters. Much like her failing “foreign policy” towards the euro zone, her approach toward Russia appears to indicate a doctrinaire mindset that sees doubling down on failed policies as a sign of strength and resoluteness. While all is quiet at the moment on the Eastern front, Chancellor Merkel does not appear to have a Plan B.
Mrs. Merkel’s policy of economic engagement with Russia as a vehicle for forging common bonds — which began under her Social Democratic predecessor Gerhard Schröder, who subsequently became cozy with Russian energy interests as chairman of the board of the Russian-German joint venture Nord Stream — has proven to have little influence over Vladimir Putin. German leaders on both the right and the left believed that if closer economic ties existed, then closer politics and values would result. But the signs that this would not be the case already had revealed themselves back in 2008 over Georgia, and then again in 2006 and 2009 when Russia manipulated its energy exports to blackmail Ukraine and eastern Europe. Yet Mrs. Merkel and most German leaders like Schröder chose to ignore the warning signs. One German leader who didn’t was former foreign minister Joschka Fischer, who has written:
«Ever since his first term in office as Russian president, Putin’s strategic objective has been to rebuild Russia’s status as a global power… A soft approach will merely embolden the Kremlin.»
Relevant posts:
- Bershidsky, L. (2014) “Europe’s Center of Power Shifts East“, Bloomberg Views, 04 September.
- Haughton, Τ. & Novotna, T. (2014) “The European elections in Central and Eastern EU states illustrate that the rise of Euroscepticism was far from uniform across Europe“, LSE EUROPP Blog, 29 May.
- Darvas, Z. & Varga, B. (2013) “Inflation persistence in Central and Eastern European countries“, Bruegel Working Paper, N. 2013/04.