As Germany heads towards federal elections, foreign policy relations between Berlin and Moscow have hit rock bottom. What challenges will Merkel's successor have to deal with in regard to Russia?
While visiting Moscow in August, Chancellor Angela Merkel found some words of criticism for Russia's policiesImage: Michael Kappeler/dpa/picture alliance
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There is hardly a better symbol for the balancing act of German foreign policy between economic interests on one side and the values of liberal democracy on the other than Nord Stream 2 — one of Germany's biggest infrastructure projects. Several German politicians called for a halt to building the pipeline, which will transport gas from Russia directly to Germany's Baltic coast, especially in the wake of the poisoning attack on Kremlin opponent Alexi Navalny.
The controversial natural gas project is only one of many issues with which Merkel must contend when she travels to Russia and then Ukraine for what will probably be her last political visit. In view of several conflicts and disagreements, experts speak of a current "low point" in German-Russian relations.
Germany's Greens have been trailblazers for ecological movements around the world. But since the 1980s they have become increasingly mainstream.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/C. Pfund
1980: Unifying protest movements
The Green party was founded in 1980, unifying a whole array of regional movements made up of people frustrated by mainstream politics. It brought together feminists, environmental, peace and human rights activists. Many felt that those in power were ignoring environmental issues, as well as the dangers of nuclear power.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images/H. Langenheim
Attracting high-profile leftists
The influential German artist Joseph Beuys (left) was a founding member of the new party. And its alternative agenda and informal style quickly attracted leftist veterans from the 1968 European protest movement, including eco-feminist activist Petra Kelly (right), who coined the phrase that the Greens were the "anti-party party."
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Party ambiance at party meetings
From the start the Green party conferences were marked by heated debate and extreme views. Discussions went on for many hours and sometimes a joyous party atmosphere prevailed.
Image: Imago Images/F. Stark
Greens enter the Bundestag
In 1983 the Greens entered the German parliament, the Bundestag, having won 5.6% in the national vote. Its members flaunted their anti-establishment background and were eyed by their fellow parliamentarians with a certain amount of skepticism.
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Green Party icon Joschka Fischer
Joschka Fischer became the first Green party regional government minister in 1985 when he famously took the oath of office wearing white sports sneakers. He later became German foreign minister in an SPD-led coalition government. And was vilified by party members for abandoning pacifism in support of German intervention in Kosovo in 1999.
Image: picture alliance/Sven Simon
Unification in a united Germany
With German reunification, the West German Greens merged with the East German protest movement "Bündnis 90" in 1993. But the party never garnered much support in the former East Germany (GDR).
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Pro-Europe
Today's Green voters are generally well-educated, high-earning urbanites with a strong belief in the benefits of multicultural society and gender equality. And no other party fields more candidates with an immigrant background. The party focuses not only on environmental issues and the climate crisis but a much broader spectrum of topics including education, social justice, and consumer policies.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/H. Schmidt
Turning conservative
Environmental topics are no longer the exclusive prerogative of the Greens, whose members have morphed from hippies to urban professionals. Winfried Kretschmann personifies this change: The conservative first-generation Green politician became the party's first politician to serve as a state premier. He teamed up with the Christian Democrats and has been reelected twice to lead Baden-Württemberg.
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Robert Habeck moves the party to the center
In 2021, Robert Habeck stepped aside to allow Annalena Baerbock to be the party's top candidate in the general election campaign. Three years later, the roles are reversed. Both symbolize the new pragmatism and confidence of the Greens and are not interested in the trench warfare between fundamentalists and pragmatists that marked the Green party debates of the early years.
In the ongoing Bundestag election campaign, there are astonishing overlaps between rival opposition parties when it comes to Nord Stream 2. The FDP foreign policy spokesperson Alexander Graf Lambsdorff sharply criticizes Merkel's government, which he says has "negligently neglected the diplomatic integration of the project with our partners in Europe and America for years." Above all, Merkel's long-held argument that Nord Stream 2 was solely an economic project has caused a lot of foreign policy damage, he argued.
The chancellor candidate for the Social Democrats (SPD) party, Olaf Scholz, called for a new European Union policy toward the east during a recent interview with DW. He wanted to upgrade the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), which was co-founded by Helmut Schmidt, a former German Social Democrat chancellor. Scholz wanted to strengthen the EU as a whole, not just individual member states.
"We don't want to return to the political world of the 17th, 18th, or 19th centuries when powers like Russia, Germany, France, and England shaped policy among themselves. If we want to ensure joint security in Europe, then it's about the European Union and Russia."
Greens oppose Nord Stream 2
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German-Russian relations 'at a low point'
Janis Kluge, an expert on Eastern Europe at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, SWP), views the current relationship between Berlin and Moscow as at an all-time low in post-Soviet history. After Russia's annexation of Crimea, the poisoning of Navalny and support for the regime in Belarus have finally led to a change in awareness among German politicians — the majority now see Russia as a strategic adversary, says Kluge.
According to him, there are three big problem areas in German-Russian relations:
Firstly: Russia's increasingly repressive domestic policies and the persecution of independent media, non-governmental organizations, and the political opposition. The case of Navalny is only the most prominent example of this.
Secondly: The operations of the Russian secret services in the EU. That is not only about direct attacks but on computer hacking attacks on political institutions in Germany.
Thirdly: The conflict in Ukraine is the key issue in the German-Russian relationship. "As long as there is no progress in this crisis, it will not be possible to attempt to restore confidence in Russia," says Janis Kluge.
Russia as an anti-liberal superpower
Ralf Fücks, the director of the Center for Liberal Modernity (LibMod - Zentrum Liberale Moderne), a Berlin-based think tank which recently had to cease its activities in Russia after being included on a government list of "undesirable organizations," sees the relationship with Russia as "at a very critical point." That's because: "Putin's Russia has become an antagonist to the liberal democracies of the West, both in terms of foreign and security policy," he says. "The systematic undermining of Western democracies, cooperation with right-wing and left-wing populist parties, violations of international law and international norms, whether they be in Syria or Ukraine — Russian is on a collision course with the West. And we struggle to find an answer to this," Fücks continues.
The main goal for the next government will be to develop a common EU policy on Russia. For all three German chancellor candidates, Fücks sees the task not as establishing a better relationship with Vladimir Putin, but in a "readjusting of the relationship between conflict and cooperation." The point is to make it clear where the red lines are for the EU and Germany, which we will defend against attacks, he added.
Vladimir Putin and Angela Merkel: Through good times and bad
Vladimir Putin has been ruling Russia since 2000. Angela Merkel was German chancellor for 16 years from 2005. The relationship between the two leaders had its ups and downs. And it all started so nicely…
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Up-and-coming leaders
In 2002, Angela Merkel was the head of what was then Germany's main opposition party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Putin was the fresh-faced president of a new and modern Russia. After meeting Putin in the Kremlin, Merkel reportedly joked to her aides that she had passed the "KGB test" of holding his gaze — an allusion to Putin's earlier career in the Soviet security agency.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
New chancellor in town
Putin had built a friendship with Angela Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, and the two men remain close to this day. By late 2005, however, it was clear that Merkel was set to dethrone the Social Democrat Schröder. Talking to Merkel in Russia's Berlin embassy, Putin pledged to expand the ties between the two countries. Merkel described the dialogue as "very open."
Image: imago/photothek/T. Koehxler
A friendly ear for Putin
About a year later, Putin shared his impressions of the woman who had since become Germany's chancellor: "We don't know each other on a very personal level, but I'm impressed by her ability to listen," he told Germany's public broadcaster MDR from Dresden, adding that listening was a rare skill among female politicians.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Hiekel
A gap in Merkel's armor
The German chancellor has a well-known fear of dogs. Still, Putin let his black lab Konni wonder around the Sochi venue when he welcomed Merkel there in January 2007. Was he trying to intimidate her? Merkel seems to think so: "I believe the Russian president knew very well that I wasn't thrilled by the idea of meeting his dog, but he still brought it with him," the chancellor said in 2015.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Chirikov
Too thin-skinned on media
By 2012, Vladimir Putin had taken on a harsher course towards the press and political dissenters. When asked about media freedom while in Saint Petersburg, Merkel responded with a barely hidden jab at her fellow leader: "If I were to get sulky every time I opened a newspaper, I wouldn't last three days as chancellor," she said.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Talks continue into the ice age
Relations between Moscow and the West took a steep plunge after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. However, Putin told German media that he still maintained a "business-like relationship" with the German chancellor. "I trust her. She is a very open person. She, like anyone else, is subject to certain limitations, but she is honestly attempting to solve the crises," he told Bild, a German daily.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Nikolskyi
No insult intended but ...
"I don't mean to insult anybody, but Ms. Merkel's statement is an outburst of a long-accumulated anger over limited sovereignty," Putin told the press in 2017, commenting on an election campaign address that the German leader had given in Munich. Merkel's so-called "beer tent" speech saw her urge Europeans to rely on themselves amidst disputes with US President Donald Trump.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/D. Lovetsky
Rolling with it
Just a month after Putin's remarks on sovereignty, the two leaders were photographed talking at a G-20 summit in Hamburg. While the topic remains a mystery, both Merkel and Putin used strong gestures. At one point, as Putin wags his finger Merkel looks away from him and rolls her eyes. The moment quickly went viral.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/M. Schreiber
'We have to talk to each other'
When Merkel arrived in Sochi in 2018, Putin welcomed her with a bouquet of flowers. An offer of peace? An act of gallantry? Sexism? The rationale didn't really matter in the big picture. Appearing alongside Putin, Merkel said dialogue needed to go on. "Even if there are grave differences of opinion on some issues, we have to talk to each other, because otherwise you just sink into silence."
Image: picture-alliance/Sputnik/S. Guneev
Handshake in 2020
Angela Merkel met with the Russian President in the Kremlin in January 2020. Later, relations again deteriorated over the Russian involvement in Ukraine, but also over its treatment of dissidents. Most notably of dissident Alexei Navalny who was arrested upon his return to Russia from medical treatment in Germany.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Images/P. Golovkin
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'Russia exploits the West's inability to act'
Stefan Meister, head of the program for international order and democracy at the German Council on Foreign Relations (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik, DGAP) in Berlin also speaks of a "low point" in Germany-Russia relations. However, he also sees a part of the solution in Germany: "We should simply be more realistic about what is possible in Russia, we should also support the forces who want a different Russia and some of them are increasingly going abroad."
But regarding the Navalny case, Stefan Meister says: "We should not be driven by populists and social media, but rather clearly assess that this change in Russia is not taking place right now in this form, but it will come in the medium to long-term." He considers Navalny to be a populist whose role in Russian politics is overestimated.
In recent years, the Putin regime has cleverly exploited the West's inability to act in order to play a decisive role in key conflicts, says Stefan Meister. Whether in Syria, Libya, or the South Caucasus, there is no getting around Russia, the expert from the DGAP said. He urges more pragmatism and less hysteria: to look for compromises where they are possible.
This article was adapted from German. It was first published on August 27, 2021, and later updated.
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