The German government supports sanctions against Russia and does not plan
to ease them at the moment. Also the representatives of the German business
understand the political importance of the sanctions, even though they may have
negative consequences for the German economy – these are the main conclusions of
the discussion during the conference “German Eastern policy – fears,
interpretations and facts“. During the debate
between Thomas Bagger, the
head of Policy Planning of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tobias Baumann, the head of the
Russia, Eastern and Southern Europe, Turkey and Central Asia department at the
Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce, and Viola
von Cramon, Eastern policy expert of the Green Party, many up-to-date
topics were taken up. The discussion revolved around the questions of the EU
sanctions against Russia, energy security, the pro-Russian aspect of German
society and the Polish-German cooperation in the area of Eastern policy.
The debate began with
the question on the stand of Germany regarding EU sanctions against Russia. When
asked if Germans are going to try to ease the sanctions due to their negative
influence on the German economy, Thomas Bagger replied that this moment has not
come yet and the final decision will depend on how the situation in Ukraine evolves.
The decision must, moreover, be taken jointly by all the EU Member States Tobias Baumann, representing the position of
German business, pointed out that the sanctions do not only have negative
influence on the economy of the country against which they are applied but also
affect the countries that apply them. Nevertheless, according to Baumann, the
representatives of the German business sector understand the political
importance of the sanctions and do not question their adequacy. The role of the
organizations such as the one represented by Baumann is to explain to the society and to the entrepreneurs what the
sanctions are aimed at and what their side-effects might be, so that the
society accepts such measures. According
to him, what has the most detrimental impact on the economy – both German as
well as the Russian or Ukrainian ones – is the Ukrainian-Russian conflict
itself. The conflict destabilizes the exchange rates and renders the
investments in the region more risky.
Viola von Cramon was
highly critical of Germany when answering the question on the pro-Russian
aspect of the German society . Even though there have been changes in the past
year in the way of perceiving Russia by the Germans, there is still a lot to be
done in this matter, says von Cramon. While in November 2013 only a small
percentage of Germans had a negative opinion about the Russian politics, this
has significantly changed after the
annexation of Crimea by Putin. Since the annexation of the peninsula we can
observe a gradual growth of the awareness of the German society, which has so
far had a relatively permissive attitude towards the politics of the
Kremlin regarding its neighbours. This approach, however, is not uniform in all
parts of Germany. The Western federal states in Germany are highly critical
towards Putin’s politics. The inhabitants of Eastern Germany, on the other
hand, have still a rather positive attitude towards Russia (the difference
between East and West Germany in terms of perceiving Russian politics can reach
25%). Viola von Cramon finds it necessary to conduct an intensive information
campaign, which should inform the German society about Putin’s campaign and
fight back the Kremlin propaganda in Germany.
Another topic of the
debate was the energy security in Europe, especially in Germany and Poland. The panel speakers agreed that one of the most
important issues is to reduce the dependence of Germany, Poland and the whole EU
on Russian gas supplies, thus making Europe less vulnerable to Russia’s
blackmailing. The speakers differed, however, in terms of the visions of the strategy that Germany and the rest of the
EU should adopt. The expert of the Green
Party argued that Europe should try to reduce the amount of money which Putin
earns by selling gas and oil. In this context, she criticized the former German
chancellor Gerhard Schroeder for opposing the construction of a gas port in Wilhelmshaven.
This would have enabled Germany to reduce gas imports from Russia, since it
would have been made possible to import more LNG (liquefied natural gas) from other
countries.
The representatives of
the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce and the German
Ministry of Foreign Affairs underlined that the renegotiations of gas prices
that have previously been agreed upon is very difficult. They have underlined
that the EU Member States honor the
contracts that have been signed and act in the rule of law, which makes them
different from Russia.
The panel speakers
also discussed the Polish-German cooperation in the field of Eastern policy. Answering
the question on why Poland was not
invited to a diplomatic meeting of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine in
Berlin, the representative of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs pointed
out that there have been many different formats of the discussions and Germany was
not invited to all of them either (round table in Geneva).
Among numerous
comments of the audience there were those pointing at the danger of the
imperialistic politics of Russia, which, according to one of the participants,
is aimed at confronting the West in the course of the next 30-50 years. In this
context the speakers said that it is necessary to work out a new vision of
EU-Russian relations, which will not, however, lead to complete isolation of
the country ruled by Putin. Another comment was about the engagement of Germany
in the construction of the gas pipeline Southstream. According to one of the
participants, this clearly shows that
Germany is not acting to reduce the country’s dependence on Russian gas
imports. Quite the contrary, the degree to which the German economy depends on
gas imports from the East is growing. A yet another comment from the audience
raised the questions of the necessity of providing military support to Ukraine,
in particular in the form of selling weapons.
Another important issue, according to one of the conference
participants, would be offering Ukraine a large scale German-Polish NGO support
program under the auspices of the European Union.
The debate was
organized in cooperation with the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation
(FWPN) , the Bertelsmann Foundation, the Institute of Public Affairs, the
Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Poland and the European Council on
Foreign Affairs.
Programm:
11.00 -11.45 Einführung in die Diskussion:
Thomas Bagger – Leiter des Plannungstabbes,
Auswärtiges Amt
Tobias Baumann – Referatsleiter Russland, Ost-
und Südosteuropa, Türkei, Zentralasien, Deutscher
Industrie- und Handelskammertag
Viola von Cramon – Expertin
im Bereich Ostpolitik, Bündnis 90/die
Grünen
11.45 – 13.00 Diskussion mit dem Publikum
Die Debatte wird
von Agnieszka
Łada, Leiterin der Europa Programms am Institut für Öffentliche
Angelegenheiten moderiert.
Die Debatte wird ins Deutsche und ins Polnische simultan übersetzt.
Wir bitten um die Anmeldung bis zum 10.Oktober
Partner des Projektes sind die SdpZ, Ponisches ISP, Botschaft der Republik Deutschland in Warschau, Bertelsmann Stiftung und ECFR.
Fotos von der Debatte sind in der SdpZ-Mediathek abrufbar.
Was: Debatte „Deutsche Ostpolitik – Befürchtungen,
Interpretationen, Fakten“
Wo: SdpZ-Sitz, CK Zielna, ul. Zielna 37, Warschau
Wann: 13. Oktober 2014