The new German chancellor begins an international tour that will take him to Washington, Kiev and Moscow in the coming days
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, begins his first major diplomatic round this weekend, with a visit to Washington which will be followed by two trips to Kiev and Moscow, when criticism began to rain down on him for his “disappearance” or lukewarmness in midst of the Ukrainian conflict.
President Joe Biden will receive him at the White House on Monday, an appointment that was beginning to take a long time because the United States is Germany’s preferred partner on a transatlantic scale. It is a complex visit: Berlin refuses to supply Ukraine with weapons – it has only promised to deliver 5,000 military helmets, which has been seen more as an irony than as a contribution. On top of that, it maintains an ambivalent position towards Moscow, which is attributed to its defense of the Nord-Stream II gas pipeline, ready to operate, but without a license to do so in the midst of the crossfire of energy and geostrategic interests. It is a project that was born under the sign of controversy, heir to the Nord-Stream I agreed in the times of the Social Democratic Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his then great political ally Vladimir Putin.
Maintaining the balance was already difficult, both before Washington and before the European partners on the European east flank –Poland and the Baltic countries, especially-. The Social Democrat Scholz also had the position of his Foreign Minister, the green Annalena Baerbock, defender of a harder line against the Kremlin. And in between, the “media war” arose between Berlin and Moscow, precipitated by the suspension of the German-language channel of Russian television RT – considered a propaganda organ of the Kremlin -, which was followed by the closure of the German public broadcaster Deutsche Well in Russia. The first happened on Wednesday, by decision of the German media regulator, which argued that RT did not even request a license; the second, the next day, was the Russian Foreign Ministry’s response to the above.
Delay with Macron
Scholz will travel to Moscow on February 15 to meet with Putin. A day before he will have been in Kiev. He will come visibly behind, not only with respect to the Frenchman Emmanuel Macron, but even with respect to his minister Baerbock, who was already in both capitals a few weeks ago and will repeat his visit at the beginning of the next one.
German public opinion is beginning to wonder out loud – that is, in the polls – where its new leader is. For the first time in months, the Conservative bloc leads the Social Democrats in the ARD public television poll: 27% would now vote for the Conservatives, compared to 22% for Scholz’s party. The turnaround should not be attributed solely to the “scenic disappearance” of the chancellor, who came to power in December. The definition of the new leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the right-wing Friedrich Merz, has also contributed. He is a historical enemy of the centrist line defended by Angela Merkel, whose last representative, Armin Laschet, sank the conservative bloc in the September elections by 24.1%, his historical minimum in national elections.
Topics
Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, Vladimir Putin, Germany, Berlin, United States, Kiev, Moscow, Russia, Ukraine, Crisis in Ukraine
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