Michael Martens Profile picture
Nov 27 36 tweets 7 min read Read on X
Angela Merkel, Vladimir Putin, German money, Russian gas, and Ukraine - a (very long) thread based on Angela Merkel's memoirs and my article on this topic today in Frankfurter Allgemeine/FAZ: Image
Germany's Russia policy in recent decades was hypocritical and dishonest. In her memoirs, Angela Merkel now claims that other actors also had their hypocritical and dishonest moments – especially Poland, Ukraine, and the USA.
She illustrates this with the story of the Nord Stream II pipeline in the Baltic Sea. There would have been no transit fees for Russian gas deliveries with this route – which according to Merkel was a significant reason for US, Polish and Ukrainian resistance to the pipeline.
Angela Merkel accuses Kyiv and Warsaw of double standards when she writes: "Poland and Ukraine also did not fundamentally reject the supply of Russian gas to Western Europe but wanted to profit from it by collecting transit fees."
When U.S. President Donald Trump later imposed sanctions on Nord Stream 2, Merkel adds that the real reason was not US security interests, but simply one thing: money. Or greed.
"In reality," she writes, "the USA used its superior economic and financial power to prevent economic projects by other countries, including friendly ones. The USA was primarily concerned with its own economic interests; it wanted to transport fracking gas to Europe as LNG."
Fair enough. States are greedy. But what about Merkel´s own role? Well, this is precisely the problem with her memoirs (aside from the dull style of Merkel’s prose): she is much better (albeit also often right) at analyzing the mistakes and omissions of others than her own.
There are some aspects of the story where Merkel has strong points though. Take her refusal at the NATO-summit in Bucharest in 2008 to grant a „Membership Action Plan“ (MAP, a precursor to membership) to Ukraine. Her arguments for this should not be dismissed lightly.
At the time, Merkel writes, it was no small thing “to publicly confront the President of the United States of America,” but she thought that it necessary. And she stood her ground.
When negotiations in Bucharest seemed deadlocked, chancellor Merkel (according to memoirist Merkel) declared categorically: “We can sit here for days, but my fundamental position on NATO membership will remain my final word – I will not agree to a MAP.”
ft.com/content/ab8eb6…
Because of Merkel’s firm resistance, Ukraine was indeed not granted a MAP in Bucharest. Instead, the summit declaration on Ukraine & Georgia was non-binding, stating evasively: “We have agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.”
nato.int/cps/en/natoliv…
Had it been up to her, even this vague statement, without any target date, would not have made it into the final declaration. Merkel says she would have preferred the document not mention a NATO perspective for Ukraine and Georgia whatsoever. So how does she explain this today?
In short: By interests. Merkel correctly points out that in 2008 only a minority of the Ukrainian population supported the idea of ​​their country joining NATO. (It was different in Georgia, where the majority was in favor of NATO, a fact Merkel skips.)
As far as Ukraine is concerned, it is indeed true that preparations for NATO membership in 2008 would have been imposed on the country against the will of the majority of its citizens. Merkel doubts that such a step would have benefited either Ukraine or NATO.
“The admission of a new member should not only provide more security for the member but also for NATO itself,” she writes, adding she considered it “grossly negligent” to deliberate on granting MAP to Ukraine and Georgia without also analyzing Putin’s perspective.
According to Merkel, her primary concern in Bucharest was what might happen in the event of a Russian attack on Ukraine and Georgia AFTER those countries had been granted MAP status:
“What would have followed, particularly during the period when Ukraine and Georgia, with MAP status, would have been on the path to NATO but still unable to invoke the security guarantees of Article 5 of the NATO Treaty?”
She calls it an “illusion” to think “that MAP status for Ukraine and Georgia would have offered protection from Putin's aggression—that this status would have functioned as such a deterrent that Putin would have passively accepted developments.” The crucial question for her was:
“Would it have been conceivable at the time, in the event of a serious case, that NATO member states would have responded and intervened militarily—with equipment and troops?"
"Would it have been conceivable that I, as Federal Chancellor, would have asked the German Bundestag for such a mandate, including for our Bundeswehr, and that I would have secured a majority for it? In 2008?”
Merkel does not need to emphasize that there would have been no Bundestag mandate for a Bundeswehr combat mission against Russia in Ukraine. It would hardly have been different in France or other European countries back then.
This is why Merkel asks what it would have meant for NATO's credibility had the alliance just stood by and watched potential Russian attacks on its membership candidates without providing military assistance. These objections cannot be easily dismissed.
But doesn’t Merkel’s reasoning ultimately amount to accepting a renewed version of the Brezhnev doctrine, postulating a limited independence of those neighboring states of Russia that have not yet made it under the NATO's umbrella?
Merkel dismisses the objection that this line of thought effectively grants Russia a veto over the future of Georgia and Ukraine as a “killer argument” without further explanation.
And this brings us to the part of Merkel's legacy which, in my view, is not convincing at all —particularly her claim that Nord Stream 2 was an economic project, and above all her staunch refusal to supply weapons to Ukraine:
Time and again – in Brussels, Stockholm, Berlin and at other places – Merkel claimed that Nord Stream II was “an economic project.” One must be naïve to believe that Merkel was that naïve to believe this herself.
Ony of many examples: In February 2015, Merkel stated clearly in Budapest: “Germany will not support Ukraine with weapons. I am firmly convinced that this conflict cannot be solved militarily.” To be fair: This was also not only Germanys line at the time.
deutschlandfunk.de/ukraine-konfli…
The progress Ukraine needed could not be achieved through “even more weapons,” Merkel reaffirmed at the Munich Security Conference. And meeting Barack Obama in Washington, she reiterated her rejection of arms deliveries: “I do not see a military solution.”
newsv2.orf.at/stories/226457…
Putin did see a military solution and acted accordingly. In his own brutal way, he exposed the hollowness of Europe´s doctrine that conflicts can never be solved militarily. Of course they can. Check Crimea, Donbas, the world.
Putin did see a military solution and acted accordingly. In his own brutal way, he exposed the hollowness of Europe´s doctrine that conflicts can never be solved militarily. Of course they can. Check Crimea, Donbas, the world.
Merkel writes in her memoirs that she understood that “we could not leave Ukrainians defenseless against Russian violence.” The obvious consequence of this understanding would have been the delivery of weapons To Ukraine. Yet, the Chancellor did not draw this conclusion.
The people of Ukraine continue to pay a heavy price for the European ideology (it was not just Merkel!) that there are no military solutions to political conflicts. They pay with their blood for our alleged sophistication.
I’ll skip what Merkel writes about her encounters with Trump (for details, see the article in FAZ) and jump to her conclusions on how the war in Ukraine should end.
In essence, Merkel argues that Ukraine alone cannot decide when to stop fighting. She writes about the necessity of “diplomatic initiatives” at the “right moment”, adding: “When that moment comes cannot be decided by Ukraine alone but only in coordination with its supporters.”
On the one hand, this is self-evident. One does not need Merkel to know that it’s true. But how bleak must this sentence sound in Kyiv?
For more, see FAZ: Image
End note: the quotes from the memoirs are given here according to the German version of Merkel’s Memoirs which I read at the beginning of August. The actual translation in the English version of the book may therefore slightly differ.

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