Dinner Message Sent From Merkel

The symbolism achieved is quite clear, and there is no need for further explanation. On Wednesday evening in Berlin, Chancellor Angela Merkel hosted a dinner with leaders from Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. The message is targeted at a specific audience.

The first recipient of the message is Washington. Berlin is sending out the message that under no circumstances will it be a mere spectator, watching the United States’ anti-Russian “maximalism” toward the former Soviet Union. Germany’s attitude will not be defensive; it will not be limited to safeguarding bilateral relations with Russia. However, it will adopt a preventative and proactive attitude in an effort to maintain a diplomatic course of action, which will serve both Russia and the three former Soviet Republics.

The second recipient is Moscow. This time the message states that respect for vital Russian interests in the former Soviet Union and acceptance that the region is imperial Russia’s exclusive zone of interest are two different things.

The last recipients of Merkel’s message are Germany’s EU partners. It is made clear that Eastern European countries are a key national challenge for Berlin, which is not going to work jointly with Poland or France to tackle the challenge. The two countries’ recent choices seem to annoy the chancellery.

Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia are the three countries on which the EU tried to implement the Eastern Partnership project. The project was Poland’s initiative, launched at the NATO summit in Bucharest in the spring of 2008.

The dinner in Berlin acts as a de facto counterpoint not only to Washington’s choice to reinforce Poland and Romania as countries at the forefront in an attempt to contain Russia, but also to Putin’s attempt to blackmail the West for its noninterference in relation to the former Soviet countries.

Despite the above and given the high cost of extreme policy choices made by both Washington and Moscow, the course of action adopted by German diplomacy is establishing Berlin’s presence as definitive in finding a compromise solution.

Berlin’s being fully involved with the three former Soviet Republics is the delayed response to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s diplomatic elegance when she said, “Fuck the EU,” and pushed mainly Germany aside from managing the crisis either by engaging in bilateral relations with Russia or by bailing out Ukraine.

Between Russian domination in the region promoted by the Kremlin and a bulwark against Moscow’s power promoted by the White House, German diplomacy suggests the third way.

It promotes German market penetration of investments and production activities in the former Soviet Union, which in the short run will be beneficial for Moscow, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. It will not jeopardize Russia’s safety, but in the mid- or long-term, it will develop actual preconditions for independence and emancipation of those countries.

Unified Germany is promoting, in other words, the “Finlandization” of the former Soviet Union. It is freeing the Kremlin from the political, strategic and diplomatic nightmare of the EU’s, but mainly NATO’s, further expansion eastward, while at the same time developing an informal but nevertheless important German-dominant economic zone of influence in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus.

The dinner in Berlin overshadows not only Biden’s visit in Kiev, but also the forthcoming Putin-Hollande meeting.