The Federal Chancellor (SPD) flies to Madrid for talks with Prime Minister Sánchez. Above all, the fight against the pandemic should be the focus.
(Photo: dpa)
Sometimes important political messages are hidden behind the destinations of business trips. While the chancellor heads west to Madrid, a kind of traffic-calmed zone for international diplomacy, he sends his foreign minister to Kiev and Moscow, the heart of the geopolitical storm.
What does Olaf Scholz stand for? The international community is wondering. All of Germany asks itself. What is his position on sanctions issues towards Moscow? What is his take on Russia’s possible shutdown of Swift? Where are his efforts for a unified European line towards Russia, which is so essential for defusing the Ukraine crisis?
So far, at most, the repetition of Merkel’s sentence that Nord Stream 2 is a “purely private-sector project” has been politically (behaviourally) conspicuous. That was already wrong in the chancellorship of his predecessor. In the current situation, it seems like politics from another planet, or at least naive.
“Whoever orders a tour will get it,” that was Scholz’s credo, which was a bit too bold. And he hadn’t really settled into office when his people made it clear that the chancellor sets the guidelines for politics – including foreign policy.
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Government is derided as a non-governmental organization
In fact, this has never been more necessary than now. But Scholz falls far short of this claim. The fact that Baerbock did not get beyond diplomatic platitudes in Kiev also has to do with the lack of foreign policy leadership in the chancellor’s office.
The chancellor should not be surprised if a government is derided as a non-governmental organization. This applied to the fact that Scholz’s team did not come up with their own draft law on compulsory vaccination.
But there is a lot more that applies to foreign policy at the moment. This is the worst possible news, especially in these explosive times, when a hot war on the eastern flank of Europe is quite possible.
More: Fears of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: West prepares contingency plans