German-Russian Relations: How Russia Stresses the Traffic Lights

The first breakpoints in foreign policy are becoming visible in the traffic light coalition. How to deal with Putin’s Russia? Chancellor Scholz and Foreign Minister Baerbock are looking for a common line.

Not only the worsening corona crisis is forcing the new coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP immediately into quick start mode. In terms of foreign policy, the traffic light coalition has not been granted a familiarization period either: Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasing the pressure on the West almost daily to exclude NATO eastward expansion and, above all, NATO membership for Ukraine.

And that in a situation in which foreign policy experts see German-Russian and European-Russian relations at a low point anyway – also due to Putin’s verbal and military saber rattling in the border area with Ukraine in a currently tense situation.

It is not the only construction site that the Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock finds in German-Russian relations – last week, just in office, she had to declare two employees of the Russian embassy to be “undesirable persons” – after a judgment on the so-called Tiergarten- Murder attributed to the Russian government. However, her SPD predecessor Heiko Maas had prepared this step.

But now your own foreign policy signature is needed: How to react to Putin’s threats? The traffic light coalition is still cautious. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz relies on his motto that a European, not a German Ostpolitik is needed. At the EU summit in Brussels last week, he and the other heads of state and government passed a declaration according to which Russia must reckon with massive consequences in the event of an attack on Ukraine. But which exactly? That remained open.

Normandy format currently without a chance

At the beginning of this week, Scholz spoke to Putin on the phone and expressed concern “in view of the situation”. Baerbock had already phoned Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and asked for the Normandy format to be revived. Unsuccessful so far – Russia currently prefers to speak to the US.

“No alternative to dialogue with Russia”

“Are we sending German troops to Ukraine, Ms. Foreign Minister?” Baerbock is already being asked by the media. She keeps a low profile, speaks of solidarity with Ukraine and serious economic and diplomatic consequences in the event of aggressive action on the part of Russia. “We continue to rely on dialogue – there is no other way,” said the Greens foreign policy leader Omid Nouripour in an interview with tagesschau.de. The coalition speaks with one voice, there are no substantial differences on the relevant issues.

In fact, the project of the Baltic Sea gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 stands between the traffic light parties like an elephant in the room: The Greens rejected it in the run-up to the election for energy-political and ecological reasons, not even mentioned by name in the coalition agreement – a sign that a real Agreement pending. Parts of the SPD are sticking to the planned pipeline. Nord Stream 2 is not yet in operation because European approval tests are still ongoing. In the event of a Russian military invasion of Ukraine, however, it will hardly be possible to keep it operational.

“This is a wedge in the coalition that could still create tension,” says Janis Kluge, Russia expert from the Science and Politics Foundation – here the coalition is born into a situation of pressure from inside and outside. In any case, Nord Stream 2 will be a stress test, even if it does not have to serve as an economic sanction, but rather the approval process has been completed. Because only then will it be seen how the coalition will behave. The Greens are currently referring to this still open procedure – probably so as not to risk the coalition peace.

But the SPD is now also flexible: “Nobody rules out that Nord Stream 2 will become part of the sanctions,” said SPD MP Nils Schmid in an interview tagesschau.de, who acts as the foreign policy spokesman for his group. But there is no automatism that this project will hit – the line of the coalition is clear.

This demonstrative foreign policy traffic light agreement was preceded by a brief skirmish over foreign policy interpretative sovereignty. On the day the new government took office, of all things, the SPD foreign politician and parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich stressed on Deutschlandfunk that German foreign policy was being steered “especially in the Chancellery”. In principle, this goes without saying, because it means the Chancellor’s authority to issue guidelines, but when a new Green Foreign Minister took office, these were words with a great signal effect.

“Maintain trust instead of front gardens”

Nouripour, who wants to inherit Baerbock at the top of the party, promptly replied via Twitter: To lower the Foreign Office in this way is the traditional “cook-waiter logic” – we should build trust on the basis of the coalition agreement, not cultivate front gardens “. When asked about it afterwards, Nouripour says that he had clarified it with Mützenich, that the matter was settled, and that Scholz and Baerbock are so professional that they know that policy competence and responsibility for departments have to be intertwined in order to speak with one voice.

Scholz diplomatically both internally and externally

“Foreign policy should be effective,” says Schmid – and that works if the German government takes a united stance. Perhaps it is more than just a difference between the SPD and the Greens in Russia policy, but the SPD itself, which still has to clarify some things for itself. Ex-Chancellor and Putin friend Gerhard Schröder is now dubbed a “private man” who does not speak for the SPD. But his network still extends into the SPD. And the SPD Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig is also controversial with her foundation “Climate and Environmental Protection Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania”, which “primarily participates in the completion of Nord Stream 2”, as the written “Foundation Purpose” reads – for one Environmental foundation an unusual objective.

Scholz is currently embracing the coalition diplomatically both externally and internally and is downplaying the topic. “With regard to Nord Stream 2, it is a private-sector project,” he said on the sidelines of the EU summit. Stefan Meister, Russia expert at the German Foreign Policy Society, considers this to be a “strategic and communicative error on the part of the Chancellor”. This is unwise because it ultimately divides the coalition – and Moscow is watching this very closely. It weakens the negotiating position “because it ultimately shows that Scholz excludes geopolitical instrumentalization”. This makes it harder to say now that it is also a political project.