Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer wants to “freeze” the war in Ukraine, but has been setting one fire after the other for weeks. Whether it’s an oil embargo, arms deliveries or the energy transition, the deputy CDU leader acts as an advocate of the Saxon people’s perceived will. His demand completely ignores reality: Negotiations are impossible if the attacker doesn’t want to talk, but wants to bomb. However, Kretschmer’s argument that the Ukraine war must end as soon as possible because it is throwing Europe and the German economy into chaos is perfidious. Accordingly, the problem is not the illegal attack, not thousands of dead men, women and children, bombed cities and destroyed crops in the Ukraine, but rather the fact that this also has consequences in Dresden and Dortmund.
One notices Kretschmer’s indignation at this impertinence almost physically. Almost every day he reports fundamental criticism at the traffic light, without regard to his own coalition partners SPD and Greens, by the way. The energy transition? In Kretschmer’s eyes, this has failed as long as nuclear power plants are no longer running. The oil embargo? For Kretschmer, this is only acceptable if it can be had for the East without hardship. Supply heavy weapons to Ukraine, as decided by the Union faction in the Bundestag? Kretschmer prefers to doubt this publicly and presents himself as a “representative of the majority opinion in society”.
This may strike a chord with those who don’t care what’s happening in the world as long as they stay comfortable at home. But it leaves behind all those who expect a prime minister to steer his state as best he can through a crisis that he neither caused himself nor could solve on his own. That’s another reason why it would be good if Kretschmer dealt with Saxony and left foreign policy to the chancellor’s office.