Because the chancellor can’t be in every television studio – and maybe also because he doesn’t always sweep everyone away when he’s in one – he has people who take his place there. Ralf Stegner, for example, SPD MP and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bundestag, counts himself, like Olaf Scholz, on the team for caution in foreign policy issues, which he now announces almost weekly in a talk show in the context of the Ukraine war. And although Stegner knows that “there is not only war on the battlefield, but also that of public opinion”, he does not force a false smile. Not a real one anyway. From seriousness to fierceness, he follows his chancellor, whom he appreciates “first thinks, then talks, then acts”. And if the other side in the fight for public opinion feels that the chancellor first hesitates, then says nothing, then does too little – then that’s just the way it is.
Russia: Norbert Röttgen and Ralf Stegner at Anne Will – Medien
