UPD: The livestream is over. The video of the discussion will be available soon via the same link. Stay tuned!

🎥 LIVE: at 12:00 Moscow time (GMT+3) we are starting a discussion on the results of the parliamentary elections in Germany, titled “Germany Without Angela Merkel: What Can Russia and the World Expect?”

❓What are the main outcomes of Merkel’s rule?
❓Will Germany’s policy change after she leaves?
❓How will relations between Russia and Germany develop under the new government?
❓How important will the personality of the new Chancellor be for bilateral relations?

The Valdai Club invites the leading international experts to sum up the preliminary results of the elections in Germany.

https://valdaiclub.com/multimedia/video/live-germany-without-angela-merkel-what-can-russia-and-the-world-expect/

#Germany #Merkel #Europe

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🇩🇪🌐 The German “traffic light” coalition government assumed its duties last month, entering a highly volatile international security and arms control landscape.

Though the coalition agreement is only a first starting point for Germany’s future foreign policy, the contours of Berlin’s approach to nuclear arms control appear fairly clear: While the new government will support legacy initiatives to bolster nuclear disarmament, and plans to observe the upcoming Meeting of States Parties (MSP) of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), U.S.-Russian bilateral talks continue to be viewed as the principal vehicle for reducing non-strategic nuclear weapons (NSNW) in Europe.

Scaremongers predicting abrupt departures in Berlin’s approach to nuclear arms control and deterrence got it wrong. The government’s coalition agreement emphasizes continuity over change, writes Valdai Club expert Hanna Notte.

#Morality_and_Law #Germany

🔗 Berlin Continues to Look to Moscow and Washington for Major Strides in Nuclear Arms Control

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🏰 Europe’s main problem is its lack of even elementary self-sufficiency in terms of resources.

That is why for Europeans, territorial expansion is an even more inevitable foreign policy choice than for other advanced industrial powers like the United States or China, or industrially-lagging Russia and India.

Therefore, the acquisition by the Europeans of new military capabilities will almost inevitably lead to an increase in their aggressiveness, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev.

🔗 Europe and the Atomic Bomb

#Asia_and_Eurasia #Europe #Germany

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🇩🇪🪖 Can Germany afford an active military strategy? 

For a short time, the idea of German rearmament seemed like a panacea for German defence policy.

Forgetting Germany’s pacifist image, experts, journalists, the opposition, and even members of the government began to demand that the Chancellor approve the supply of heavy weapons to Ukraine.

The main supporter of providing Kiev with German tanks and other offensive combat systems was Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock, the first Green Party leader of the German Foreign Ministry in 20 years, since Joschka Fischer. The Green Party is known for its pacifist and peace-loving attitude, but its leaders are again going down in history as hard-line militarists.

A strong German army could create great division in the European Union. While Berlin plans to develop its military potential only together with its allies, for the eastern neighbours in the EU, Germany’s military leadership will become more of an obstacle than an advantage, writes Valdai Club expert Alexander Davydov.

🔗 Rearmament of Germany? Militarisation Without Strategy

#ModernDiplomacy #Germany

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🇩🇪 The escalation of the Ukrainian crisis in February 2022 changed Germany and its politics.

Obeying the principles of the transatlantic consensus, Berlin launched a process that would force the collapse of its ties with Russia in politics, economics and civil society. To replace them, German politicians prioritised support for Kiev, including through the supply of weapons.

Germany’s foreign policy relations with Ukraine became the lever by which Germany decided to change its place in Europe, not always realising the costs of these changes.

The Ukraine crisis in its current stage is an important test for German foreign policy in terms of goal setting. The development of the situation is pushing Berlin towards unconditional transatlantic solidarity, which requires internal discipline of a new quality. At the same time, this movement has been accompanied by significant economic losses due to sanctions policy and rising energy prices.

So far, the German government has nothing to offer its citizens other than austerity measures, writes Valdai Club expert Artyom Sokolov.

#ModernDiplomacy #Germany

@valdai_club

🇪🇺🇨🇳 European-Chinese relations have been on pause since the end of 2020.

The politicisation of interaction, caused both by objective disproportions in the development of trade and investment partnerships, and by the desire of Brussels to control the relations of member states with China, became the main trend in the development of dialogue in the second half of the 2010s, which led to the transformation of Beijing from a “strategic partner” (this status was received in 2003) to a “strategic partner and systemic rival” of the EU.

Given that the pan-European line is acquiring a distinct protective character, it could be amended by the member states that are the stakeholders of the dialogue, primarily Germany. The government of Olaf Scholz was destined to make unplanned strategic decisions regarding all the main partners outside the EU — the USA, Russia and China. This could have fundamental consequences for European-Chinese relations.

The European-Chinese diagonal in the geometry of world politics is no less important than U.S.-China, Russian-American or Russian-Chinese relations.

Its very presence and possession of independent dynamics in the 2000s was evidence of the polycentrisation of world development, the complication of the structure of international relations. Its absence, accordingly, will once again testify to a return to a binary perception of reality, writes Valdai Club expert Julia Melnikova.

#EconomicStatecraft #Germany #EU #China

@valdai_club

🇫🇷🇩🇪 The extent of the current differences between Paris and Berlin is demonstrated by the fact that they are built around at least three major themes, on which different points of view are expressed by each country.

1️⃣ First, in the context of the unfolding fuel crisis, there is no unity regarding the priorities of the EU’s energy policy.

2️⃣ Second, the support measures practiced in both countries to help their respective national economies have become a reason for mutual accusations.

3️⃣ Third, defence tech issues are becoming the subject of ever more obvious differences.

The conflict in Ukraine has accelerated the shift in the centre of gravity within the European Union towards “Mitteleuropa” — Germany and its eastern neighbours, where France’s positions, unlike those of Germany, have never been particularly strong.

As a result, the tandem now fully retains its significance for only one participant — Paris, which sees in “special” ties with Berlin an important confirmation of its sovereign status, writes Valdai Club expert Alexei Chikhachev.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/france-germany-will-the-tandem-survive/

#ModernDiplomacy #France #Germany

@valdai_club

🇩🇪🇷🇺 The escalation of the Ukrainian crisis in February 2022 changed the attitude of German officials towards Russia and its society.

There was a radical simplification of the image of Russia in Germany to a contrasting black and white image, without halftones. Most of Russian society has been subjected to systemic demonization, having experienced all the “achievements” of Western “cancel culture”.

The search for “good Russians” by German politicians ended in Berlin, where a “representative” community of opposition-minded Russians settled. It is these people who have now come to be regarded as a convenient substitute for the diverse breadth of Russian society.

For the first time in a long time, Germany could be completely satisfied with a dialogue with Russian representatives; there are no controversial subjects, since there is no independent interlocutor either.

The further Berlin moves away from direct communication with Moscow, the weaker will be the relevance of its assessments of what is happening not only within Russian-German relations, but also in relation to processes in the post-Soviet space, writes Valdai Club expert Artyom Sokolov.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/dialogue-of-the-deaf-prospects/

#ModernDiplomacy #Germany #UkraineCrisis

@valdai_club

🇩🇪 The closure of Germany’s three remaining nuclear power plants is scheduled for mid-April 2023.

They were supposed to be shut down last autumn, but due to concerns about the instability of electricity production, it was decided to extend their operation through the winter season.

The final decision to phase out all nuclear power plants in Germany, as you may know, was made after the accident at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima. In this respect, Germany differed from France, another large EU country with a high share of nuclear energy in total energy production. France limited itself to taking measures to strengthen safety control at its nuclear power plants, but decided not to shut down the plants themselves. Germany, under pressure from public opinion, did otherwise.

Until now, as is known, only two countries have completely abandoned nuclear energy. They are Italy after the 1987 referendum, around the time of Chernobyl’s peak in risk society awareness. And Lithuania, where the closure of the Soviet nuclear power plant with Chernobyl-style RBMK reactors was one of the conditions for joining the EU. Germany will be the third, and, as it seems today, the last one.

Oleg Barabanov, Valdai Club programme director, writes on the shutdown of Germany's nuclear power industry.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/shutdown-of-germany-s-nuclear-power-industry/

#Norms_and_Values #Germany #nuclearenergy

@valdai_club