Don't cave in to Putin's gas threat, Chancellor!

Created: 06/14/2022, 18:30

By: Georg Anastasiadis

A comment by Georg Anastasiadis © Stefan Sauer/dpa/Marcus Schlaf

The trip to Kyiv by Macron, Draghi and Chancellor Olaf Scholz is apparently making Putin nervous.

His announcement to throttle gas supplies is tough.

Now the three leaders must show strength.

A commentary by Georg Anastasiadis.

Something is moving in the SPD.

After Federal President Steinmeier, the former foreign minister and SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel has now also apologized for mistakes in Russia policy, and in words that are unprecedented for leading politicians in post-war German history.

Gabriel speaks of a "complete failure" and the "biggest failure of German foreign policy since the beginning of the Federal Republic".

In doing so, he not only shames his former chancellor and patron Gerhard Schröder, but also former chancellor Angela Merkel, who, undeterred by the deaths in Ukraine, adamantly sticks to her well-known mantra that she doesn't know what she should have done differently when dealing with Putin.

For Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Gabriel's commitment is both an incentive and an obligation to do better in Eastern Europe than his party friends have done in the past two decades.

Of course, the constant, often unjust admonitions from Ambassador Melnyk and President Zelensky are annoying.

His accusation of a seesaw German policy, which too often tries to please the Kremlin, is completely wrong.

Even if Putin is now waving around with the gas weapon and curbing energy supplies to Western Europe: Scholz should not be intimidated during his upcoming visit to Ukraine and should open a new chapter in German dealings with friends in the East who are under deadly pressure.

Of course, Scholz's top priority is not to let Germany get involved in the war.

But Berlin's possibilities

assisting the people of Ukraine has not yet been exhausted.

To watch Ukraine sink until Putin turns his attention to the NATO countries in the Baltic would be a mistake dwarfing those of the past.

But it would also be good in terms of energy policy if Scholz would at least partially reverse the mistakes of the Merkel era.

This includes mobilizing all conceivable energy reserves in the face of Moscow's threats to turn off the gas supply.

A few nuclear reactors are still running in Germany, three are scheduled to be shut down at the end of the year, and three more could be reactivated.

Then Germany would have to produce less valuable gas in the coming winter.

The overdue decision to let the reactors continue to run temporarily would be a signal of strength to Putin.

And the Kremlin boss only understands this language.