“How many mistakes, now we pay them all” – Corriere.it

Where is Angela Merkel? what’s he doing? And above all, what do you think of the file Crisis in Ukraine? A ghost roams across Germany. While the federal government is on a wave Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression, cast into the wind 70 years of caution, hesitation, and comforting ambiguity in foreign policy, a suspicion that is suddenly sweeping the country. What if not all the gold that shone in the sixteen years of the Eternal Counsellor? It’s only been four months since thenGoodbye to the strength of MerkelAnd when rivers of praise and regret accompanied his departure from the scene: The password was “we’ll miss him” from those days. But February 24, the day Putin changed the course of European history, also marked a turning point for the former chancellor and her legacy. Suddenly, the Germans looked back wondering if that F
There was something wrong In the gentle idleness that Angela Merkel has shaken them for so long.

For Germany, the Ukraine crisis was a kind of contrast medium highlighting the darker sides of everything the Merkel era represented: energy dependence, a rapid exit from atomic energy, a meager defense budget, European sovereignty, and even the pandemic. In a few days, the options of the advisor no longer stand the test of time. “How did we get to this situation?” He asks himself in the weekly die zeit Tina Hildebrandt, who said the war “has made Merkel a prisoner of a political no-man’s land”, lost in moving Just saying.” Flood of questions: Why, under Merkel, was Ukraine not permanently associated with the West? Because the counselor allowed Thus, Germany became highly dependent on gas imports from Russia? Since the beginning of the hostilities, Merkel has only appeared by declaring a “clear condemnation” of Russian aggression, defined as a “deep rupture in the history of Europe”, without ever uttering Putin’s name. The rest was silence and complete disappearance from the public scene, but we talk about it a lot.

In the media, on talk shows, in secret conversations with former ministers and collaborators, and in interviews with political analysts. According to Martin Koopmann of Genshagen, a think-tank that promotes European dialogue, the problem is that Merkel’s decisions have rarely been the result of strategic political thinking: “Don’t lose the thread of dialogue, keep Europe together, keep everything together: this was Merkel’s way.” A person who is always moderate may last a long time but he does not give directions for things.” The strongest indictment is, of course, on the relationship with Vladimir Putin and Russia. Angela Merkel had no illusions about the Kremlin leader, whom she always considered a villain and did not hesitate to criticize him “but an evil one you could have trusted and had to talk to,” Hildebrandt concludes. Merkel’s closeness and passion for Russia and its culture also contributed to this. Critics say the biggest mistake was allowing Nord Stream 2 in 2014, the same year Putin annexed Crimea, against the advice of National Security Adviser Christoph Heusgen, who warned of the pipeline’s geopolitical risks.

However, there is a lot of hindsight and some hypocrisy in this revisionist reading of the Merkel era. Because his choices were wholly shared by German industry, by his party, the CDU, and above all by the SPD allies, who until February 24 considered dialogue and economic cooperation with Moscow a “holy cow”, in the name of Ostpolitik. Olaf Schultz himself has been a minister several times, most recently as Vice-Chancellor in her custody. Even the Greens, who have always been against Nord Stream 2 and have been in opposition, aren’t in a flawless position, always looking favorably on meager defense money. In short, if Merkel bears the main blame, then no one is innocent if in the past twenty years Germany has restricted itself to Russian gas and refused to take on geopolitical responsibilities. “Merkel – says former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who has always been consistent in his judgment of the chancellor – has always and only thought of keeping the Germans away from all dangers, keeping their calm and their well-being as if the world did not care about strategic political dynamics. But today unfortunately we are paying the price. And it is A very high price.”