Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[Sheilbh]

But it's also worth pointing out that Merkel didn't blame the Baltics and Poland. We don't need to manufacture conflict and bad faith where it doesn't exist. Plenty of it occurs naturally to meet our needs.

I'm not sure I agree. He is very anti-Merkel but this is Toomas Ilves' (former Estonian President's) response to the "well actually that's not what she said" point:

Yes and no. She had no plan for creating a common EU policy on Russia when an FT leak revealed she and Macron wanted a mandate *the following day* at the EU council to go talk to Putin ("Biden did it, why can't we?")

There was no intention to discuss a policy with EU members, just a carte blanche to go off and talk to Putin.

After the suck-ups to Russia of Minsk(s), there was no way CEE would let her go off like that.

So now we are responsible, right?

I think this is a slight lived experience. What she said may be factually correct and may one meaning from her perspective both at the time and since. She was Chancellor of Germany so the most important voice in any room in Europe, the West's point-person with Putin etc. The experience of what she was pushing for in that room, with that baggage (Nordstream 2, 2008, 2014) may have been quite different for leaders from CEE countries. And how that interaction is subsequently interpreted may also be true.

I don't think that's a bad faith read by CEE politicians, I think it's a product of their experience working with Merkel for two decades. Her experience is obviously going to be different (as will Macron's, for whom I think it was about a sense of humiliation and frustration that Biden and Putin met to discuss Europe). But again the context of there I think is lost trust and different perceptions of risk and threat.

I think this trails right into the invasion and at the point when the Balts and the Poles are some of the first to army Ukraine, the first response of the Elysee and Chanchellery is to see if there is any possibility of re-launching the Minsk process. The set of experiences that led to those different responses also shaped how those actors perceived the event Merkel's describing and have responded to her recollection of it.

[Zoupa]

Thankfully for Merkel, the bar for worst German chancellor is absurdly high.

She should really just stfu and disappear.

[Sheilbh]

Sure but, much like Kamala Harris, she does have a book to sell

Incidentally I don't think it's for nothing that the controversy and these remarks came in the Hungarian phase of her book tour, in terms of the questions and framing of things.

[The Brain]

Her Big Coal agenda wasn't awesome.