Baltics and German Greens: unexpected allies on Russia? – opinion
8
Annalena Baerbock / AP
Vilnius has long hoped for Germany to take a harder stance on Russia. With the Greens eyeing the chancellor’s seat, will the Baltics find unexpected allies in Berlin? Jeroen Bult writes.
Is German foreign policy heading for a revolution? Will Berlin finally relinquish its ever-cautious approach of Russia? These tempting questions must have crossed the minds of Baltic policymakers after hearing the news that Annalena Baerbock has been nominated as the Chancellor candidate of The Greens for the German federal elections in September.
And the idea of a vociferous criticaster of the Putin regime leading a political party that keeps growing in opinion polls is a most captivating one indeed.
No experiments: Armin Laschet is elected leader of Germany’s CDU The moderate Rhinelander is now front-runner to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor. “Keine Experimente” (no experiments) ran the political slogan of Konrad Adenauer. The co-founder and first leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the postwar Federal Republic of Germany’s first chancellor was a Catholic moderate from the Rhineland who conceived of his party’s role as bridging divides between different segments of society and offering stability, consensus and restraint. The formula has served the party well: it has governed the federal republic for 51 of its 71 years.