Below is an exclusive translation of an important article from the German press.
DIE WELT: "Der Schröder war schon öfters so peinlich"
EU ACCESSION UKRAINE“Schröder was quite often so embarrassing.”
The topic was supposed to be Ukrainian accession to the European Union. But at the Yalta European Strategy Conference, Ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder campaigned instead for partnership with Russia – and in doing so made himself unpopular with his hosts.
Foreign policy elites everywhere around the world love conferences – best of all in exotic places. Then their representatives, the “gentlemen callboys” – as the philosopher Isaiah Berlin once mockingly called them – swarm together to talk sombrely about this and that. Those who travel more frequently always see the same characters. Berlin called them nametag-wearing “marzipan piglets” who call each another by first name. Alongside them surface former heads of government who find retirement chilling. They consider themselves important enough to bestow their views upon the world as has-beens, even if they are no longer of any relevance.
At Yalta, in the Crimea, one could inspect several members of both groups up close. Nevertheless, the fourth Yalta European Strategy Conference differed from most of these gatherings. The Ukrainians are still inexperienced on the international parquet and, for precisely this reason, free of diplomatic turns of phrase.At issue in Yalta was Europe, more precisely, the not exactly surprising desire of the Ukrainians to become a member of the European Union – and they really argue for realizing this request by 2020. Will they succeed? After the conference in the Livadiia Palace – where Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill convened a good 60 years ago – one worried in unison with them. One may not really believe it could happen, at least not anybody who observed the fury with which the representatives of political parties laid into one another – even in front of an international audience – and wished each other an untimely end. They were able to agree only in two areas: a) We are all Ukrainians, b) We want into the EU. Even the September election, from which Brussels finally expects peace, will not have the desired effect. The Ukrainians are at loggerheads with one another, with no feeling for strategic necessities and no sense of what is important in the region.
Perhaps they will listen to former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, who read the Ukrainians the Riot Act in fluent English: “How long is Europe to endure your domestic political crisis? It has to stop. Yes, we need you in the EU, maybe even as soon as 2020, but not in this situation.” Maybe the contribution from Viktor Chernomyrdin, the Russian ambassador and former prime minister under Boris Yeltsin, will help; he made it clear that Moscow had no objections to the accession of its western neighbour to the European club. Unfortunately, these astonishing words from a Russian mouth seemed to be in vain – and the reason for that lay in the performance by a German with the name Gerhard Schröder.
As in his heyday, the former federal chancellor knew how to leave behind his audience. This time, however, not in a state of admiration but one of vexation. With a statesman’s air, Schröder appeared before the audience as a Gazprom lobbyist, spoke no more than three minutes about his “dear frränds,” only to go on to praise Russia’s reliability as an energy supplier in the very county whose gas supplies Vladimir Putin cut off in January 2006. “Of course, I understand that there is a debate about dependency on Russia. But that is completely wrong. Who can guarantee that oil and gas are provided? Iran, perhaps Algeria? Only Russia can.” Ukraine in the EU? That seemed to interest Schröder, a member of the supervisory board of the company building the Baltic Sea pipeline, as little as the price of Coca-Cola in Burkina Faso. Not once did the ex-chancellor utter the words “Ukraine and EU” in the same breath. Schröder spoke of a good “neighbourhood policy,” of Ukraine as a “bridge” between east and west, of Germany’s help for Kiev during his chancellorship, only to conclude at the end of each passage: “It is important to strengthen the partnership with Russia” and to build precisely the pipelines that Gazprom is planning.
Schröder dismissed interjections to the contrary. They ricocheted off his armour of self-satisfaction like foam arrows. In the end, they struck the remaining Germans, who could do nothing else but remind the scandalized listeners that he is no longer chancellor. At least, the French, in the form of Pierre Lellouches, a close associate of President Nicolas Sarkozy, came to their aide: “Schröder was quite often so embarrassing.”
