German Press: And after the meeting between Soltz and Putin, what?

And after the Solts-Putin meeting, what? The German press points out the good efforts of the chancellor and Putin’s maximalist demands.

Then it is as before, it is commonly said after a difficult negotiation. With winners and losers in a war of nerves, as the newspaper aptly notes on the front pages The World. But were there winners and losers after yesterday’s Solt-Putin meeting in the Kremlin, which is also the baptism of fire in foreign policy for the German chancellor? The answer is difficult for German commentators.

“Well prepared”

“If one looks for a symbol for the chancellor’s young foreign policy, one will find it in a piece of furniture,” the columnist ironically points out. “Everything is on the table, is the standard answer that Solz has given hundreds of times to the question of whether Germany, even in the event of a war with Ukraine, will maintain the operation of the pipeline through the Baltic, but systematically avoided On Tuesday afternoon, Solz sat down at the table. It’s absurdly large. The marble furniture, originally from Italy, is in the heart of Russian power. “What a few years ago would have looked like satire symbolizes the Russian president’s paranoia about the possibility of catching a coronavirus.” Images that at a time when peace and security in Europe are at stake are captured and acquire another special semiology.

And on the content? The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung columnist first praised Soltz. “The chancellor was very well prepared to talk to Putin,” he said. “Even with Angela Merkel’s predecessor, she has exchanged views on Putin, who knows him better than most Western politicians over the past 16 years.” Tagesschau.de, that the assessments of the two leaders are divided by whole worlds. “Even if negotiations go on for months and both sides are willing to reach out to each other, at the moment it is difficult to imagine how the rifts will be bridged. It is impossible for the West to meet Putin’s maximalist demands for cancellation. “Russia’s enlargement to the east. The Russian president has made it clear that he is not content with oral promises from the West, that he insists on written assurances that in the foreseeable future NATO will not expand to the east.” “Even rejecting Putin’s narrative of NATO as an attacker on the former Yugoslavia.”

“Too early to end alarm “

The next day, her commentator turns her gaze Southwest Press circulating in the city of Ulm. “Can we talk about a recession after Solt’s visit? Is a war against Ukraine starting today, despite the partial withdrawal of Russian forces, as US sources predict?” wonders. “The first would be a happy coincidence, the second a disaster for diplomacy. Diplomatic channels are sending signals that Ukraine would be willing to freeze its desire to join NATO to deter Russia from its aggressive plans. “The price would be high, because that is how it relinquishes part of its sovereignty. In order to ensure lasting peace in Europe, serious negotiations must follow, in which everyone must be willing to make concessions.”

A day after the Solt-Putin meeting, the danger of war was removed, the Russian ambassador to the EU assures today? “It’s too early to end the alarm, no matter how tempting the longing for peace is,” the Stuttgarter Zeitung said. The cyber-attack reported to the Ministry of Defense in Kiev obviously does not contribute to the recession, quite the opposite “.

Irini Anastassopoulou

SOURCE: Deutsche Welle