German Press: The G7 in Elmau, Putin bombs

The German press comments on the Summit of the seven most powerful industrialized countries in Elmau, Bavaria. Heavy agenda and ambitions but also criticism.

The West, led by the United States and Germany, wanted to send a message of “unity and determination” from Bavaria and the G7 summit in Bavaria yesterday, while US President Joe Biden praised Chancellor Olaf Soltz’s initiatives towards Ukraine. However, as she notes in a comment on her front page Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “Western sanctions on Russia do not (yet) have the effect imagined by everyone from Washington to Brussels (…) Putin is able to offset the losses of his Western customers by raising energy prices (…)

For his part, Putin hails the Elmau summit in his own way: with rocket attacks targeting Ukrainian cities and with the intensification of military cooperation with Belarus, which is ostensibly a sovereign country. Unfortunately, as usual, Putin is playing the nuclear card. “This does not help him against NATO, but it does bring weapons back into international politics.”

American and the 21st century?

In the stop but also the international displacement of the USA, Europe and Germany focuses comment in the financial newspaper Handelsblatt “It is always said that the twentieth century was American. At least with our eyes on the West, the twenty-first century will probably be American. Despite the problems and internal deficits of the older modern democracy (…) in foreign policy, the United States is as dominant as it was in the 1950s and 1960s. Joe Biden pursues a geostrategic policy primarily in the interests of the United States – as always – but also of Europe (…)

While the United States quickly realized that the only language Putin understood was the language of power, Europeans were concerned about his psychological state. This culminated in the French president’s statement that Putin should not be ‘humiliated’ (…) and Chancellor Soltz, the host of the G7 summit, constantly seems to be leading instead of pursuing a consistent policy towards Russia. “Whether in the Nord Stream 2 debate, or on energy boycotts, or on arms supplies, the chancellor only acted when he had no choice.”

O Putin has other “clients”

“An embargo on Russian gold or the imposition of a maximum price on Russian oil to be decided by other states will not force Putin to back down,” the paper said. Augsburger Allgemeine. “At least it will not go away as long as the G7 countries continue to follow the pattern they have followed so far, based on which they set a good example, which they hope other countries will follow.

However, there are still many opportunities for Vladimir Putin to sell raw materials through other channels in other markets. “Swiss investors, for example, have just bought $ 200 million worth of Russian gold in Moscow.”

Dimitra Kyranoudi, Berlin

SOURCE: Deutsche Welle