Germany First? Scholz accused of disloyalty by France and EU Partners • FRANCE 24 English

[Music] foreign it was supposed to be a joint cabinet meeting at Fulton Bloom The Chateau where Napoleon bade farewell to his troops instead it was downsized to lunch at the office between Emmanuel macron Olaf Schultz the French President the German Chancellor insist it went swimmingly but they canned a joint press conference afterwards so just how badly is Europe's franco-german motor misfiring these days Mac holes called out the Block's biggest member for going solo on energy security also angering Paris Germany's decision to favor U.S fighter jets over made in Europe airplanes as Berlin embarks on a landmark overhaul of its military it's all down to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the eu27 come together as one at this crucial juncture we'll ask our panel about an Olaf Schultz who's built a reputation as a politician who proceeds with caution now the social Dem Democrats getting blowback from the Left Flank of his own Coalition on these issues and his decision to fly solo to Beijing with Business Leaders at the start of next month what's his rationale which way for Germany which way for Europe today in the France 24 a debate are the French and some of you Partners right to feel like it's a case of Germany first with us is a former French ambassador to Germany Bernardino thanks for joining us good evening thanks as well to Elizabeth uh Humbert Dolph Miller co-president of SPD International that's the organization of Olaf Schultz's ruling social Democrats thanks for being with us uh also with us is Swiss journalists Joseph de vac the author of Mackle the Revolutionary president how are you great and uh from Berlin Cornelia Vol professor of political science at the French Political Science Institute siospo how are you good welcome the France 24 debate where you can join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter hashtag F2 for debate French tabloid Liberation making light of a potentially serious situation with its uh cover this Wednesday uh so how did that lunch in Paris go more from Oliver Farrell amazing in Paris after a rocky few months Emmanuel macron welcomed German Chancellor Olaf Schultz for a working lunch at the Elise Palace on Wednesday but while the meeting appeared cordial neither side was sharing much with the media there was no press conference and only vague communique is issued Schultz's office tweeted that it was a good and important conversation and that France and Germany were tackling challenges together while the French government saw said the meeting was very constructive it was a cautious Approach at a time when both sides remain pulled apart on many topics Berlin is opposing the cap on gas prices in Europe something Paris is advocating Germany also wants France to authorize a new pipeline to carry gas from Spain something France is refusing to do like several of its European Partners France was also annoyed by a measure announced by Olaf Schultz a 200 billion Euro so-called defensive shield on Energy prices to help German households something which Paris has denounced sizing a lack of consultation and solidarity there's also dissension on defense with its military budget of 100 billion euros Germany now seems to want to plow its own Furrow favoring the purchase of American Equipment to the detriment of European industry it has also launched an anti-aircraft defense project with the United States Israel and 14 other European countries a project which France has declined to be part of how bad is it have we seen worse before yes no it's between the French and the Germans it has always been very difficult you can be very difficult yes 1963 uh and the gold sign an agreement between France and Germany one week later the wunderstag votes a text which whose spirit is completely reversed to this treaty anytime we had to make new leaps ahead in the in the European construction it was always very difficult for two reasons the first one is that the Germans are very different from the from the French and have different interests and anytime we want to progress we have to see where are the interests what are the interests of Germany in the field of Defense what are the interests of France in the field of defense and then we talk and maybe four eyes lunch is better than 20 people big lunch so for me the only question today is the the difference of weight between France and Germany which means that in the last 15 years Germany in the economic field has taken a lot more weight in Europe France has been lagging and I think this is a priority for France to come back because France can and should do it because it's a condition for balance relationship and the second aspect is of course that we we decide we look at strategy and not details irritation is a very bad advisor we have when we have irritations we have to look the strategy is there an alternative today I am convinced that there is no alternative Germany and France going into different directions Europe will be in bad shape there will be many problems as we see today so at a certain moment there is a consciousness of this and we come together we if we don't do that it will be dangerous lots of parts from what you just said let's start with the uh the weight of Germany we all recall a couple years back there was uh The Economist had it on its front cover uh a picture of Angela Merkel Wonder with the headline The Reluctant hegemon when Germany decides to go It Alone with the and at a time when we're trying to come together with a common plan to buy our uh oil and gas uh common in a in a joint Manner and says well we're going to do a 200 billion Euro energy Shield it sort of skews the rest of the market and creates uh misgivings it is a way of seeing it I mean I would agree with with my interlocutor here saying that it is one of the crisis and France and Germany have had a lot of crisis in the last decades and I would not be too worried to be honest concerning the 200 billion plan of Germany to boost its economy that during the I don't know if you remembered during the Eurozone crisis everybody was saying that Germany should do much more Public Funding do more Public Funding please and Michael was saying no we are not doing more Public Funding we have to respect the Mastery criteria and now Germany is doing a lot of Public Funding of which only a quarter of the 200 billion by the way are for the companies the rest is for the population who is suffering from inflation gas price Etc so I don't think it it's it's fair to to saying that now the public spending is not a good thing to do whereas it would have been 10 or 15 years ago so I think it's a good a good thing that Germany does value expanding because Germany can do public spending can't do public spending but it it puts Germany's EU Partners at a disadvantage what the what the other partners wanted was a heads up they said that on the day when uh when Schultz announced it uh he said he had coveted scrapped uh a conversation with the French prime minister and instead made this big announcement sure I mean he had coveted and then he did his announcement which for him was probably more important this 200 billion because electorally speaking it's of course an important issue probably more important than meeting Elizabeth bond which I mean you can say it was probably not it was a lack of gallantry probably for sure but politically speaking I think um this was an important step for him you don't have to forget that he is inside a coalition with very difficult balances and that this 200 billion was difficulty negotiated package well let me turn to cornelioval in Berlin quarterly by apologies because you're no longer with Sion spool you're now president of the hearty School in the German capital and let me let me Begin by reading you what 10 days ago the French President told a financial newspaper Lizzy cool accusing Germany of throwing the rest of the EU again out of whack and stating that Germany is right now at a moment of model change who's destabilizing nature is not to be underestimated if we want to be coherent what should be adopted are not National strategies but a European strategy again is it Germany first I think it's quite accurate to say that the chancellor is under a lot of internal pressure and in a complicated negotiation with his own Coalition and as you've just mentioned the the site inventor that turned to a new geopolitical Consciousness and recognition of the world of Germany and the world is quite recent and I think what we see now is that that has to be learned quite well and is possibly awkward in the beginning the the tension is not over the decisions that Germany needs to make it is over the um the lack of negotiation and cooperation or simply a heads up to the European partners and I think we see that on the issues on which there is tension energy European Defense or relations with China it is not ideal to have Germany devise a policy for itself and not coordinate it with the European Partners after having written a coalition treaty as as late as last December where Europe was written all over it so I think some of that geopolitical and diplomatic learning still has to be done in that is what is at stake currently it's not an explicit Germany first policy it is I think a learning curve a learning curve when it comes to timing it seems I mean Justice Schultz was in Paris the German government earlier in the day was announcing that Chinese shipping giant Costco was buying a nearly one-quarter stake in one of the port of hamburg's three terminals Hamburg whose former mayor Cornelia happens to be so again it's this question and by the way it's not just uh uh awkward from here in Paris but it seems to be awkward from within uh the Coalition uh the foreign minister who's agreeing saying this investment quote disproportionately expands China's strategic influence on German and European transport infrastructure is Olaf Schultz misreading the mood both domestically and internationally I think this story tells us how many tensions he has to manage at the same time this discussion is very much on the news here in Germany and the stake that the Chinese company Costco wants to buy has just been negotiated downward to just below a quarter simply because in the German government there is no real majority for it four ministers have expressed concerns about the exposure of the critical infrastructure and between the main pillars of the Coalition this is really not a consensual decision so you see how much internal politics already goes into it and then let alone the uh the European did he have to do this to you that he also has to take in account I uh did he have to do this deal let me say it this way the economic rationale for it is that it's an important investment um in uh in a time where and this investment is needed but it is also quite clear um that this is a critical infrastructure and a critical infrastructure in the same way that Gas and energy are critical infrastructures in Germany has just learned the very hard way the lesson that neglecting the geopolitical aspects of an economically possibly Sound Decision will come to bite it so I think this is not entirely over yet and it has to be considered geopolitically as well it has to be considered geopolitical Joseph devec we've just come out of all of Europe uh grappling with its dependence on Russian gas there had been alarm Bells uh wrong when the Chinese bought the port of Perez in Greece for instance this announcement coming and it comes ahead by the way of Olaf Schultz again going so solo to Beijing on November 3rd and 4th with Business Leaders so basically I think Germany's economy is weakening and it's not only weakening since February this year it is weak already since about two or three years and the main reason for that is China over the last 20 years the biggest growth engine for German German exports was China and China is now moving in a direction where growth is going to be much smaller because this is politically wanted China's for example deleveraging its economy she is clipping the wings of its Tech sector there is a demographics change there's also the the will by China to have an economy that is much more self-reliant so basically China is changing its economic model and the main victim of that is Germany so in a sense there is a real fear that sort of the energy crisis we're talking about right now and say this is hitting Germany it's sort of the small train that is hiding the much bigger train that is China's slow down and and the consequences for Germany's and Europe's economy you have to see Schultz's decision to to continue and go on with this decision in the Hamburg port to some extent of this uh Germany is really scared if you talk to German Business Leaders but listening to you it sounds like he's latching on to a model that's changing anyways yes but it's very hard to adapt to a new reality you know um it's just that the new world that we're entering into is an economic world that is not really in Phase with Germany's economic model over the last 20 30 years Elizabeth Humber duffman you heard ambassadoronse at the outset of this conversation that their attention is always when we're at a crucial juncture for France and Germany but also for for all of the European Union in this case it's pretty simple it's because it's war in Europe right now and does that come maybe before business deals and yes we're all going to have to take a hit the wall in the in the Ukraine is is a condition of everything which is following I mean the German economy will have to ask itself many questions the decarbonization of the economy was already the first step now the second step is that everything the German economy was based on cheap energy and cheap labor is Vanishing cheap energy because of the war cheap labor because of a demographic transition transition and because Germany has not no people anymore to work and a third pillar with the exports to China yes the world economy is changing of course um yes I would say that the challenge is huge Olaf Schultz is probably a little bit tetanized by this I have to say who wouldn't be I mean who wouldn't be um scared by what is happening right now the the German industry has to pay decibel prices for energy right now already so is this going to be sustainable no it's not so in this there is going to be the industrialization with all the effects which the prosperity is going you approve his decision to go to Beijing well I have to say we have to keep business relations yes with the biggest parts of this world I mean America did it all the time I'm not saying it was good I wouldn't and never say it was good when Michael did it and what is not good while short is doing it um I think German businesses are extremely um very much involved into China there still are of course things have to be rethought um but of course the business is there and I think the relations with China have to be have to be somehow taken care of yeah I think so the French President wanted it to be the two of them together going I I need to come back to the French German relations I think the subjects that we've been talking about have to do with the autonomy of Europe in the the autonomy or the the Strategic autonomy of Europe in this huge turmoil uh the world over and we have compromises to make in the economic field in the defense field how much do we want to depend on the outside in economy the Germans automobile industry depends on between 40 and 43 percent on China this is enormous Hamburg is the first Port of import of Chinese Goods in Europe if I were Mr Schultz I would have that very much in mind so the question is how to combine those facts with keeping maintaining our independence our relative Independence or autonomy and this is the same in defense we understand very well that the Germans want to have a very strong NATO which is our case also but how much do we have to rely 100 on NATO and to to have our own responsibility and this is a discussion between the Germans and the French in in the economic field it's a question of how much should we keep for our independence in Europe and this is very difficult today to adjust because as you said the crisis there are uncertainties and the industrial Lobby in Germany is much more powerful than in in France but we have to deal with that and the Germans have seen that too much dependence on one country I mean Russia in in gas and we have told them many years ago is very dangerous so we should we have to to speak to deal with China but with um with caution lots of lessons from this war in Ukraine on Wednesday Germany's president Frank Walter steinmeyer found himself in a bomb shelter during an air raid that's in the town of corio kivka that's north of the capital in the Ukrainian capital in chair naive Province since February the 24th the Germans have gone from Main conduit of Russian gas Imports to actively arming Ukraine it's a 180 degree turn for a nation that was always wary of militarization ever since the second world war how Berlin does it is another matter a commitment to massively spend more on its own military raising eyebrows in Paris in Brussels for example the purchase of up to 35 U.S made F-35 fighter jets the French who make their own fighter jets by the way asking why not us two weeks ago 14 NATO members announcing plans to jointly purchase air defense systems uh they're talking about Israel's hour of three system U.S Patriots German Iris teas all in the mix um this is a common approach to our joint responsibility for the security of our continent and we do this by pulling our resources in order to achieve political financial and technological Synergy effect and thus close the European Gap in the field of ground-based air defense a common approach for 14 Nations but they don't include France and Spain and the future combat air system project that was so proudly launched by Berlin and Paris in 2017. and you know we've talked about being too dependent on Russia too dependent on China but we don't know what the next U.S presidential election will bring is Europe to depend on the United States for its defense that's why in France since many years we have been convinced that we had that NATO was our main pillar for defense but we needed also to have our own capacities in Europe to be able to face certain threats that the Americans wouldn't judge as threats against them during the Trump presidency in Germany there were a lot of people who started to say that Europe should do something of Our Own and Trump left immediately that was the end of it and we still think that it's very important to be able to Exist by ourselves in Europe because our interests are very often joined with those of the United States but not always and that is very important so what's your personal reaction when the when the Germans are buying f-35s instead of rafales they have had F-35 for many years so that's not the problem the problem is either they put all their uh all their wealth in the same basket or not and I think it's dangerous we should have a common basket a common European basket and if spending on different for the the Germans means under the American umbrella uh attacking the French defense industry I think it will go nowhere they will have some successes but at the end of the day it will be a big problem and for the first time we had this unbelievable project if our grandfather didn't know that to build together a combat aircraft and if we miss that I am sorry to say that I fear that in the future it will be very difficult and that that project is still uh it's still on the table still on the table but we we see the industrial Ambitions of Germany it's normal that German industry would be ambitious because in Cornelia fall we heard the head of the German military a few days ago I'm paraphrasing here saying something to the effect of we're sick of these these projects that remain theoretical forever we need our our procurement our Armament now I think uh that's that's the challenge traditionally Germany has very very strongly relied on NATO for its defense and the French have always had the ambition to work on its sovereignty also on European sovereignty in the military um Arena and have invested much in this idea of strategic autonomy that would include defense and this debate was very theoretical until the war in Ukraine where it was clear that NATO still has an important role to play no matter how brain dead the French considered NATO to have become so I think NATO remains an important important part of the discussion of how to ensure one's defense and even though the the Target vision for the French would be something that is more European and less transatlantic the Germans are pragmatists and say we have to go ahead and we are now in a in a time where we have to make important decisions about procurement in our own military strategy and you can see that this does not entirely match and that the discussion and still has to also be about where we want to be in the medium term and in the long term where we want to be in the medium term and the long term of course Berlin doesn't always get the last word Germany's chancellor has been courting Spain and the long touted midcat gas pipeline from the Iberian Peninsula through France here you see Schultz at the start of the month he was in LA karunya with his Spanish counterpart and then it was Pedro Sanchez turned to be invited 12 days later to come to Berlin this is all in the build up to last week's EU Summits where in the end the French President seemed to pull a rabbit out of his hat by instead announcing alongside the same Sanchez and Portugal's Antonio Costa a green energy pipeline that would run from Marseille to Barcelona thus probably killing midcap for for good uh Joseph devec your thoughts on on these tensions we're seeing over first the scramble to get through this winter uh and what's gonna happen next when it comes to this they're still working by the way those EU energy ministers to try to come up with this common plan they promised yeah I think sort of the energy crisis um really shows um shows a big problem and it shows the problem lies there that we still haven't come even though we're sort of eight or nine months after the beginning of this war into a moment where Europeans have really a common plan to look at how they can survive over the next two years and and I think Germany is very right um in a sense to to be opposing this gas price cap and they're fighting this I think economically it's a bad idea to do this it doesn't solve really the problem of reducing demand for energy and at the same time increasing Supply but it's not enough for Germany just to say no to this plan uh what I would wish for is that Germany would say no but say we've got an alternative plan and in a sense Germany has this alternative plan that could work quite well it is what Germany has decided to do in his own country basically if we would reproduce this on a European scale we would have a great plan a plan that also makes sense from an economic point of view the problem with this plan is just it costs money and um and who pays and who pays and I think it's in this situation it would be actually good if Europe pays for it and if Germany pays a part of that share as well because if we are today in this energy crisis it is largely because Germany Austria Italy some countries have decided to bet large on Russian energy and in an integrated Market it means that this bet is now being paid by everyone um so I believe there's a true argument to be made that that the macroeconomic response has to be European and I think Germany would have a good model that it can propose to to europeanize can there be a consensus on this Elizabeth yes absolutely let's just remember what happened in Spring 2020 with a covet crisis you know everybody was running around like chicken and trying to find masks and vaccines and it was the chaos and then slowly the European commission managed to organize nice things and and and now one can say that the the the the vaccination in within Europe was one of the best in the in the whole world so I think it will take some time on this issue on this specific energy issue which is of course a very difficult one because this as Joseph was saying means borrowing uh it perhaps yeah like changing taking some of that coveted money and exactly covet led us to European borrowing which was a very positive thing and according to me and which was by the way led by Olaf Charles as a finance minister then co-led by him so I think that um I think that Europe will find I'm not saying Europe will find a way out because this is a real difficult challenge right now but Europe will manage to unite around this problem I'm certain about that when it can tame sometime it can take a few months few months and a few a few months I don't know does Europe have a few months Bernardino not much but as you said when you look back for instance in the after the crisis during the crisis of 2008-2009 the Germans were opposed to any bailout to any country the Germans were opposed to any governance of the E of the Euro the Germans had this very strong restrictions on the common attitude in this crisis and at the end of the day Mrs Merkel uh decided to to to to to to to progress and and was uh together with the the rest of the of Europe so in this field it's a very difficult because uh I remind you that energy was not a a competent European competence but if you think today that we are the one of the richest economic zones in the world we have with us a sort of enormous weight in as a as a buyer on the market if we were coordinating at least on on the international markets we would have a much more important weight and that would be very positive and as this is our interests I think this will come uh Cornelius you heard Joseph devec talking about how uh you have uh Germany which bet big on Russian gas is there the feeling where you are that uh there's a resentment that's kind of growing the way it grew in 2007 eight from uh uh the Latin countries of Europe uh over uh German calls for fiscal purity I do think that Germany is is conscious of um the expectations that are on it and maybe I will say that um the irritation on Emmanuel macaws and the French government side certainly is that the energy choices of Germany and of some other countries are at the origin of a crisis that now I have to have to has to be borne by everybody and that's why the expectation would be that we really talk through a european-wide response to energy provision and it does I think take some time to get there but uh I think there's an understanding that we need to get there the the German [Music] stake right now is not just towards France or its other partners it's also towards the east because I think Germany realizes that the Central and Eastern European countries feel that they've been let down by Germany which had a very economic approach to energy when everybody was warning about the um the vulnerabilities that these energy choices brought with it so Germany has to to to make amends so both to the to the French partners and to the eastern and central European countries and is I think uh embracing this geopolitical responsibility to a certain degree but in a context where there is very um it's a very very um high expectations also internally a lot of fear about how energy will evolve over the winter in inside Germany and much pressure from the Coalition Partners on very important fiscal choices very expensive choices that now have to be made for the military for the energy crisis the green transition is of course not going away so this is a um is a difficult time to make a very important policy decisions and I think Germany has to make sure that it brings all of these expectations under the same um in the same in the same solution and the European integration certainly is a Way Forward we've just heard energy wasn't a European area of competence and will now have to be defense as you've mentioned is in the same in the same same space and we used to say that European integration moves forward in crisis in a way that one can describe as failing forward because we hit a wall we come together we try to find a solution because we realize that what has been done in the past was not sufficient Elizabeth adding uh medicine of course to uh to that to that list uh it's it's though there is a question though and we mentioned at the outset this question of leadership uh uh he ran a very smart campaign Olaf Schultz basically pitching himself as con the continuity candidate even though Angela Merkel was not from his camp I'm going to be a safe Pair of Hands I'm going to move proceed with caution again and we heard uh Bernardino describe that that caution how it worked in the past uh here we don't have a lot of time uh he is is Schultz up to this task well you have to know that drums love continuity and the gems love stability and yes Olaf Schultz and somehow incarnated that he was Angela Marcus Finance Minister it was a grand Coalition so people voted for him knowing who he is and what politics he's going to do um I personally yes I'm convinced he's up to it what I would say is it's a Pity that criticizing Germany is something which is politically very rewarding in in France in all political parties and on the other side criticizing France or southern Europe is always very rewarding also in German political parties so this this is you know this is something I regret but is it's the dynamic of this relationship it's it's I don't know if this is ever going to change but it exists has been existing for decades Joseph who is this this the same old same old uh a bit of Germany bashing a bit of uh what they call Club Med sometimes disparagingly the southern European countries bashing is at a time of crisis I think we're in a different moment um I mean it's sort of we're really in a different moment as in terms that sort of the geopolitics and the economics are changing for example it's interesting to see that Germany believes that this sort of epicenter or the point of gravity in Europe is moving towards the east it believes Schultz I think he makes clear in his speeches that the franco-german relationship is not enough that Germany has to be sort of you know an independent broker also a bit independent from France because this franco-german relationship has also often created resentments towards Eastern Europe so he thinks of a strong role for for Europe for Germany to lead much more and to lead more openly much more than Merkel but at the same time we're actually at a moment of peak economic dominance of Germany in Europe um the last 20 years this Ascent of Germany is now history if we look at the last two three years France has overtaken Germany for example in terms of GDP growth and so I think that the debates in Europe will change and we're not seeing for example in this energy crisis a debate of the South against the fiscal frugals in a sense because right now it is countries like Germany and Austria former fiscal frugals but also Southern countries like Italy who have brought the continent into the energy crisis that we are seeing today so the camps that are emerging from this crisis are different from the camps that have existed in the past when you think back to when you were appointed ambassador to Berlin in 2007 and you hear Joseph devec talk about how Germany right now is that it's a peak height of power within the block of 27. your thoughts on what's changed and where it's going now the problem is not Germany the problem is France in that case because we have not done our job so we have to do our job to reform and to have again a better competitiveness and so on and so forth the question is strategy what do we want to achieve is it possible to have a gem a big Germany leading Nissan centered Europe which the French are very suspicious of uh I don't know if the French are suspicious the French are thinking as very often we don't we are not good in details but we have big Ideas the Germans hate Big Ideas and uh what we have this idea of Europe having a sort of existence uh Consciousness in in the world and today we are we are very rich we have many ideas and we our weight in the world is ridiculous compared to what we could uh the the role we could play and the role we could play could be extremely positive it so we have in matters of economy to take a certain number of decisions to know whether we want to have for instance European clouds or things like this which are Elementary we have been talking about that for for 10 years and today when you look at the reality there is nothing we should speak about anything that our banks our financial influences because it's not the key the Americans are much better than we are this is we have to do that in alone France cannot do it alone Germany could do it has the impression today that it can do it I'm not sure so together we can do it the old say of the goal we say Europe without a good understanding between the girls and the and the turtle it doesn't work it will never work it has to work so that's what my hope is that after such a launch a strategy Consciousness will be will be stronger accordingly evolved when you look at the personality of Emmanuel macron the personality of Olaf Schultz is uh what balance is asking for doable it's true that they have two different personalities and even for German standards Ola Schultz is is a rather taciturn and has been accused of not being the most communicative of all politicians one could imagine but I think the the personality of the leaders doesn't matter as much because they do come together in meetings and they can put their differences on a table and discuss it and we've seen that this is last three hours so I'm sure a lot of things have been dealt with I think it's very important that at all levels and and that's the uh the art of diplomacy at all levels the coordination is tied and sufficiently um between the French and the Germans and sufficiently important to be taking into account when um what seems to be a domestic political decision is being made I think here the the announcement of the relief package the 200 billion relief package at a day where there was a meeting with Elizabeth born a program was a diplomatic faux and that shouldn't happen if the if the advisors would have paid a little bit more attention it's not the communicative style of an of an Olaf Schultz but um I think the the the problem load is so heavy that some of these things are bound to happen and the question is now how we move forward from here and which issues can be dealt with between the two leaders and it's true also that we are in a moment where there's important Paradigm change in uh in in Germany that has been mentioned in military areas but also with the maxim that uh Olaf Schultz and Frank Walter steinmeier stand for as much as the past government and that's the belief that you can change the world through trade connections then they still believe that it has been I think they still do and I think they still try to make the world better by integration and that that's something also expressed we will never deglobalize or decouple or go all the way um into something that would be more fragmented world but I think it is also slowly becoming clear that trade is not just a matter of change but also an exposure to vulnerability that has to be dealt with and that is the the discussion of the gas pipelines of the critical infrastructure and I think the Germans are waking up to this now Joseph de vac yes I think so I mean uh I also believe in you know that it's good to have trade and to have a world economy and to be integrated economically and I think it has made the world better the European Union is an example of how this can be but since February if we had a dime for every time we had a discussion on this Set uh talking about how oh for years we thought that we could bring the Russians into the fold no I think the idea basically works but it just has its big big limits with autocratic regimes and with dictatorships where there are politicians in charge that decide that politics is more important than economics and I think our problem was basically in a sense to take this European idea of you know creating economic into interdependence between us which was great in preventing another war in Europe and think we can apply it also to autocratic regimes like Russia and China and here again it's okay to sell toothbrushes to them but not sell your Port do you agree with uh with Mikhail sorry with cornelioval um Elizabeth humperdorf Miller that there is an Awakening in Germany oh yes there is an Awakening absolutely a German Germans feel themselves very vulnerable right now um it's going to over all political parties but SPD is is specifically feels concerned also because of former Chancellor of course who initiated all this these deals with Russia and I have to show I have to say Schultz was the right one of the right hands of of Schroeder so there is this tradition this pro-russian tradition within the social Democrats in Germany for sure and um now there isn't and Maya the president of the Republic is also was also part of this group of people so um they honestly thought that Commerce and trade would be the way to to be on on in best terms and maybe to have a bright future together I don't know but then Russia is maybe also a bad example because then a lot of irrationality came in so I mean breaking into Ukraine was in in some way is something has been something very irrational so um it's not always easy I mean it's not always easy to negotiate with dictators of course but if they're better to sell them toothbrushes as Joseph was saying yeah I mean energy is probably not the the best thing to trade with this kind of country hindsight is 2020. Elizabeth uh Humber Dorff Miller I want to thank you so much I want to thank uh as well bernaldo Joseph accordingly evolved for being with us from Berlin thank you for joining us here in the France 24 today [Music] the history of

Channel: FRANCE 24 English

Views: 190,209

Keywords: Arms, Barcelona, Berlin, Bundestag, China, Cosco, Costa, EU, Elysee, Fighter Jets, France, Germany, Habeck, Hamburg, Helicopters, Italy, Lambrecht, Macron, Marseille, Meloni, Merkel, MidCat, NATO, Nuclear, Pipeline, Planes, Port, Portugal, Putin, Russia, Sanchez, Sarkozy, Scholz, Spain, US, Ukraine, Von Der Leyen, Xi Jinping, Zelensky, defence, energy, gas, sanctions, war

Id: oNwklH_2030

Length: 44min 37sec (2677 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 26 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/NobleAzorean]

Are the Germans naive or dumb? Seriously. They are seeing wht is happening with Russia and their dependency on them. Yet they are selling to China. Serously? They dont learn? This is so disapointing and for us to be worried.