Last week, the German Parliament passed a resolution that asked Chancellor
Angela Merkel to needle Russian President Vladimir Putin about the resurgence
of repressive, antidemocratic tendencies in Russia. It did not go unnoticed at
the Kremlin. And it paved the way, so to speak, for her trip to Moscow on
Friday—to re-cement their “strategic partnership.”
Complaints about the resolution filtered back to the point where Foreign
Minister Guido Westerwelle, just before departing for Moscow, warned his
countrymen not to overdo their criticism of Russia. It’s in the interests of
Germany, he mused, to expand the “strategic partnership”; Russia was needed as
a geopolitical and economic partner.
Indeed. Merkel arrived in Moscow with her entourage that included eight ministers
and corporate chieftains by the planeload—she doesn’t leave home without them.
With Merkel and Putin looking on, these chieftains and their Russian
counterparts signed contracts for billions of euros, a ritual that German
chancellors have to perform when abroad. It’s part of Germany’s mercantilist
foreign policy. Siemens CEO Peter Löscher bagged perhaps the biggest deal, a
declaration of intent to deliver 695 electric locomotives for €2.5 billion
($3.2 billion) to Russian Railways (RZD), an elephantine state-owned company
with 950,000 employees.
That’s what really mattered. Criticism of Russia—carefully calibrated and
range-bound—would be for consumption at home, where anti-Russian sentiment has
been rising. With elections coming up next year, Merkel, the consummate
political animal, is treading a fine line: deliver a bland rebuke that would
barely satisfy voters in Germany and help arrange deals that would fully
satisfy German industry.