European politicians have criticized recent statements by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel regarding the EU’s policy toward Russia, emphasizing that her remarks do not represent Germany’s official position and distort historical facts.
Chair of the Lithuanian Seimas Committee on Foreign Affairs, Social Democrat Remigijus Motuzas, said Merkel’s comments should not be viewed as the official stance of Berlin, LRT reported on October 6. According to him, Europe’s relations with Russia were tense long before 2021.
“Crimea was occupied in 2014, and in fact, from 2015 until the war in Ukraine in 2022, relations with Russia were already strained… The Minsk agreements were not signed—it was Russia that broke them, blocked them, and refused to agree on certain provisions,” Motuzas said.
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He acknowledged, however, that for many years there were differences between Western and Eastern EU member states in their approach to Moscow.
“Some European Union countries probably still hoped that Russia would come to its senses and did not expect this full-scale invasion. They still hoped, and from that, one can probably conclude that back in 2015, Germany itself signed an agreement with Russia on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline,” he added.
Conservative MP Žygimantas Pavilionis took a stronger tone, accusing Merkel of “appeasing Putin.”
“Angela Merkel represents a long-standing tradition of appeasing Vladimir Putin, thanks to which Russian tanks are now in both Georgia and Ukraine. And if that line were continued today, I fear that they would be somewhere on their way to Berlin and on our territory,” Žygimantas Pavilionis said.
According to LRT, Pavilionis also linked Merkel’s remarks to domestic politics in Germany, suggesting she is trying to capitalize on Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s declining approval ratings. “I think she is now trying to stir up a wave of those lovers of Russia, admirers of Vladimir Putin, against Friedrich Merz,” he said.
At the same time, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski also joined the criticism, responding to Merkel’s recent interview by saying, Polsat reported on October 6, “It is obvious that the Chancellor has forgotten how her own government reacted to our protests.”
Speaking after a meeting with Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, Sikorski said Merkel’s claim that Central European countries did not oppose the Nord Stream project was false.
“Look at the reaction of the German government to what I said back in 2007—that we did not like agreements made over our heads. So the Chancellor must have forgotten how her own government reacted to our protests,” he concluded.
Earlier, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the suspension of peace talks with Russia was partly influenced by Poland and the Baltic states, telling the Hungarian outlet Partizán that she had sought a new EU format for direct talks with Vladimir Putin as she “felt he no longer took the Minsk agreements seriously.”
“That’s why I wanted a new format … where we would speak directly with Putin as the European Union … Some did not support that. These were primarily the Baltic States, but Poland was also against it because they feared that we would not have a common policy towards Russia,” Merkel said.
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