Illustrative Image
Former German leader is on a campaign to preserve her legacy as Germany’s economy struggles.
Written by Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher
Angela Merkel has replaced her conspicuous months-long silence on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict by making numerous statements in recent weeks, even noting that “Putin should be taken seriously” and that she does not regret her energy policy towards Russia. The former head of the German government is unlikely to directly mediate in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or attempt to return as chancellor, which she left after 16 years in 2021. However, she still does wield a lot of public influence.
Merkel has been experiencing fierce criticism in Germany because she said that a completely different kind of contact must be made with Russia. For this reason, she spoke about a pan-European security architecture, which implies a relationship that does not exclude Russia since there cannot be security in Europe without Russia.
Critics of Merkel argue that her energy policy was wrong despite the fact it provided Germany with prosperity. They also criticise her relations with Beijing even though the extensive Chinese market provides great privileges to the German economy.
Merkel’s recent statements should be viewed in the context of preserving her legacy. Many believe that the war in Ukraine would not have happened if she had remained chancellor, however this is unlikely as Washington, and not Brussels, is the main powerbroker in Kiev.
The former German chancellor is effectively powerless to do anything to try and alleviate the conflict in Ukraine. Although she was behind the Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 agreements, those peace initiatives were sabotaged by the Americans.
It is also recalled that Merkel prevented Ukraine from joining NATO in 2008, even though the Americans strongly insisted on it. She warned then that Ukraine’s entry into NATO would be a prelude to war, and she still stands by that decision today because it turned out that Ukraine’s approach to NATO was a red line that the Russians could not accept.
She also defended Nord Stream 2 until the end of her chancellorship and her last visit to the White House prevented the introduction of sanctions. The former chancellor then saved Nord Stream 2 by strongly resisting Washington’s pressure, but Olaf Scholz closed it after coming to power.
All American administrations, from Obama to Trump and Biden, have exerted strong pressure on Germany, but Merkel withstood it all. Now Scholz has capitulated to most pressure and Germany is the biggest victim of the anti-Russia sanctions.
In its latest World Economic Outlook report, the International Monetary Fund said that key European economies will fall into “technical recession” next year, including Germany. The report comes as the German government slashed its growth forecast for this year and predicts the economy will shrink in 2023.
DW reported that the economy ministry expects Germany’s gross domestic product to grow by 1.4% this year and then decline by 0.4% next year, a far cry from its estimates in late April when it had forecast 2.2% growth in 2022 and 2.5% next year.
Robert Habeck, the German vice-chancellor and economy minister, said the “substantial economic downturn” would be “concentrated in the third and fourth quarters of this year and the first quarter of 2023”.
A combination of soaring prices, shortages of energy and supply chain bottlenecks are predicted to cause the German gross domestic product to contract in the next three quarters. A rebound is not expected until 2024, with growth estimated at 2.4 per cent.
Sanctions against Russia and the associated issues of gas supply has plunged Germany into its worst energy crisis since the second world war. Many companies have reduced production or even shut down due to soaring gas prices. This is the exact scenario that Merkel wanted to avoid, hence why she supported peace in Donbass.
The economic impact that disrupted energy will have on Germany depends on several factors, such as the volume of the disruption, duration and the winter’s severity. Given the volumes imported from Russia, Germany will be one of the hardest-hit economies in the EU if there is a complete Russian gas shutoff, something that could happen if the EU insists on a price cap. This will severely weaken a Germany that had become economically dominant under Merkel’s leadership as she helped maintain a volatile peace in Ukraine and took advantage of Russian gas at favourable prices.
It is for this reason that she is now speaking about the Ukraine crisis after many months of silence, effectively a defence of her legacy.
One of Germany’s great strengths following the peaceful fall of the Berlin Wall and re-unification was good business relations with both East and West, yet it is now 30 years since East Germany was part of the USSR, and those times are being forgotten. Many East Germans were sorry in some respects when this happened, becoming part of the West wasn’t all good news. Unwelcome American influence in Germany is nothing new, the 2004 song by Rammstein “Amerika” is about this very thing. It is not so prevalent as it was but there is also anti-German sentiment dating from WW2, it still isn’t uncommon for related jibes to be heard, so the Germans certainly need to be careful they aren’t hung out to dry by their rivals.
“since East Germany was part of the USSR”
sorry Nobodyinparticular , you really don’t know or you write on purpose?
We must be careful and think what we write: it’s MSM style to write such bullshit
The East Germans are also Germans. They were fed up with Sovjet influence and dictatorship , but they mostly didn’t dream of the “Golden West” , how the MSM describe it. They dreamed of the united independent Germany , but what they got is just another “dependent territories” , which they mostly reject today.
“Wir sind das Volk” (“We are the people”) doesn’t mean “We want McDonald’s and FFF (ficken-fressen-fernsehen : f*ck-eat up-watch TV)”
1990 it meant : freedom (first from communism of course), united Germany and independence.
—
This must be understood today , when the experts wonder about “right wing East Germans”
Mama kosher Merkel resurfaces juice must be friken a sumting
Merkel has more Charisma out of Office than putan despite his table collection.
Right. It’s Putin’s lack of charisma that made the Five Eyes go into desperate, frothing overdrive to denigrate his image at every turn.
“It’s Putin’s lack of charisma”
LOL , if Putin has no charisma , then who in the world got it?
Al-Yamanis got Charisma, you phaggot putanist.
Merkel is right.
American proxies in the Ukraine took orders from their masters to sabotage the Minsk agreements.
Germany should withdraw from this sanctions lunacy and NATO madness: better late than never.
That Merkel Cunt destroyed Germany. And the pathetic Germans let it happen
I agree. It has to do with her legacy.
Im tired of being a troll and a spammer. After many month of silence, I urge Poland and Ukraine to seek peace with London.
Awww sissy must be from a shithole country like Rumania, Cuckasia, Pooland or some of the tiny shithole places called Baltic Sissies. Dreaming of the giant shithole from sea to sea, meh?
Amed sounds like someone who is vying to get a Big Job on the CIA payroll. Merkel was a German leader of substance, Loaf von Holz has the intelligence and spine of an Amoeba while the Green Nazi Troika of Ursula auf der Lúgen, Rober T Habeck und Annaleana Bareback are stooges for MGM aka Merica’s German Muppets and are soley responsible for making Germany Poor Again. Loaf von Holz’s grandaddy would have no problem puttin those 3 up against a wall and slitting eine arterie oder tzwo. Merkel understood Putin, the Kremlin und Russland. She got the deal of the centuary to make Germany very rich. This seriously pissed off the Brits and the Yanks. The Yanki Rattle snakes had a plan and the Empireless Brits would help impliment it. This brings us to where we NOW are. Russia has declared war on NATOs Poxy army and I imagine will have killed a quarter of a million of them by February 2023. Zelensky will high 5 his way to Florida and set-up a Government in waiting. After their 2nd or 3rd terrorist attack he and his motley gang will be taken out and hosre whipped with braided bullhair.. Gremany and the EU will implode Yankiland’s Navy will run amock as Lieutenent General Brigadier Toyman modifys all Big Guns to look Phalic. SantiKlaus Schaube will be flushed down the shitter. Goodness, goodness me nobody has a clue as to what will happen everafter. A bit of a downer really. Never mind uppers will be supplied on a regular basis to help keep those who are still alive Happy-out.
This is like:’Wake up Germany, what do you waiting for? Look what you had and look at you now?’.
It is unlikely that the author of this article, Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher, will read my comment, but I’m going to write it anyway. I’d like to draw his attention to two facts:
Flight Egypt Air 990 on October 31 (Halloween), 1999, fell out of the sky into the ocean off the East coast of the US on its way from L.A. via NYC to Cairo. I don’t know how it was done but the US destroyed the airplane. They cynically claimed it was “pilot suicide” – the most ridiculous thing ever invented.
On 3/24/15 (can you see the pyramid?), flight GermanWings 9525, an Airbus A320-211, on its way from Barcelona to Düsseldorf, crashed into the French Alpes – controlled flight into terrain.
It is obvious that the remote controlled autopilot (which most people don’t know about, including the crew) was used to remove control of the airplane from the pilots. The RC autopilot is a safety feature to protect the flight in the case of a highjacking or loss of pressure in the cockpit, leaving the pilots unconscious.
As with Egypt Air 990 on Halloween ’99, the perpetrator is the USA. (You can never rule out some UK or Israel participation, but those are implementation details.) They murdered 150 people and then cynically claimed, via the New York Times, the Jewish mouthpiece of the American World Order, that it was “pilot suicide” – the most laughable thing ever invented.
Now what was the motive? I don’t know the motive in the case of Egypt Air. There must have been more than Halloween, though.
As for GermanWings, the motive is quite clear. In February 2015, chancellor Merkel did something very unusual: She took a foreign policy initiative without consulting with the US. Her objective was to bring an end or a freeze to the ongoing civil war in the Eastern Ukraine. It was feared that this conflict would lead to something very bad for Europe.
In her endeavour, chancellor Merkel was accompanied by then French president François Hollande. They travelled to Kiev, then to Moscow, and then to Minsk, where they negotiated and signed the famous Minsk-2 agreement with puppet Poroshenko, which went counter to the efforts of the war party in the US (it is unknown to me whether there is such a thing as a “peace party” in the US, but I strongly doubt it and have never seen substantive evidence for one).
This move by Ms Merkel must have angered Victoria “Fuck the EU” Nuland and her accomplices, who were in charge of the Ukraine dossier. They decided to punish Merkel and Germany by teaching her a lesson … by cutting her wings, her GermanWings, the symbolics being too heavy to be overlooked here.
First the cybernetics of it were tested on some other flights, and then, on March 24, the horror show was put into action.
After some initial bewilderment, with the help of a servile French prosecutor (the role of historically treacherous France in this affair being unclear to me), German authorities locked in on the laughable “pilot suicide” version put forth by the French clown in a concerted and most timely manner.
In the following weeks of this perplexing 2015 spring, two interesting news items were revealed on German media, the kind of thing once reported in a short notice never to be heard of again.
First, on April 15, the public were informed that experts were checking whether airplanes had not better have remote control implanted in order to prevent high-jacking (by “suicidal co-pilots”, for example). Obviously, this was a lie: the tech had long been in place, without the pilots being in the loop.
Then, on April 30, it was learned that the Airbus company had filed a criminal complaint against unknown for industrial espionage. I don’t know what that pertained to precisely, but I have a very clear idea that the access codes or tech for locking onto the avionics and remote controlling the aircraft (via radio link, either satellite, terrestrian, or airborne) had been compromised … which enabled the mass murderers to do their gruesome job – at the behest of the USA.
This is the story of GermanWings 9525 on 3/24/15.
interesting , but you know you need some proofs to claim like this
See the plane crash near Smolensk (Russia) 2010 with the whole government crew of Poland. There are millions of Poles who believe it was Putin. It’s one of the reasons , why so many people there support Ukraine and hate Putin.
I tried to get a picture , but no chance. There is really not a single piece of proof. conspiracy theories grow exponentially. To suspect , assume and guess is not enough. See also MH 17 over Donetzk. The official story of the West is trash , but the conspiracy theories in Internet are not better either.
Repost, as my comment does not show up any more:
It is unlikely that the author of this article, Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher, will read my comment, but I’m going to write it anyway. I’d like to draw his attention to two facts:
Flight Egypt Air 990 on October 31 (Halloween), 1999, fell out of the sky into the ocean off the East coast of the US on its way from L.A. via NYC to Cairo. I don’t know how it was done but the US destroyed the airplane. They cynically claimed it was “pilot suicide” – the most ridiculous thing ever invented.
On 3/24/15 (can you see the pyramid?), flight GermanWings 9525, an Airbus A320-211, on its way from Barcelona to Düsseldorf, crashed into the French Alpes – controlled flight into terrain.
It is obvious that the remote controlled autopilot (which most people don’t know about, including the crew) was used to remove control of the airplane from the pilots. The RC autopilot is a safety feature to protect the flight in the case of a highjacking or loss of pressure in the cockpit, leaving the pilots unconscious.
As with Egypt Air 990 on Halloween ’99, the perpetrator is the USA. (You can never rule out some UK or Israel participation, but those are implementation details.) They murdered 150 people and then cynically claimed, via the New York Times, the Jewish mouthpiece of the American World Order, that it was “pilot suicide” – the most laughable thing ever invented.
Now what was the motive? I don’t know the motive in the case of Egypt Air. There must have been more than Halloween, though.
As for GermanWings, the motive is quite clear. In February 2015, chancellor Merkel did something very unusual: She took a foreign policy initiative without consulting with the US. Her objective was to bring an end or a freeze to the ongoing civil war in the Eastern Ukraine. It was feared that this conflict would lead to something very bad for Europe.
In her endeavour, chancellor Merkel was accompanied by then French president François Hollande. They travelled to Kiev, then to Moscow, and then to Minsk, where they negotiated and signed the famous Minsk-2 agreement with puppet Poroshenko, which went counter to the efforts of the war party in the US (it is unknown to me whether there is such a thing as a “peace party” in the US, but I strongly doubt it and have never seen substantive evidence for one).
This move by Ms Merkel must have angered Victoria “Fuck the EU” Nuland and her accomplices, who were in charge of the Ukraine dossier. They decided to punish Merkel and Germany by teaching her a lesson … by cutting her wings, her GermanWings, the symbolics being too heavy to be overlooked here.
First the cybernetics of it were tested on some other flights, and then, on March 24, the horror show was put into action.
After some initial bewilderment, with the help of a servile French prosecutor (the role of historically treacherous France in this affair being unclear to me), German authorities locked in on the laughable “pilot suicide” version put forth by the French clown in a concerted and most timely manner.
In the following weeks of this perplexing 2015 spring, two interesting news items were revealed on German media, the kind of thing once reported in a short notice never to be heard of again.
First, on April 15, the public were informed that experts were checking whether airplanes had not better have remote control implanted in order to prevent high-jacking (by “suicidal co-pilots”, for example). Obviously, this was a lie: the tech had long been in place, without the pilots being in the loop.
Then, on April 30, it was learned that the Airbus company had filed a criminal complaint against unknown for industrial espionage. I don’t know what that pertained to precisely, but I have a very clear idea that the access codes or tech for locking onto the avionics and remote controlling the aircraft (via radio link, either satellite, terrestrian, or airborne) had been compromised … which enabled the mass murderers to do their gruesome job – at the behest of the USA.
This is the story of GermanWings 9525 on 3/24/15.
Proof needs to be brought to make the point about “pilot suicide”. There is no such proof. It is the most laughable thing ever invented. Millions of bus drivers on the road any day, and never heard of a bus driver suicide.
As for the Polish claim, that is indeed a stupid conspiracy theory. They crashed because some high-ranking Polish general, under the influence of alcohol early in the morning as found by investigators, forced the Polish pilot to do things as ordered instead of following professional rules. Meteorological conditions in Smolensk were strictly against the airplane landing there, and the Polish plane was advised accordingly by Russian ATC. The pilot would certainly have heeded the advice, but he wasn’t allowed to. Incredible arrogance of the Polish general is to blame for the accident, and nothing else.
I don’t spread “conspiracy theories”, I make a technical argument. And you don’t. You’re not addressing the points I made, and you’re staging a diversion on an unrelated incident that has nothing to do with the topic of the article or my pertinent comment.
In addition, the fact that my comment has been downvoted so much it doesn’t show up any more, whereas the puniest trash fares just fine in this comment section, unmistakingly points to concerted NATO/Azi troll action, further supporting my observations on an act of Anglozionist mass murder and state sponsored terrorism against innocent civilians from mostly Germany and Spain.
So we gain further insight by the obfuscation & denial actions of the disinformation agents.
At the end of the day, the German people are the dumb ones. They let the US brainwash them, even if it defies commonsense or logic.
Not at all. Germans know what is going on – at least many, perhaps most. Still, as you can see, it’s not a matter of ‘knowing’, it’s a matter of not being a sovereign nation. Schröder opposed and was made to loose the elections etc. Anyway. I shouldn’t even reply to such a stupid statement I guess.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7918600.html
Angela Merkel has turned complete totalitarian with the onset of C. She would bow to the agenda of gen-injection, confinement, gagging. All these were and are crimes. She always was a political opportunist as well. She went licking US boots when the Schröder-Fischer government resisted (direct) participation in the 2nd US war against Iraq.
However, she mostly tried to keep good relations with Russia; not only, I think, because she knew how beneficial such relations could be in terms of energy, trade etc., but also because, despite all here boot-licking in the US, was aware that Germany is a country of the middle. It needs good relations with Russia. And why not? She’s also not a Russophobic. Apparently, she speaks Russian well – she even won a price for that as a pupil and was awarded a trip to Moscow.
Indeed the best thing she ever did in her carreer, was to form ties with Russia. It’s absurd but telling, that she’s under attack for precisely that thing now. I think she is genuinely concerned about how things are shaping up. Remember that she got one of here “shaking fits” (her body started shaking and trembling without her being able to control it) when Zelensky first visited Berlin (18th of June 2019). I think she knew what was happening and coming… and so agitated that her body showed it.
I salute her for having (finally!) some courage to speak up against the madness in German politics.
Link to Merkel’s fit at Zelensky’s visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN8iIvkbPlE
yes I agree , finally Merkel is the daughter of the totalitarian system , but moreover she was addicted to power and thus ready to lick a.. of the superpowers. It is in my opinion not true , that she wanted to rescue Germany from decline. And I think she couldn’t help to prevent the war in Ukraine.
STASI Erika will be despised for ever by the Germanistan peasantry for having imported the detritus of the angloZionaZi chosenite wars of expansion in the ME. This wretch has destroyed the social cohesion of Urupp and allowed the unelected traitors of the EUSSR to take total control of the unfortunate tax cattle trapped in gulag EUSSR. Irrespective of what STASI Erika says she will be seen as a stooge of the Washing town demons and a faithful lap dog of the elitist filth behind the WEF.
Go to hell already, Erika, Urupp is sick and tired of your bloated mug.
Z
> “Critics of Merkel argue that her energy policy was wrong despite the fact it provided Germany with prosperity. They also criticise her relations with Beijing even though the extensive Chinese market provides great privileges to the German economy.”
any policy that benefits Germany at cost to US influence and control is automatically bad. It’s the Law?