Scholz in Washington: Three things about German foreign policy his CNN spot will teach you
In a departure from previous German Chancellors, Olaf Scholz gave an extended English interview to CNN’s Jake Tapper while in Washington. And there’s a lot it will teach you about German diplomacy.
As Olaf Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock continue their packed schedules of visits to Washington, Kyiv, and Moscow to try and halt a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine, Scholz made the unusual step of giving an extended television interview in English. The Chancellor’s sit-down with CNN’s Jake Tapper certainly hints that Scholz is willing to break with at least some of his predecessors’ traditions. But beyond that, what does it tell us about German foreign policy—both relating to Ukraine and in general?
Plenty.
Although Tapper asked Scholz about Ukraine in particular, this single interview will tell you a lot about German diplomacy—specifically how it uses its extensive financial resources, how it venerates dialogue, and why it often avoids blunt language we might be used to seeing from US or UK leaders.
Checkbook Diplomat
As I outlined in my last post, German power is rooted in its economic strength. And internationally, Germany certainly uses its vast financial resources in what some foreign policy experts call “checkbook diplomacy.” The country is the fourth largest contributor to the UN budget and is one of the largest OECD donors of international development assistance. It is also the single largest net contributor to the European Union budget—meaning that while Germany does receive money back from the EU, it puts in far more than it takes out.
Germany has already provided about $2 billion USD to Ukraine specifically. And that number doesn’t count Germany’s share of about $3.8 billion Ukraine has received from the EU since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
“We are the one that is giving most of the money that is needed for economic resilience of Ukraine,” Scholz told Tapper. At his joint press conference with Joe Biden, Scholz said Germany was committed to continuing its financial commitment to Ukraine.
But Germany has also been accused of leaning too much on its wealth instead of strategy, or as a way of ducking difficult foreign policy decisions. In July 2021, Germany agreed to further fund Ukraine’s energy security—with about €148 million as just an initial donation—in exchange for the US dropping its threat to sanction companies involved in constructing the controversial Nordstream II pipeline between Russia and Germany. In reaction, one headline from the FAZ newspaper read: “Germany buys its way out.” It’s also worth noting that Scholz is not the only person in official Berlin that will often reference German financial assistance—including for a field hospital in Ukraine—when asked about why the country won’t send defensive weapons.
Dialogue for its own sake?
Alongside emphasizing German financial contributions, Scholz was quick to highlight the many diplomatic formats in place for negotiating with Russia, including the “Normandy Format” consisting of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany—as well as the OSCE and recent talks within the NATO-Russia Council.
“Which has not happened for a long time and now is starting again,” Scholz told Tapper. “Yes, we just accusing each other in that situation, but this is a step forward if you look at the past.”
But a step forward to what exactly? Dialogue is happening, but only because Russia has massively built up its military presence on Ukraine’s border. It’s difficult to see how that is a step forward unless it leads to an actual result Germany, Ukraine, and NATO might be able to all see as some sort of success. It’s still too early to know if that will indeed happen.
In this sense, Scholz’s answer to Tapper gives us a peek into another particularity of many German political elites—the premium placed on keeping dialogue open and negotiations going—even when it’s not clear those negotiations are yielding any real results. The importance of keeping everyone at the table, even when not everyone is playing by the rules, is not simply viewed as a means to an end, but as a noble end in itself.
Strategic ambiguity
At the joint Scholz-Biden press conference, the US President told reporters that if Russia invades Ukraine “there will be no longer a Nordstream II. We will bring an end to it.”
Scholz was not that explicit in his language, something Tapper asked him about, noting that Scholz had referred to “strategic ambiguity” over questions about whether the pipeline would be cancelled. And although Scholz didn’t explicitly commit to shutting down Nordstream II if Russia invaded Ukraine, he didn’t contradict Biden either.
“All of the steps we will take, we will do together. As the President said, we are preparing for that,” Scholz told Tapper. “What we do today is giving this very strong answer to Russia, saying ‘if you invade Ukraine, this will have a very high price for you—which will have high impacts on your economy and the chances for your development. And we are ready to take steps that will have costs for us—ourselves.’”
Strategic ambiguity certainly has a following in Berlin. “I don’t think its very smart to speculate in public about sanctions and things like that,” Ralf Stegner, a Member of the Bundestag’s Foreign Affairs Committee from Scholz’s Social Democrats, told public broadcaster Deutsche Welle. “You should play a chess game. You don’t tell the other side publicly, your moves.”
While it may be more characteristic of American and British leaders to talk tough publicly in the hope that it will deter aggressors like Putin, there is a clear German preference for negotiating behind closed doors. Previous Chancellor Angela Merkel certainly did this, so Scholz’s strategy is nothing new. Remaining ambiguous in public gives German negotiators flexibility during private meetings at the diplomatic table—both to achieve the overall result they want and to limit the consequences at home, either in terms of economic interests or German public opinion.
Got a question about German power, politics, or policy you might like to see addressed in a post? Write to aarongburnett@protonmail.com