Is Europe "chickening out" when it comes to Russia? | Berlin Briefing Podcast

The Russians who are welcoming what just came out of the EU summit, because it shied away from directly tapping into this Russian money, they can rightly claim for themselves saying: “Look when it gets serious, the Europeans are to some degree chickening out.” And this also means that the United States will not be able to benefit from this money itself. So, the interest in having the Europeans at the table could somewhat wane on the American side, and that would be a catastrophe geopolitically for the Europeans. So, my argument would be, yes, the Europeans found a very European solution and compromise, but they failed to live up to this moment. And that's exactly what Friedrich Merz had demanded. And this is his style, not saying: “OK, let's see what's doable,” but saying: “This is where we need to get to.” And that's what he did and now he suffers to some degree in terms of credibility because he didn't manage to get his European partners, particularly Belgium, but also several others, the Italians notably as well, to sign off on actually getting serious in tapping into that Russian money.

#Germany #Russia #GermanPolitics

For more news go to

Follow DW on social media:

Für Videos in deutscher Sprache besuchen Sie