Angela Merkel defends the decision to block Ukraine's admission to NATO – BBC interview

Fragments of the former chancellor's new interview German from the BBC were published by the station on Monday. Angela Merkel In the conversation she defended, among others, its decision to block the road to accession in 2008 Ukraine to the North Atlantic Alliance. In her opinion, otherwise war in Ukraine it would have erupted earlier and its course would have been even worse.

– We would have seen armed conflict even earlier. It was absolutely clear to me that President Putin would not stand idly by and watch Ukraine join NATO, Merkel said. – And then Ukraine as a country would certainly not be as prepared as it was in February 2022 – added the former German Chancellor.

In an interview with the BBC, Merkel also defended her decision to build gas pipelines from Russia to Germany. As she stated, she had two reasons for this: German business interests and maintaining peaceful relations with Russia.

She commented on this matter in similar words in a Saturday interview for “Corriere della Sera”. When asked why in 2015, a year after the Russian one annexation of Crimeadid not block the project Nord Stream 2 gas pipelinereplied: “I considered it my task to ensure that the German economy could use gas at a good price. Today we see the consequences of high energy costs for Germany.” – Moreover, for political reasons, I preferred to maintain economic relations with Russia, so that this country could also share in prosperity – noted the former head of the German government.

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Media interviews with Angela Merkel appeared just before the premiere of her autobiography entitled “Freedom. Memories 1954–2021”, which hit bookstores in over 30 countries on Tuesday. The former chancellor also explained in her book why Ukraine was not awarded the first prize in 2008 Georgia status of NATO candidate countries.

“I understood the desire of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to become NATO members as soon as possible because they wanted to be part of the Western community after the end of the Cold War. (…) At the same time, however, NATO and its member states had to analyze the potential impact of any enlargement on the alliance, its security, stability and ability to function. Adopting a new member should not only ensure greater security for it, but also for NATO,” she wrote.

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Merkel also describes in the book Vladimir Putin. “He was not interested in building democratic structures or prosperity for all through a well-functioning economy, either in his country or elsewhere. Rather, he wanted to oppose the fact that the US emerged victorious from the Cold War,” she emphasized.

The former chancellor recalls Putin's speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. “He spoke quickly, sometimes casually, and probably wrote most, if not every, word himself. I was particularly irritated by his self-righteousness: not a word about the unresolved conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, Moldova and Georgia , criticism of the NATO mission in Serbia, but not a word about the atrocities committed by Serbs during the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, not a word about the development situation in Russia itself,” writes the German politician.

She also referred to Vladimir Putin in a recent interview for “Corriere della Sera”. She stated that she knew the intentions of the Russian leader and knew that he was an enemy of Europe. However, she explained that she had chosen the path of trying to dialogue with him and preventing a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

– I knew Putin's intentions very well. I knew we were dealing with an enemy of Europe. The only question was how to react. My response was not to break off relations with Putin, but to try to prevent an invasion of Ukraine through talks. Sometimes also very polemical (conversations – ed.), in which he spoke bluntly – recalled the former German Chancellor. – It worked for a while. With the beginning of the Russian war against Ukraine, the situation changed fundamentally, she emphasized.

– Our views were completely opposite. Putin sought to make Russia a great power again. But he was unable to do this at the economic level through prosperity for all. Instead, he tried to do it using methods learned in the KGB, through military force and nationalism, Merkel continued. – In this way, many of the hopes we had in 1990 that Russia would gradually enter the path of democratization did not come true – she admitted in an Italian daily.

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Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021, was the first woman to hold this office. She was born in Hamburg in 1954, grew up in the GDR, where she studied physics and obtained her doctorate, and in 1990 was elected to the German Bundestag. From 2000 to 2018, she was the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). She ended her political career in 2021.

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