Inaugural visit to the USA
Scholz begins his travel diplomacy
2/6/2022 6:31 am
After weeks of German crisis policy, which was publicly perceived as hesitation, Chancellor Scholz met with representatives of all parties involved. The first is a visit to Washington. Kiev and Moscow follow, as well as meetings with other allies. The Union criticizes the timing.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz is traveling to the USA in the afternoon for his inaugural visit, which is likely to be dominated by the Ukraine crisis. A meeting with US President Joe Biden is planned for Monday at the White House. After taking office a good year ago, he promised a new start in German-American relations after four difficult years under his predecessor Donald Trump. In the Ukraine crisis, however, doubts are now also being raised in the USA as to whether Germany can be counted on in an emergency.
In the past few weeks, the Chancellor had been accused by Eastern European NATO partners and the United States of not putting enough pressure on Russia in the Ukraine crisis. Only after much hesitation did he put the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline on the table as a possible sanction instrument – and only covertly, without naming it. The US has been fighting the pipeline project for a long time.
At the same time, Scholz gave a clear refusal to supply arms to Ukraine, which Ukraine and eastern NATO allies now resent. But there is also criticism of it in the USA. Republican US Senator Jim Risch said in Washington that Germany should “reconsider its position”.
Ischinger’s praise for “diplomatic sprint”
The trip to the USA is now the start of a diplomatic offensive by the chancellor. A week after the visit to Washington, Scholz travels first to Kiev and then to Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin there. A meeting with the heads of state and government of the Baltic states is also planned for next week in Berlin. In addition, French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish President Andrzej Duda want to come to Berlin to discuss the crisis.
CDU leader Friedrich Merz accused the chancellor of hesitant foreign policy before he left for the United States. “This trip comes too late. It would have been necessary weeks ago and then with a clear message from the most important European countries in the luggage,” said Merz of the “Bild am Sonntag”. “Now the trip seems like a visit from a petitioner who can no longer get out of a situation that he has caused himself and therefore has to ask his big brother in Washington for help.”
The security expert Wolfgang Ischinger, on the other hand, acknowledged that Scholz is involved in travel diplomacy. “I think it’s very good that Chancellor Scholz is now suddenly starting a diplomatic sprint and within ten days is actually staking out the terrain through personal talks,” said the head of the Munich Security Conference of the dpa. But he also added: “It would have been even nicer if we had known that three weeks ago. Then the criticism might not have been so loud.”