Merkel told how she blocked Ukraine’s entry into NATO

I understood the desire of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to become members of NATO as soon as possible. But accepting a new member should bring more security not only to it, but also to NATO, Merkel writes.

The former chancellor calls the main factor the presence of the Russian Black Sea Fleet on the Ukrainian peninsula (according to the contract, it was supposed to remain until 2017). She notes that there was no such potential contact with Russian military structures with any of the candidates. to be part of the Alliance – they say, only a minority of the population supported the country’s membership in NATO.

I considered it an illusion to assume that MAP status (providing a membership action plan – ed.) would protect Ukraine and Georgia from Putin’s aggression. That this status would have a deterrent effect. That Putin passively accepted the development of events. Could it be imagined that in emergency situations, NATO member countries would respond with military force and intervene? Could it be imagined that, as Chancellor, I would ask the German Bundestag for such a mandate for our Bundeswehr and receive a majority?

Merkel calls the general promise of membership that Georgia and Ukraine then received a compromise, which, however, had a price; on the one hand, both countries lost hope. a reason for military aggression against both Georgia and Ukraine.

The former chancellor also recalled the speech of the Russian dictator Putin at the 43rd Munich Conference in February 2007 – in particular, as the reason for her decision not to provide the MAP to Ukraine.

I sat in the front row and had a good view of Putin during his speech. He spoke quickly, sometimes freely, and probably wrote most, if not every word himself, Merkel describes.

She recalls that she was especially irritated by the Russian dictator’s self-confidence because he did not say a word about the unresolved conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, Moldova and Georgia. She calls some points in the Russian president’s speech “completely absurd.”

I perceived him as someone who was always on guard to avoid being treated poorly and always ready to lash out at others. You may consider all this childish, worthy of condemnation, you may shake your head. But this did not remove Russia from the world map,” she notes.

According to Merkel, many countries in Central and Eastern Europe did not want to “invest in relations with Russia” at all – they seemed to want Moscow to “just disappear.”

But Russia, well armed with nuclear weapons, existed. It was and remains geopolitically indispensable, if only because, together with the United States of America, France, Great Britain and China, it is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council with the right of veto, Merkel writes in her memoirs.

However, the former chancellor does not consider such “awareness of the global importance of Russia as an expression of absurd fear of it,” as Vladimir Zelensky spoke about in April 2022 after the publication of the horrific crimes of the Russians in Bucha. But he notes: yes, this influenced the decision at the NATO summit in 2008.

Merkel recalls how during her first meeting with the then newly elected US president in 2017 in the Oval Office of the White House, he asked about her relationship with Putin.

He was apparently very fascinated by the Russian president. In subsequent years, I got the impression that politicians with autocratic and dictatorial traits fascinated him, Merkel writes about Trump.

We spoke on two different levels. Trump – from the emotional side, I – from the factual one… Solving the problems raised did not seem to be his goal, she recalls.

According to politics, Trump looked at everything from the perspective of an entrepreneur who wanted to own real estate:

For him, all countries competed with each other, the success of one was the defeat of the other. He did not believe that cooperation could improve everyone’s well-being.