Germany is at a crossroads – says Roland Freudenstein, Brussels Bureau Director of Free Russia Foundation, as he reflects on the outcomes of Germany’s latest elections. “The country is now improving both its domestic and foreign policies, a crucial development after the era of Scholz.”
In the wake of the election results, Freudenstein sat down with Radio Free Europe’s Georgian Service to discuss the ongoing challenges and opportunities facing Germany, from reinvigorating its foreign policy and addressing pressing domestic issues to navigating the complexities of the Zeitenwende—Germany’s moment of reckoning—and the potential impact on international relations, including its stance on Russia and Ukraine. The election results signal both change and continuity, as the country prepares for its next chapter in a rapidly evolving geopolitical environment.
What transpired in Germany’s latest elections? What are the main takeaways?
The CDU received slightly fewer votes than they expected, but the most important thing to come out of these elections is that Germany is now improving both its domestic and foreign policies, and that’s really important and, frankly, not too difficult after Scholz. Germany has to reinvent itself on both the foreign and security policy fronts. Three years ago, with the famous Zeitenwende, it began reinventing itself, but then it got stuck, so now the train has to be put back on the rails. We’ll see much more energy, more leadership and more money put into it.
That’s the foreign part. And then the domestic part, and Germany is in trouble. We had three excellent decades, but during the latter half of those 30 years, I would say we began to make mistakes that are coming back to haunt us now, regarding infrastructure, regarding investment, technology, and competition.
And in reform, which is almost on the same magnitude as the international challenges that have multiplied in recent weeks.
The radicals on the left and right, Die Linke and AFD – can they consider themselves winners in these elections?
Definitely. I mean, the AFD had no chance of joining a government coalition. This is something my American friends are still reacting to with disbelief. They are asking – why no coalition? The two winners forming a coalition, surely that would be ideal? And I tell them they just don’t know Europe. Even the question shows that they have no idea. Because, first of all, the AFD is a pro-Kremlin, partly Nazi party, a fact which is conveniently forgotten or belittled by some Republicans in the US. And AFD in a coalition with the CDU would break the CDU apart. There would be massive, massive numbers of people stepping out. Die Linke, on the other hand, was the only party on election night that was really jubilant. Because even three, four weeks ago, they were polling at or below 5%. It was a last minute surge, thanks to one particular social media savvy young female politician (Heidi Reichinnek) who caused this almost 9 percent result.
And what about the Greens and the SPD?
Well, the Greens and the SPD are in a depression. The SPD can at least comfort itself with the thought that they will be in government, because they are the only option now for the coalition. It will also make them cockier, it will make the social Democrats harder to get because they know that they’re the only option. And they will make this reform process difficult, as their vision on how Germany should be reformed clashes with the CDU/CSU.
On foreign policy, it will be very interesting what Rolf Mützenich, the SPD chief whip, is going to do, seeing as he seems in no hurry to step down – he will be a huge problem for a more robust policy vis-a-vis Russia and Ukraine, because Mützenich comes literally from the peace movement of the 1980s. That’s where he’s at home. And he’s been preaching disarmament all his life. And he was preaching appeasement with Putin even beyond the 24th of February 2022.
Looking at all this, the great hope of AFD is to sit out this term of Bundestag in the opposition, have a governing coalition that doesn’t manage to reform Germany, especially because the ideas of what is good for Germany are too different, and then, in 2029, they will become the strongest party.
What’s with the young Germans increasingly voting for the radical left or right? As opposed to the older generation preferring the centrists?
You can even break it down to gender lines, where young men tend to vote radical right, and young women tend to vote radical left, because they’re opposed to the inhumane policies of the radical right.
What does it spell for Germany’s future?
It can play out two ways. One is that they will take the AFD into the mainstream, which would be a continuation of what has happened over the last five to seven years. Or they can become wiser with age and start seeing the idiocy in the radical right.
Let’s look outside of Germany too – at the external winners and losers. Who got what?
First of all, I would say it marks Russia as a loser. Dugin even tweeted “Merz is a total disaster.” That means Merz must be doing something right.
Ukraine is a winner. France and Poland too: they will breathe a sigh of relief. The Central Europeans want to be taken seriously. France wants a constructive partner who has ideas; the Nordics and the Brits want someone who is talking clear words and countering Moscow’s power games.
What about the US?
The jury is out. I would think that anything is better than Scholz’s passivity and head in the sand attitude vis-a-vis the United States. But if one were to make a distinction between the US and the Trump administration’s interests, then the Trump admin, especially VP Vance and Elon Musk, are coming out of it as losers too.
They don’t understand Europe, much like Steve Bannon – they read a couple of headlines, they look at a couple of tweets, and they believe that they know what’s what, that in Europe the big popular masses are all opposed to the elites and the elites are protecting themselves at all costs. That’s the picture they have of Europe and that’s the way JD Vance spoke in Munich. He acted as if he was this great Prophet of Truth, chastising the European elites who are apparently afraid of their own people. That is only true for 10 to maximum 25 percent of the electorate at best, and that depends on which member state you’re talking about.
They deliberately decided to turn a blind eye to the neo-Nazi aspect of AFD, and choose to ignore the pro-Kremlin aspect. At least, J. D. Vance does. For Elon Musk, being pro-Kremlin is not a sin anyway. But J. D. Vance, though he’s not a fan of Putin’s dictatorship, he doesn’t mind that these people are actively helping the Kremlin.
Let’s talk about the Scholz legacy, assuming his tale is already told.
Well, he’s absolutely gone. He will give some speeches to the Friedrich Ebert Foundation or something. With Scholz, the most striking thing was his sheer intellectual arrogance. He really, genuinely believed that nobody was as smart as him, and only he saw reality. Second, he was aloof, insensitive and uncommunicative to the Germans: he rarely said what he felt, and he didn’t try to engage people. And third, he was incredibly duplicitous. For example, when it came to helping Ukraine, purportedly, he was the big supporter of Ukraine and whenever he was criticized for not doing the right thing at the right time, he said, “but we’re doing so much,” and then he would rattle out the figures of German assistance. But, in reality, he dragged his feet whenever he could. He probably believed that he was preventing World War III and somehow avoiding a dangerous escalation of the war. But what he did because his foot dragging, sometimes in lockstep with the Biden administration, also on NATO enlargement, really prolonged the war.
If I were to press you for an epitaph for his political gravestone, what would it read?
He thought he knew better.
Onto his successor then, the soon-to-be chancellor. Can one say that the real Zeitenwende begins now? How much of his talk will be turned into actual deeds?
We can safely trust Merz to be much more serious about changing Germany’s posture. That’s also because of the change in the US attitude to Russia and Ukraine. Some in the SPD, some of those people who made Scholz’s foreign policy, aren’t really unhappy. You know, Oscar Wilde called it the love that dared not to speak its name. But Merz is serious. He wants fundamental change.
Now when it comes to foreign policy, the question is to what extent the SPD will, as a coalition partner, let him go all the way or what they will demand in exchange for change, be it Taurus delivery or enhancing assistance for Ukraine and so on.
So Taurus will be given?
Yes. But the question is whether there’s still a war going on by the time they’re delivered. But they will be delivered, even, and especially, in peacetime or after a ceasefire.
How dedicated is Mertz going to be to the Ukraine cause? Would he be willing to send peacekeepers to Ukraine?
Absolutely. There is no reason why the biggest and richest country in the European Union should somehow do less in terms of military deployment and securing the eastern flank and assisting Ukraine than the others.
He doesn’t seem to be a huge fan of the Trump Administration. His remarks on NATO and “step by step independence,” that nobody knows what it will be like come June – what do you make of it?
This is the way disappointed people talk, and I feel his pain, but the fact that he talks like that doesn’t mean that he is abandoning NATO, it’s just that we need to prepare for much worse times in NATO, but let’s try to save it. Even Macron wants to save NATO, although there was time he considered it brain dead. Today he too thinks a world with NATO is better than a world without.
The same is true for Merz. He is absolutely serious when he says Europe has to take more responsibility. And yes, Europe has to be as far as possible able to take care of its own security.
What can Georgia expect from the new leadership in Germany and their new vision?
I would say much more attention and much more emphasis on defending Western principles and values.
That’s funny, considering the pro-government media ran with the headline “Olaf Scholz, openly critical towards Georgian Dream, has lost.” Are they in for a surprise?
Oh yes. They’re in for a big surprise indeed.
Interview by Vazha Tavberidze
