BERLIN/KIEV (own report) – Four years after Russian tanks entered Ukraine, demands by Germany and other European states are still preventing a negotiated end to the fighting. An article jointly penned by the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland argues that Ukraine can only achieve a “lasting and just” peace “from a position of strength”. However, a “position of strength” is not in sight for Kiev, so if it is to be achieved the war must grind on. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is convinced that the fighting will “only end when one of the two sides is exhausted”. In Ukraine itself, 40 per cent of the population now supports relinquishing the Donbas in exchange for Western security guarantees and a quick end to the war. The European Union, however, has been hardening its position. As a consequence, a negotiated solution looks increasingly unlikely. A recent discussion paper by EU Foreign Affairs Representative Kaja Kallas contains several demands on Moscow that would only be enforceable if Russia agreed to an almost unconditional surrender. The demand for a complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine is a case in point. Read more

BERLIN/BEIJING (own report) – Germany hopes to deepen its “comprehensive strategic partnership” with China and expand economic ties with the People’s Republic. This statement of intent has emerged from the talks held yesterday in Beijing between German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang. What is more, relations between China and the EU as a whole may soon be improved again. The trigger for initiating rapprochement between Berlin and Beijing is the Trump administration’s continued economic attacks on Germany and the EU. They are forcing the German government to cooperate more closely with third countries, both economically and politically, if Germany is to avoid being permanently squeezed by the United States. Despite all the rivalries, Germany cannot avoid closer cooperation with the economic powerhouse China. Merz said in Beijing that he hoped economic differences would be resolved in future “through open dialogue with each other”. A major problem for Germany is its large and growing trade deficit with China. Another problem is that German businesses have to contend with strong Chinese competition in third markets. Read more

BERLIN/PARIS/WARSAW (own report) – German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul says France should pursue austerity, including more welfare cuts, in order to shift significant resources into rearmament. “Unfortunately,” Wadephul says, the French government’s “efforts” to reallocate money to the military budget have been “insufficient”: Paris is “called upon” to change course. The background to this incidence of open interference in France’s domestic affairs is a growing unease registered in several European countries over Germany’s huge military build-up, brazenly intended to turn the Federal Republic into a “military superpower” in just a few years, as a recent article in the US journal Foreign Affairs notes. Warnings could be heard from Paris back in the autumn: if Germany succeeded in becoming a military power, it would be “extremely dominant” within the European Union. And Wolfgang Ischinger, the head of the Munich Security Conference, confirmed only recently that he sensed, in conversations in France and Poland, that “old reservations are resurfacing” as policy circles express “concerns about German dominance”. EU diplomats are already diagnosing a “tectonic shift” on the continent. In France, the first public warnings about a “German Europe” are being voiced. Read more

MUNICH (own report) – The German government is dissociating itself from the Trump administration and hopes to gain greater independence from the US by strengthening relations with third countries. At the same time, however, Berlin wants to renew the transatlantic partnership that has for so long been profitable for the Federal Republic. This posture was endorsed at the Munich Security Conference by several members of Germany’s coalition government speaking over the weekend. Chancellor Friedrich Merz decried the emergence of a “deep rift” between Europe and the United States and announced efforts to build “a strong network of global partnerships”. German Environment Minister Carsten Schneider expressed his agreement with California Governor Gavin Newsom on the need to cooperate more closely on climate policy. This position openly contradicts Trump’s anti-environmental backlash, with Newsom being one of the most vocal opponents in the US. In Merz’s keynote speech he called for Europe to take a leading role in NATO and for Germany to take a leading role in Europe. With power politics in mind, Merz spoke of being “prepared for change, for transformation, even for sacrifice – not at some point in the future, but now”. As for the American side, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeated the Trump administration’s far-right warnings of the Europe’s “civilizational erasure” through migration. Read more

MUNICH (own report) – In advance of the annual Munich Security Conference, which kicks off this Friday, the organisers of this major event have written that the world is entering “a period of wrecking-ball politics”. As the Munich Security Report, published yesterday (Monday), says, the United States in particular is currently engaged in destroying the so-called post-war world order that once helped to ensure that American interests prevailed worldwide. The main reason for this act of destruction is seen as the rise of competing states within this “order”. The pre-conference paper points out that both the Trump administration and European parties of the extreme right can resonate with broad sections of the population to help them smash the existing “order”. These elements, apparently seeing no future for themselves in the face of the multiple crises, now sympathise with “wrecking-ball politics”. But, notes the Munich Security Report, while the most powerful in the international system may be able to exploit the “rubble”, “the weakest might be simply crushed underneath it.” The report admits to a problem of the rapidly increasing number of billionaires worldwide and their political power. Indeed, the US delegation to this year’s Munich Security Conference is headed by two of them. Read more

ROME (own report) – A day of action by workers in more than twenty major ports around the Mediterranean was called this Friday. They are protesting against the EU’s militarisation policies and against the use of ports for arms supplies fuelling the war in Ukraine and in Israel. The campaign focuses on resisting “the transformation of the Mediterranean into a hub for the war economy,” explains Cinzia Della Porta in an interview with german-foreign-policy.com. Della Porta is a member of the executive committee of the Italian trade union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB), which is involved in organising the day of action. The USB wants Mediterranean ports to be made “places of peace”. As Della Porta points out, workers are always among the first to pay ‘the price of war’. They suffer wage cuts and restrictions on trade union rights, which are “direct consequences of the war economy”. Dockworkers in particular have to load weapons and are forced into being involuntary accomplices in wars they reject. Della Porta advocates combining “resistance to war with social struggles for wages, public services and workers’ rights”. Read more

BERLIN (own report) – The current Quadriga war exercise, which will continue until March, is no longer being conducted “purely as an exercise”. Rather, it is being run as a “mission-ready operation”, according to the German Armed Forces. Quadriga manoeuvres have been conducted each year since 2024. They rehearse a war against Russia and, this year, includes military exercises in Germany, Lithuania, the North Sea and the Baltic. A transition is taking place, moving from fictitious training exercise scenarios to a “mission-ready operation”. To this end, the Bundeswehr is increasingly shifting its manoeuvre activities in Germany from military training areas to civilian areas. This deployment last year already resulted in injuries. During a recent Bundeswehr manoeuvre “in a public space”, officials had to hand out claim forms to the civilian population for “compensation for damage caused during exercises”. Germany’s written constitution, the Basic Law, allows proper military operations by the army on domestic territory only in exceptional circumstances, including a state of tension (Spannungsfall). Parallel to a rapid expansion of manoeuvres and exercises across Germany, there has been a stark change in official language: the word ‘war’, which until a few years ago was nowhere to be found in public statements, is increasingly finding its way into discourse of politicians and the mainstream media. War against Russia has become an openly discussed real scenario for the future. Read more