Jörg Hackmann
Professor
Department
of History, University of Szczecin
Director
International Center
for Interdisciplinary Studies
Poland
jorg.hackmann@usz.edu.pl
Since the turn of Russia under Putin towards confrontational politics in the “near abroad”, which became most visible in 2007 with his speech at the Munich Security Conference and the Russian cyber-attacks on Estonia after the relocation of the “Bronze Soldier” in Tallinn, a focus on geopolitics returned to the Baltic Sea Region, but did not yet dominate debates about cooperation in the BSR before 2022. This situation then however has fundamentally changed with the massive Russian attack on Ukraine since Feb 24, 2022, when Finland and Sweden decided to join NATO. After chancellor Olaf Scholz’ “Zeitenwende” speech three days later, it seemed that the German perception of the new Baltic securityscape has changed, too. The decision from June 2023 to deploy a brigade of the Bundeswehr in Lithuania to strengthen the eastern flank of the NATO could be understood as part of a new approach to BSR politics.
But do we really see a “Zeitenwende” in German politics towards the BSR? To answer this question, it is useful to look first at the German actors: German BSR politics is largely confined to the regions on the Baltic rim including the states of Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and also Hamburg, although the city is not directly bordering the Baltic. The federal government becomes more involved from time to time, when having the presidency of the CBSS, for instance. A look at the annual CBSS reports from these years finds highlights on regional and economic cooperation, democratic institutions, and NGOs during the first German presidency in 2000-2001. They were followed by energy security (in the sense of secure energy supplies), and coherence (in particular with regard to Russia) during the second presidency in 2011-2012, and offshore wind energy, underwater munitions, and youth participation during the last one in 2022-2023, which was already under the impact of Russian attack on Ukraine. If we the add the EUBSR Forum organised by Germany in 2017, then we may add connectivity as another catchword. A closer look at regional German activities on the level of the states would find stresses particular on various environmental issues as green shipping, sustainable energy supplies, and – last but not least – youth initiatives.
These observations, including even those from 2023, seemingly do not support the notion of a “Zeitenwende”, apart from verbal condemnations of the massive Russian attack on Ukraine. Admittedly, changes are visible, for instance energy security has received a new meaning, though rather implicitly. New threats for the undersea infrastructure in the Baltic, as suspicious activities by Russian vessels on the Baltic, are partly reflected, but still, one can hardly say that they are dominating the German approach towards BSR politics. What could be the reasons for this observation? First, neither the German states nor the transnational institutions in the BSR apart from NATO have competencies in military security, so they rather focus on civil issues, although securitization of environmental and energy topics has been a relevant issue already for decades. Second, the blowing up of three of the four pipes of Nord Stream reveals an ambiguous approach of German politics. Whereas already the dysfunctionality of the pipelines as a result of the sabotage in September 2022 makes a renewal of Russian gas exports through them highly unlikely for the foreseeable future and might provide an argument for strengthening regional and sustainable energy supplies, we do not see many German politicians following such an argument. Even more, the opportunity to discuss, whether the Nord Stream project was a political error right from the beginning in the 1990s, has hardly been taken up in German politics. In fact, the criticism from Poland and the eastern Baltic states already of Nord Stream 1, was not perceived in the German public. Germany’s attitude towards the project followed the concept of “Wandel durch Handel” with Russia. Whereas Angela Merkel and Olaf Scholz stressed the allegedly pure economic nature of the project even of Nord Stream 2, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier defended the pipeline still in spring 2022 as a peace project that builds bridges between Europe and Russia. In fact, such an attitude is a legacy of the reconciliation politics towards Russia of the 1990s, which shapes large parts of the political spectrum in Germany (West and East). In addition, the government of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern tried to influence the public attitude towards the pipeline project with a Foundation on Climate and Environmental Protection founded in 2021 and largely financed with 20 million € by GAZPROM in order to circumvent a looming US embargo on finishing Nord Stream 2. After the massive Russian attack, a controversy emerged, whether to dissolve the foundation or keep its focus. The motivation for the attempts to dissolve the foundation, however, were less the confession of a mistake by the Prime Minister, but the fear for bad publicity. Now, the chairman of the foundation, a former prime minister of the state, is trying to keep the foundation alive by transforming it into a private corporation.
The Nord Stream case demonstrates the dilemmas of German BSR politics: Although the situation since 2022 led to decreasing the energy dependence from Russia and from fossil energy and thus goes along with the envisioned “Energiewende” towards carbon-free energy, this turn seems to be largely disputed in the public sphere. The same must be said about the change towards a new focus on security issues connected to BSR politics, which is also highly contested in the governing SPD, whereas the Green party seems to have less problems to develop a new focus on regional security instead of primarily environmental issues in the BSR.
This is not to say that political elites are totally neglecting the need for a change in BSR politics, as shows an interview with Johannes Schraps, member of the Bundestag and head of the German delegation to BSPC, from September 2024, where he underlines the necessity for more efforts in strengthening regional security. But whether the “Zeitenwende” comes with the necessary speed, only the future will tell us.