Retired Professor of Comparative Politics
University of Rostock
Germany
nikolaus.werz@uni-rostock.de
According to the constitution, foreign policy is the responsibility of the federal government. Nevertheless, in the 1990s subnational foreign policy gained in importance in the Federal Republic of Germany. This was particularly the case for the Baltic Sea region, especially as it was seen after the Cold War as a sea of peace and a laboratory of modernity.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall 1989 and the end of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MV) was added as a new federal state to the unified Federal Republic of Germany. During the period of Cold War, the Baltic coast had been partially militarized. A certain exception was the city of Rostock, where the Baltic Sea Week took place from 1958 to 1975 and an international hotel was built in Warnemünde in cooperation with Swedish companies. This opening took place with a view to the diplomatic recognition of the GDR.
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, newly founded in 1990, has the longest coastline of all the German federal states, the Baltic Sea and relations with the neighboring states were given a special mention in the state constitution. However, expanding relations proved to be no easy task, as the Nordic and Scandinavian countries were modern civil societies with diverse foreign relations. The territorial state's exports are low; in 2021, MV was in last place in a comparison of the other federal states. Just over half of exports went to EU countries (52%). The most important states in the ranking were: Netherlands, United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, France, etc. The order of imports was as follows: Poland, People's Republic of China, Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, France, etc. Around 30 percent of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's foreign trade is conducted with countries bordering the Baltic Sea. The Russian Federation appeared only in eighth place.
Geopolitical reasons led to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's relations with Russia becoming an international issue. Since the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine in 2022, the left-wing coalition in Schwerin has been sharply criticized for Nord Stream 2. The approximately 1,230-kilometre-long natural gas pipeline was financed by Gazprom and European energy companies and was intended to transport gas from Russia via the Baltic Sea and ending in MV. Its construction was controversial, especially as the Polish side had expressed concerns at an early stage. A “climate foundation” was established in 2021 to circumvent the sanctions imposed on Russia following the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and to ensure the completion of the last 160 kilometers. US politicians had threatened to punish companies involved in the final construction. Still, at the time, all parties in the Schwerin state parliament were in favor of the foundation. The “Foundation for Climate and Environmental Protection MV” received 20 million euros from Nord Stream 2. Critics said that Gazprom and German officials had invented a fake climate foundation to get the job done.
Nord Stream pipelines 1 and 2 were blown up in September 2022; a Ukrainian task force is suspected. The current German government remains silent on the matter, while the rising populist and radical parties Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) are using the incident for their nationalist discourse, because foreign powers have intervened. The parliament of MV has implemented a parliamentary committee of inquiry about the Climate Foundation since mid-2022. For its part, the incumbent center-left coalition reacted to external criticism: at the beginning of June 2022, the Minister President Manuela Schwesig announced the establishment of an “MV Cooperation Council for the Democratic Baltic Sea Region”. The MV Baltic Sea Strategy was presented in mid-May 2024, with the participation of speakers from the neighboring states. Members of the actual government declared, that following Putin's war of aggression an “even closer cooperation between the democratic states in the Baltic Sea region” is necessary.
With Russia’s coastal presence in the Kaliningrad Oblast and the St. Petersburg region as well as its modernized Baltic Fleet, security aspects are becoming increasingly important. Germany, with the largest NATO and EU navy in the Baltic Sea region, will have to assume regional responsibility. What does this mean for MV? In the new world situation following the Russian war against Ukraine, MV is returning to old patterns in some respects, as several coastal towns were places of arms production until 1989. In June 2022, the Kiel-based armaments group Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems bought the insolvent MV shipyards in Wismar: Warships instead of cruise liners, it is now said.
Is this the end of sub-national foreign policy? First of all, the question arises as to whether Nordstream was really a case of subnational policy. After all, the German government and the major parties, with the exception of the Greens and some deputies of the Liberals and the Christian democrats, were involved. The fact that the project took place in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was mainly due to its geographical location. There is no doubt, however, that the changed security situation in Europe has limited the scope for the foreign policy activities of the federal states.