Angela Merkel. Photo: picture alliance/dpa
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has acknowledged that her policy of holding back Ukraine’s rapid accession to NATO was the right move. She explains her position in detail in excerpts from her memoirs Freedom, which were published by Zeit on the eve of the book’s release. This was reported by Time Ukraine Israel.
In her memoirs, Merkel describes how, during her administration, she tried to prevent Ukraine from becoming a member of the Alliance, fearing that this could provoke a military response from Russia. In particular, she recalls the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, where the issue of granting Ukraine and Georgia candidate status was considered. Merkel admits that she did not support this step, as she believed that the MAP status would not protect these countries from Russian aggression.
“I thought it was an illusion to assume that the MAP status would protect Ukraine and Georgia from Putin’s aggression. It would not have had a deterrent effect, and Putin would not have taken these developments passively,” Merkel writes in her memoirs. She also notes that at the time, only a minority of Ukrainians supported joining NATO, which, in her opinion, also cast doubt on the effectiveness of such a step.
In her memoir, Merkel also recalls her first meeting with US President Donald Trump in 2017, during which he asked her about her relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. According to Merkel, Trump was “fascinated” by Putin, and in the following years she noticed that politicians with autocratic and dictatorial traits attracted his attention.
Merkel also notes that the compromise reached at the NATO summit in Bucharest was a blow to Georgia and Ukraine’s hopes for MAP status, but the promise of a general membership perspective in the future was perceived by Russia as a “declaration of war”.
The memoirs of Angela Merkel, who became the first woman to serve as Chancellor of Germany and headed the country’s government from 2005 to 2021, are expected to be published in the coming days.
